[KS] Korea and Cricket

Tue May 31 03:29:10 EDT 2005

Dear Colleagues

Cricket was played in Korea by Koreans before independence. I cannot now find the reference but there was a report in one of the early journals of a match played in Seoul in which Philip Jaisohn (So Chae-p'il) played - and got a respectable score, I seem to remember.

And let us put on record the Pyongyang Cricket Club, which existed - flourished would be too strong a word - in 2002, and may still do so, although its onlie begetter, then head of ECHO, the EU aid office, has since left for the more cricket-oriented India. In traditional style, there was a milk churn wicket, and the rules had to be simplified to make it easier for the various nationalities. But it had good quality Australian bats, brought in by the contractor working on the British Embassy. It met out near the airport at the Oun Revolutionary Site (where Kim Jong Il did his military service) on Sundays. The star scorer was, I think, from Serbia. Koreans picnicking nearby watched with amazement, and none of us thought to tell them about Philip Jaisohn.

Jim Hoare (a non-player)
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Afostercarter at aol.com 
  To: Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws 
  Cc: ms44 at cornell.edu ; gkl1 at columbia.edu 
  Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 7:07 AM
  Subject: Re: [KS] Japan, Korea and the Asia-Pacific

  Esteemed colleagues:

  1. Mark's first sentence was surely ironic:
  a gentle nod to current sad ructions
  across the Sea of No Agreed Name.

  Japan Focus is indeed indispensable. And free!
  To cite just one recent Korea-related example,
  Gavan McCormack has an excellent piece on 
  a macabre but vital matter: 
  Disputed Bones: Japan, North Korea and the 'Nature' Controversy
  by Gavan McCormack
  http://www.japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=258

  2. Gari's suggestion of a similar organ for Korea is an excellent one. 
  But the name Korea Focus is already taken, by another fine publication:
  the Korea Foundation's bi-monthly roundup of the Seoul press, plus
  longer essays on topics of current concern. There is also a handy chronology. 
  Your local ROK embassy or consulate will send it to you, courtesy of the 
  Korean taxpayer. Or it's online (both as text and PDF; the latter slow-loading), 
  with a useful search facility, at http://www.koreafocus.or.kr/

  3. I hope Gari is right that the underlying trend is towards better Japan-ROK relations; 
  and that this year's row is merely some kind of evanescent spring squall.
  I'm more pessimistic: fearing the bile runs deeper than that - mainly on the Korean side -
  and that real harm has been done. Whatever the trends in culture, peninsula politics seem 
  to be becoming more insular; which bodes ill in the age of segyehwa.

  Koreans are of course free (south of the DMZ) to chart whatever course they choose.
  But what is one to make of opinion polls which cite either the US or Japan as the 
  main threat to South Korea, ahead of North Korea or China? See eg
  http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200504/17/200504172206552209900090309031.html
  As John McEnroe used to say: you cannot be serious!

  4. Gari's final paragraph alludes to arcane rituals beyond my ken.
  If Koreans ever take up cricket, you'll hear it here first ....

  Yours at silly mid off,
  Aidan

  AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
  Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University 
  Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK 
  tel: +44(0)  1274  588586         (alt) +44(0) 1264 737434          mobile:  +44(0)  7970  741307 
  fax: +44(0)  1274  773663         ISDN:   +44(0)   1274 589280
  Email: afostercarter at aol.com     (alt) afostercarter at yahoo.com      website: www.aidanfc.net
  [Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try @yahoo too - and let me know, so I can chide AOL]

  In a message dated 23/05/2005 01:54:11 GMT Standard Time, gkl1 at columbia.edu writes:

    Subj:Re: [KS] Japan, Korea and the Asia-Pacific 
    Date:23/05/2005 01:54:11 GMT Standard Time
    From:gkl1 at columbia.edu
    Reply-to:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
    To:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
    CC:ms44 at cornell.edu
    Sent from the Internet 

