Ryu, Seo and Nadeshiko

The sight of the two lovelies “battling” it out for the U.S. Open golf title saw more an image of gentility than competition.  Emerging sensation 21-year old Ryu So-yeon was all confidence and steel nerves as she outdrove and outputted seasoned 25-year-old Seo Hee-kyung for the LPGA title at the U.S. Open.

Not too long ago, we witnessed 29-year-old Li Na of China emerge as French Open champ in women’s tennis.  We took exception to the foreign press’ attempt to anglicize her name as Na Li, ethnocentricity rearing its ugly head on ascending Asia figures and thought forms. Li Na’s prominence was doubly wonder-filled in her independent quest for the fulfillment of her career, jumped on by the media as a “failure” of the centralized sports support system of China. Duh.

It also revealed an old rot I had unthinkingly fallen into in my Oral English class by asking students to get an English name, as traditionally done by foreign teachers to ease identification of students, and in the process, failing to recognize the students’ intrinsic value. My apology was late but well received (my students never had a teacher apologize to them before), and though I never caught up with getting names and faces together, my feeble attempt at learning their Chinese names scored high.

Zhongguo (China), Nippon (Japan), and Hanguk/Chosun (Koreas) of late have prominently risen in the consciousness of the West, China for its rapid economic growth, and Japan for its recent tremor and tsunami disasters, along with the feeble posturing of its politicians particularly in the Diet. The Koreas in their continuing intra-animosities, fanned by the incredible continuing presence of U.S. military command in Hangkuk more than 50 years after the civil war, continue to divide and define geopolitical alignments in the region. Unification of Korea will not happen for as long as the U.S. military-industrial complex lords it over the southern end of the peninsula. 

But none of these geopolitical considerations are of any immediate consequence when two Korean ladies out-putt each other in the prestigious golf links of the U.S. Open.  Yet, in the larger picture, the ascendant presence of Hangeul Saram in the world stage only underscores how globalization has made turns and twists in the makeup of the global century.

We refer to Gogoryo (old Korea), its Confucian underpinnings conservatively kept in the North, and liberally applied in the economic processes of the South. Some will say that I must mean “capitalism’s free enterprise” in the south, but that accounts for modernization of metropolitan Korea only. It does not account for the reticence and creativity of the denizens of the land of the morning calm as they flourish from being a stomping ground and exploited peoples for and by the Hans, Manchus, Mongols, Russkyes, French, Japanese, and the UN-world led by Americans.

The Hangeul heard everywhere has become a global rallying cry as the Korean economy allows for students to seek educational exposure elsewhere; the combined business and religious impetus of many has made Korea-towns an Asian addition to the numerous Chinatowns that dot the urban centers of the global landscape, and the sudden evangelical resurgence in America and the Third World.

After the Korean war, with the resuscitation of the Japanese economy and its flowering in the ’80s when it tolerated as the inefficient sector domestic production in exchange for economic dominance in other countries, and later, in the global financial markets, Nippon quietly existed on the earnings of its financial investments outside of the country. The last tremor and tsunami disaster showed the nations’ ingrained practices of disciplined modesty, order and moderation, particularly as it welcomed and dutifully acknowledged the relief efforts from other countries without being overly enthusiastic in encouraging more. In fact, it did the reverse in messages of “Thank you, but, no. Thank you!”

We did not hear much of bragging rights when Li Na took the French Open, and Ryu/Seo individually Changgochum (powerful sound dance), and together Kanggangsuwollae (circle dance) unobtrusively at the recent U.S. Golf Open, and we will not hear much from Nedeshiko, Japan’s ladies soccer (international football) team that bested the U.S. women’s team in the recent World Cup in Germany. The U.S. team was favored from the beginning to earn the World Cup this year, given both talent and experience, but pictures of tremor and tsunami-devastated Fukushima motivated the Nedeshiko redi-zu to out-kick U.S. women in the shoot-out that followed the tied score at the end of regulation time.

The Marianas have opened its doors to Japan, Korea and China. It is clear from the perspective of survival and sustenance that this island chain south of Iwo Jima inter-depends on the economic and cultural influence of the three groups of North Asian people. If the CNMI and Guam get its houses in order to learn and appropriate the forms and structures of democracy (not to mention, getting our tennis, golf and soccer fields in good shape), we might actually have something to share with the nations we have since recognized as neighbors.

Hey, how about inviting their tennis, golf and soccer women players?