[YMCA Baseball Team] Transition

In the film YMCA Baseball Team, the director wanted to point out about how baseball was first introduced in Korea by American missionaries and how the first Korean baseball team was formed under the political influence of Japan. What I found most interesting was the setting of the film that introduced many aspects of the transition that Choson Korea was undergoing with the arrival of Western modernity as well as Japanese imperial forces. It says in the reading that the transformation of peasants into Frenchmen became possible after the establishment of universal schooling, unification of customs and beliefs by inter-regional labor migration and military service and subordination of political and religious conflicts to an ideology of patriotism. In other words, it was only after the emergence of modern state structures that distinctive social, political, and linguistic practices became available. This was the case in Korea, too. In the Chosun Dynasty, there was a very rigid social hierarchy that the system of slavery was still in existence. However, as Korea got modernized, men from different social affiliations were turned into a unified team. YMCA baseball team was composed by those including Korean aristocrats, a pair of twins, a political son, a few workers, a mute and a servant, the servant and his ex-owner were now on the same level. In the servant’s perspective, this transition could have been viewed positively since it gave him “freedom” and equal rights that he became a normal citizen of Korea.

During the publicity activities in the film, a couple of children sing a song that briefly sums up some traditional aspects of Korea, “My father wants me to become the admirer my mother wants me to become a powerful man’s wife.” The director then shows how Korea became modernized. In the main character Hochang’s case, his father wants him to follow the path of him by becoming a scholar, the admirer. However, he prefers to play sports and ultimately decides to chases his dreams. This western modernity lighted up his dull life by introducing him a new world of sports, and he was assisted by a “new woman” named Min Chong-rim, who’s shown as a well-educated/brave woman unlike other traditional Korean women.  In the film, the YMCA team never loses a game of their very first season, but as the Japanese military force is invading Korea, the team gets into trouble and lose their training field. It was very important to notice the rivalry built between the YMCA team and the Japanese team formed by Japanese soldiers, since this match not only meant who were the best at baseball but also a cry for freedom from the Korean people.