    I quite agree with its owner and chief operator, Mark Selden, that
    Japan Focus is well worth following for any Korea specialist,
    especially modern Korea specialists. As he justly says in his
    posting and self-advertisement, the Focus has lots of stuff on
    Korea, and in spite of its name is really focused on Northeast
    Asia, although I think it's fair to say that it's focused from
    Japan. That's no disadvantage. Lest people think that somehow the
    Korea angles come with a Japanese slant, I have found him often
    featuring Japanese writers who have very objective spins on
    Korea-Japan issues.
      The only thing in his posting that I might differ with is Mark's
    surmise that "a Koreanist, in good conscience," might
    understandably lean away from anything with a Japanese label. But
    if one has a good conscience, one will also be fair-minded. And it
    should be said that Koreans nowadays, especially the younger ones
    and especially in the cultural area, are much more balanced and
    open than they used to be with respect to Japan, and more and more
    this is met by equal attention to Korea on the part of Japanese.
    "Yonsama" may be a fad, but it's one with an increasingly deep
    understructure. It's true that when the big-buzz issues pop up
    periodically, such as Tokto and the history textbooks, one can
    count on peninsular passions to come into play for a couple of
    weeks. That is to be understood and taken in stride.
       Someone in the modern Korean field might well consider building
    an internet feature like Mark's, maybe called Korea Focus, and aim
    for the same kind of broad, outreaching coverage. Between North
    Korea's nuclear specialists and diplomats that routinely flummox
    the rest of the world, and South Korean pop culture and stem cell
    technology that are state of the art, Korea is a world force. I
    thought of this this morning, reading in the sports section about
    an exploit of Dae Sung Koo, a relief pitcher for the NY Mets who
    played four seasons with the Orix Blue Wave in the Japanese
    leagues. He put four straight Yankees down with a handful of
    pitches, then came to the plate in the bottom of the 7th and
    promptly hit a Randy Johnson pitch to the center field wall for a
    double. Then right away he scored from second on a sacrifice bunt
    with a slide that took your breath away. OK, as he claimed, maybe
    he hadn't had a hit since high school, or slid since junior high,
    but can anyone doubt the "Korean Wave"? Why not put that into an
    intellectually broad internet format that comes to you every week
    with something new and interesting?

    Gari Ledyard
    Quoting mark selden <ms44 at cornell.edu>:

    > Can a Koreanist, in good conscience subscribe to Japan Focus?
    > True, the name of our electronic journal is
    > something of an affront, and it is to be hoped
    > that it changes in due time to reflect the
    > Asia-Pacific thrust of the work that appears
    > there, notably reportage and scholarship on
    > Japan, China, Korea and the Asia-Pacific.
    > In fact a great deal is being published that is
    > central to Korea and to Northeast Asia: on the
    > two Koreas, on Japan-Korea relations, on US-NK-6
    > nation nuclear negotiations, on the future of a
    > Northeast Asia community, on China-Japan-Korea
    > conflicts over  territorial issues and war memory.
    >
    > We invite Koreanists to subscribe and contribute to the journal.
    >
    > Japan Focus is an electronic journal chronicling
    > Japan and the Asia-Pacific in global perspective,
    > encompassing politics, economics, society,
    > history, culture, international relations, war
    > and peace, and historical memory. In addition to
    > Japan Focus exclusives, it presents translations
    > from Japanese and other languages as well as
    > reprints of important texts. Japan Focus draws on
    > the writings of researchers, journalists, policy
    > analysts and writers throughout Asia and the
    > Pacific, North America, Europe and Australia. Its
    > fully indexed website provides a permanent
    > resource for researchers on the Asia-Pacific.
    >
    > Subscribers receive a weekly announcement of the
    > latest posts and a link to each. Here are the
    > articles posted during the last two weeks.
    > Articles of particular reference to Korea are
    > asterisked (*).
    >
    >       Japan Focus Newsletter
    >   New Articles Posted May 11, 2005
    >
    >   in this issue
    > <#feature>Robert S. McNamara, Apocalypse Soon
    > <#article1>*Utsumi Aiko, Japanese World War II
    > POW Policy: Indifference and Irresponsibility
    > <#article2>*Jess Bravin,    Prisoner Rights
    > and International Law: Japanese and American
    > Responsibility >From World War II to Guantanamo
    > <#article3>Geremie Barmé, Mirrors of History: On
    > a Sino-Japanese Moment and Some Antecedents
    > <#article4>Mark Selden,    Remembering 'The Good
    > War': The Atomic Bombing and the Internment of
    > Japanese-Americans in U.S. History Textbooks
    > <#article5>*Asahi Shimbun, Korean Slave Laborers:
    > Repatriating and Burying the Dead
    > <#article6>*Jin Hyung-joo, Textbook Nationalism:
    > Perspetives on China, Japan and Korea
    > <#article7>*Kaneko Masaru, Lost Horizons: The
    > Flawed 'Nationalism' of the Koizumi Regime
    >
    >     New Articles Posted May 19, 2005
    >
    >   in this issue
    > <#feature>Yuki Tanaka, Firebombing and Atom
    > Bombing: an historical perspective on
    > indiscriminate bombing
    > <#article1>Andrew DeWit, Scientific Stereotypes East and West
    > <#article2>Tony de Brum, BRAVO and Today: US
    > Nuclear Tests in the Marshall Islands
    > *<#article3>Karasaki Taro, Why Japanese Wartime
    > Apologies Fail: A German perspective
    > <#article4>Greg Mitchell, Incribing Hiroshima:
    > The Photography of Matsushige Yoshito
    >
    >
    >   For access to all Japan Focus articles, or to
    > subscribe, go to http://japanfocus.org/
    >
    >
    >
    > mark selden
    > ms44 at cornell.edu
    > coordinator, japan focus

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