Michael Delphia
Michael Kosei Delphia is a first year master's student at the Yenching Academy of Peking University, studying China Studies with a focus on History and Archaeology. After earning his B.A. in Asian Studies, Economics, and History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michael traveled to Beijing, China for continued studies in history. At Peking University, Michael is building on his previous research on Manchukuo and Japanese colonialism in 1930s Northeast China and intends to investigate the role of mass political organizations and ethnic identities, particularly pertaining to resident Koreans, within Manchukuo society.
Yenching Academy of Peking University
Session
Baseball entered the Korean peninsula via American influences in the first decade of the twentieth century. After Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910, Korean society, and by extension, Korean baseball, came under strict colonial control and surveillance. However, the 1920s policy of “Cultural Rule” saw the relaxation of control over Korean social life, creating opportunities for ethnic Koreans to play baseball against Japanese settlers. In the metropole, increasing competition between newspapers engendered the emergence of sports coverage and media-sponsored tournaments, notably the Asahi Shimbun’s Japanese National High School Baseball Championship. In 1923, a high school team composed of ethnic Korean players from Whimoon High School in Seoul defeated Japanese settler school teams in the Asahi Shimbun’s Korean preliminary tournament, winning a ticket to the championship held in the metropole. Whimoon became an object of intense media attention during their tournament run, notably due to their identity as an ethnic Korean team from the colonies. Building on existing scholarship of colonial Korean baseball, I analyze the Asahi Shimbun’s coverage of Whimoon’s 1923 team, from their initial victories through to their eventual defeat, focusing on narratives of ethnic identity and the position of Koreans within the imperial sports landscape. Drawing on post-match reports, cartoons, and published interviews, analysis reveals tensions between various narratives and depictions of Korea and Koreans within Japan’s Empire. The media at times downplayed the ethnic character of the Whimoon team, yet also emphasized their role as an exotic “other” within the tournament. I argue that while the Whimoon players and coaches played an active role in emphasizing their ethnic identity, the position of the team and Koreans in imperial sport remained circumscribed in the logic of empire.