Mail Business Newspaper July 28 2021
East Sea
⩥ East Sea resonates in Koshien
⩥ East Sea of Hoyon Son, tanka poet
⩥ On the sea of peace and coexistence
⩥ Anti-Japan here, anti-Korea there
Moshidora by Natsumi Iwasaki became a best seller in 2020, beating IQ84 by Haruki Murakami in 2010. Moshidora is a compound word of moshi (meaning if) and dora (the Japanese pronunciation of Drucker). It was translated into Korean as 'What If the Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker's Management'
The plot is simple. Minami, a high school girl in Japan who manages her school baseball team, accidentally stumbles on Peter Drucker's Management. After reading it, she uses Drucker’s management theories to manage her baseball team. As a result, the team that used to always be the bottom reaches Koshien - a happy ending. No wonder. Here comes my rubbish conclusion.
The reason it became a best seller is Koshien, the high school baseball national championship in Japan. It’s the holy grail of Japanese high school baseball and dream of every kid in Japan.
This March, a miracle that could only happen in young adult fictionhappened in Koshien. Among the more than 4,000 Japanese high school baseball teams, it was Kyoto International Junior and Senior High School, with a student body of only 131, that reached the finals. This school was originally founded as Kyoto Chosen Jr. High School in 1947, 2 years after liberation; now most of the students have Japanese nationality. When the number of students dwindled to about 70, someone had an idea to make a baseball team. There is a unique rule in Koshien, they sing school fight songs in games. And the school fight song of Kyoto International Junior and Senior High School is in Korean.
Land Yamato across the East Sea is our ancestors’ holy dreamland We cultivate our body and mind day and night in school of Korea, our dear nest
The players of Kyoto International Junior and Senior High School, with both their hands clasped, sing the school song in the stadium of Koshien. They are confident despite their poor Korean pronunciation. It was the adults, not the students, who were uncomfortable with the school song that started with the East Sea. NHK translated “East Sea” as “Sea in the East” in subtitles; some Japanese fans booed, saying that the students should go to Korea with ‘Jook-chang-ga’ after learning about the roots of Kyoto International Junior and Senior High School. It’s such a petty act, but students don’t care about that. Sports are sports.
There is a short form of Japanese poetry called Tanka.
Hoyun Son was active as the only Tanka poet in Korea, and died 18 years ago. Enduring the criticism about a Korean writing Japanese poems, she kept writing Tanka with the conviction that she should protect the spirit of Baekje passed down from the Korean peninsula. She was once invited to the Japanese imperial palace by Akihito, Former Emperor of Japan who liked her poetry, and she went to the palace neatly dressed in hanbok. Koizumi, Former Prime Minister of Japan, once recited her poem at the Korea-Japan summit, talking about the spirit of Peace in it; there is a poetry monument in Aomori, standing 3m high. She was awarded Order of Cultural Merit in Korea and Foreign Minister Award in Japan for her contribution to mutual understanding between Korea and Japan.
The eldest daughter of the deceased, poet Sunshine Lee who is also writing Tanka after her mother, once visited a gallery in Ginza, Tokyo about 15 years ago. She met a painter named Okano Goji by chance. She asked him to pick his favorite of Hoyon Son’s poems and interpret it into a painting. The poem that Okano chose was 'The East Sea' At the request of one painting, he painted four.
For countries are different The same sea has different names Called East Sea here, Japan Sea there
There was a very embarrassing incident before Tokyo Olympics that is even too embarrassing to be called a diplomacy disaster. The remark by deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy who made an improper sexual remark about the leader of his host country was surely problematic, but the fact that the president’s visit to Japan was cancelled with that as an excuse was not exactly relieving. The politics of anti-Korea sentiment or anti-Japan sentiment is tiring, and the diplomacy that talks about room for future negotiations is hateful.
The spirit of the Olympics is aiming for co-existence and co-prosperity and achieving world peace through sports. The Tokyo Olympics which were held after twists and turns is the East Sea that Korea and Japan are both facing. The sea of co-existence, co-prosperity and peace that the students of Kyoto International Junior and Senior High School dreamed about, and which the sea Hoyon Son and Okano Goji felt sorry for. Perhaps, President Moon Jae-in and Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide might have forsaken the last chance to normalize Korea-Japan relations.
Hyunduk Son Editor in Chiev
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