Watching players from Australia, the Czech Republic, Spain, Switzerland and Trinidad and Tobago exult on Wednesday over qualifying for next year's World Cup was a powerful and disarming moment. Self-doubt, negativity and fear of failure were swept away in a blinding moment of joy and triumph. For the lucky teams going to Germany, and for those who did not qualify but who vividly remember doing so in earlier competitions, it is a powerful moment of self-affirmation and bonding.
All the more curious, then, that such positive nationalist feeling should be associated with an enterprise that, like all other sports, does not derive its essential power from ideology.
Sadly, aside from occasional matches in the sport of baseball, Taiwan does not have the opportunity to feel this joy. Yet celebrating national sporting achievement is something that Taiwanese should not have to struggle so hard to bring about.
Admittedly, the Athens Olympics allowed the nation to express a certain degree of happiness at the success of its archers and taekwondo competitors, but these are solo sports that the average Taiwanese has no knowledge of, let alone interest in.
The government reacted to the gold medal haul in Athens with all the finesse one might expect from individuals bereft of an understanding of sport. Instead of pumping funding into the development of sports programs and youth development initiatives, the pot of cash was largely wasted on high-profile athletes who needed no such generosity. A small fortune was stuffed in the pockets of individuals for their help in making Taiwan look slightly better than a backwater.
The beauty of sport is that it is both meaningless and profoundly meaningful in the lives of the individuals who participate in contests, as well as their supporters. On the world stage, soccer is the ultimate world contest, yet Taiwan, or "Chinese Taipei" as it is represented by FIFA, is a minnow, cowering among the most backward of soccer-playing nations.
One cannot help wondering if this might change for soccer and other team sports if parents didn't imprison their children in cram schools -- which fleece them of their money, rob their children of valuable playtime and deceive them into thinking university places will become more numerous. Instead, children could be encouraged to express their growing physicality.
Soccer, more than any other sport, allows people to feel the relevance of physical skill and communal solidarity at all levels of engagement. It also presumes a common playing field for all players, all clubs and all nations. It is at once tribal and anti-tribal, often nationalist in execution but always universalist in spirit.
More's the pity, then, that Taiwan, with all of its wealth and potential, ranks 155th in the world in this telling index, and is far less concerned about the sport and the national team's wretched circumstances than countries ranked even lower that have far fewer resources.
This situation is somehow representative of the malaise that afflicts Taiwanese. This society provides no regular opportunity for gathering and celebrating as Taiwanese nationals -- a community bonding for which team sports offer superb opportunities. Because there is precious little oxygen to voice healthy and constructive identification with this nascent nation, it remains, as Sun Yat-sen (
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry