Historiography and Baseball

Henry Em's essay on Korean historiography and collective identity wastes no time in clarifying that Koreans as a distinctive group really had no movement towards nationalism until the imposition of colonial rule (p.338). In YMCA Baseball Team, the players reflect this burgeoning national dynamic. Em argues that it was because of the growth of a Japanese historiography that a Korean one emerged at all, and when it did it was to counter the indignity of revisionist colonial accounts. I wanted to closely examine the first YMCA-Japan match in the film and apply the four characteristics of colonial historiography, and then go on to question where the Western frameworks come into play. The four characteristics, from Em, are a) assertion that external forces shaped Korea, b) Korea's history was stagnant, c) Koreans are factional by nature, and d) Japan and Korea come from shared roots. These four ideas were the specifics of Japanese historiography that spurred a Korean counter-historiography. In the film, all four of these same aspects are noticeable during the first match.

First of all, the idea of Korea's identity being shaped by external forces is embodied by Min Jungrim. She is the mastermind behind the team, and it was her experience of foreign culture that brought baseball to Seoul (along with American missionaries). Visually, the Korean team is rendered stagnant by their inability to make any runs against the almost mechanical Japanese team. The ragtag group of players from various backgrounds, of different ages, and with wildly different appearances represents the idea of factionalism, and finally, the childhood connection between the Japanese army official and Oh Dae-hyeon signifies shared roots. Essentially, what I observed is that the first baseball game is a process which works to destabilize and dishearten the Koreans the same way Japanese historiography did. Only by countering the loss with a rematch at the end do they rebuild their identity as a team. The YMCA team had to reappropriate their sense of commonality the way historical Koreans did, turning their national identity based on inferiority into one based on shared values and goals.

On a wider note, what do we see as the role of Western influence in this film? If we take Em's word for Japanese history being a response to changing Western ideas of history, and Korean history as a reaction to the Japanese response, what is the exact relationship between Korea and the West? Do we have to see any Western facets of the film as being filtered through a Japanese framework, or is Korea appropriating Western ideas independently, in the same way it is working to establish itself in other ways? This was something I couldn't come to a conclusion about throughout the film- baseball is such a distinctly American part of culture, but it really seemed to become a distinguishing tool between Korea and Japan (or at least a leveling one).