World Baseball Classic

Last night was the championship game of the World Baseball Classic (WBC). The inaugural WBC was played in 2006, with Japan beat Cuba in the finals by the score of 10-6. Three years later, with the WBC garnering more international interest, the championship game pitted Korea against the defending champions and bitter archrivals, Japan. Under the lights of Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, the game certainly did not disappoint fans of all stripes. It was a thrilling extra-inning affair, with Japan coming out on top 5-3, much to the agony of Korean fans all over the world.

People suggest that I have an identity crisis. Having lived in the United States for all but three years of my life, I am automatically assumed to have my loyalties towards America in all things. But that hasn't always been the case. Often times in international competitions such as the Olympics and the World Cup, my allegiance has usually gone to the place where I was born. And people question how I can do that when realistically speaking, I have far more connections with America than I do with Korea. To them, the only answer I have is that I don't know. All I know is that for some reason, I have a deep sense of nationalism towards Korea, and I don't perceive this to die down anytime.

This morning, I was asked by a non-Korean friend why Korea-Japan rivalry is such an emotional affair. One word: nationalism. It is very much like the Yankees-Red Sox, Michigan-Ohio State, Lakers-Celtics, and North Carolina-Duke rivalries in American sports. The only thing is that this is exponentially more intense because there's political, historical, and social components to the Korea-Japan rivalry that doesn't exist in a domestic sports rivalry. For many Koreans and first generation Korean-Americans, emotions can run high when it comes to anything related to Japan, as Japan raises memories and stories of atrocities committed by Japan during its colonization of Korea from 1910-1945. Such resentment towards Japan continues to be fueld by modern political developments such as the Dokdo/Takeshima island dispute, visits to the Yasukuni War Shrine by Japanese leaders, and Japanese revisionist history textbooks.

I understand that from an American perspective, it can look highly irrational and even annoying that a small country with under 50 million people goes crazy every time there's some international competition. But with such sporting events is the power of the "rally-around-the-flag effect." For a country whose people have felt betrayed by the world since 1895, lived under three decades of brutal Japanese colonialism, and bordered by a menacing nuclear threat, Korea's "rally-around-the-flag effect" includes the performances of its athletes in the world's greatest stages as well as high profile Koreans breaking glass ceilings in academia, American politics, international politics, and so on and so forth. To put it very bluntly, this, I don't think, can ever be truly understood by an American in a world dominated by the United States.

With this being said, it is no surprise that Dodgers Stadium was filled with tens of thousands of Koreans with their Thunderstix screaming "Dae Han Min Gook" for four hours straight. And even though I have two papers due this week, I rushed home from the library to watch this epic game on my couch and unable to hide my anxiety throughout the game. And even despite the loss, I am still proud of the team for reaching the finals and showing the world that Korean baseball has arrived in the big stage. And even though they did not win, I'm still going to buy this.

Two Sides

There are two sides to every story.

Today, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir. It represents the first arrest warrant for a sitting leader of a country. Many have heralded the move as a great thing because of the crimes against humanity that al-Bashir is accused of in Darfur. It could set a precedent to other dictators and perpetrators of mass injustice against their own citizens.

But I am not necessarily celebrating like many others are. Why? It is not because I believe al-Bashir is innocent. By all means, I think he is a ruthless dictator that embodies evil for the intentional slaughter of his own people in Darfur. So why am I not exuberant? It is because the ICC has no mechanism to forcibly arrest al-Bashir unless he were to step out of the country and be caught by international forces. The arrest warrant is simply a powerless political tool to convey a message without teeth to enforce it. However, it gets worse. The arrest warrant has provoked al-Bashir to action; he has kicked out humanitarian NGOs that provided a bulk of the administration of humanitarian aid to the Sudanese in retaliation against his perceived adversaries. So while the issuance of an arrest warrant is a great symbollic gesture, it has led to a negative side effect of kicking out organizations helping the needy in Sudan, making the humanitarian situation in Sudan even worse than before.

This is one of the fundamental problems of international human rights advocacy. States have limited power to affect another state's human rights record without considering military actions, which most states will never consider for a humanitarian need after the U.S. debacle in Somalia in 1993. I do not mean to rain on the idealists and champions of human rights all over the world. I do wish, alongside them, that human rights will be promoted from the gulags of North Korea to the plains of Darfur. But the more I study, the more I'm beginning to see that change must come from people's convictions and not governments' actions. It is the concept of the power of one person that will tidal wave into a movement to create external (and sometimes internal) change. It is by no means easy, and often does demand blood,sweat, and tears (and very much likely sacrifice of lives in the case of repressive governments like al-Bashir's). But I'm convinced that the will of the people will triumph and grassroots movements is the only viable means to see that systematic genocide will cease to be a state's political goal.

Friends

This past weekend was Paul and Gina's "wedding" in Chicago. It's always awesome to see two friends come together and be able to celebrate their joyous occasion. It was also great to reconnect with old friends again, especially some whom I have not seen in quite awhile. Even though there was not enough hours in a day to catch up with all of them, it felt great to see familiar faces again.

On the way home, I realized how special these friends were. I remember coming to college thinking that my high school friends would be the people that I could lean on and call friends for the rest of my life. But years later, I can safely say that although I still cherish my high school friends, at least those that I've still kept in touch with, the friendships made in college are the ones that have lasted.

I'm not sure why I got really sentimental last night. It's not like it was the first time I've had reunions of sorts with some college friends since I've graduated and/or moved out of Ann Arbor. But for some reason, I really began to think about the friends I had made in college and how influential they've been in my young life. As I was talking to those friends that I only get to see at a big gathering of sorts, it's awesome to know that distance won't keep me apart from them. One of the things I'm learning is how much more valuable depth of friendship is to me than quantity of friends I have. Some friends have truly walked through the valleys with me, witnesses to God's continual redemption project. Some are relatively new friends, but equally as influential in my current state. Regardless, these are the brothers and sisters that I've come to appreciate--their hilarity, their rebukes, their prayers, their care, their concerns, and their company.

Even though my friends maybe all around the country and the world, they are still my friends whom I can trust. Though they are not perfect, they continually point me to the perfect one. That is all I can ask for.