Constructing national traditions in Olympics
By Hwang Kyung-moon
The Rio Games mark the 80th anniversary of perhaps the most celebrated individual feat in Korean Olympics history, Sohn Kee-chung’s victory in the men’s marathon at the infamous 1936 “Nazi Olympics” held in Berlin. Given South Korea’s current Olympics performance, especially the domination of South Korean archers, Sohn’s 1936 triumph can lead us to ponder how national traditions, in sports as well as other realms, are constructed, revived and even fade.
The great irony, of course, was that in 1936, there was no such thing as Korea, at least on the international stages of diplomacy and the Olympics. Sohn had to compete as a member of the Japanese team under the Japanese name Son Kitei, and his achievement is revered for having overcome the difficulties of life under Japanese occupation.
Furthermore, Sohn’s performance, as well as that of Nam Sung-yong, the Korean marathoner who won the bronze medal that year, led to an equally memorable moment two weeks later: When the Donga Ilbo newspaper published a picture of Sohn standing solemnly on the medal stand, it showed a dark smudge in place of the Japanese flag on his uniform. Those responsible for this brazen act of nationalist defiance were fired and arrested, and the newspaper was shut down by the colonial authorities for a year.
This incident fixed the Sohn Kee-chung marathon victory, which otherwise might have led observers to question the simplistic portrait of unrelenting Japanese oppression, within the glorified narrative of national struggle to achieve independence. Sohn himself, who trained in Japan and attended a Japanese university, further advanced this perception while helping to establish a modern Korean tradition of marathoning excellence.
Sohn trained other Korean runners who went on to win the famed Boston marathon and later inspired Hwang Young-cho to marathon gold in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. If shorter-distance events such as the sprints were held in higher esteem by some other nationalities, Koreans appear to have established the centrality in athletic competition of determination, resilience, mental fortitude and endurance. Koreans seemed to demonstrate these traits in the marathon, just as they did in defying Japanese rule.
However, this new tradition in the marathon, after receiving a further boost with the success of Lee Bong-ju, the silver medalist from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, quickly faded. Indeed, over the past two decades or so nearly every country has been overwhelmed by the rise of eastern African athletes from countries like Kenya and Ethiopia, who have dominated the sport. Perhaps the strength of Korean tradition or character had its limits.
In place of the marathon, however, South Koreans have developed an even more impressive Olympic sporting tradition, one that draws much deeper from their past: archery. Historians love to find patterns cutting across time that show some underlying core factor, and it would be foolish to deny any role played by long-established philosophies, mentalities and techniques in the Koreans’ success in modern archery.
South Koreans’ dominance of Olympic archery, however, is equally an example of a constructed tradition, applying bits of the past to a very different set of circumstances. One wonders how much the main skills, both technically and psychologically, of traditional archery have determined Koreans’ outcomes in “western archery,” or yang-gung as it’s called in Korea. “Western archery,” with its various contraptions on the bow and the archer herself, looks quite different from traditional Korean archery and appears to value the mastery of precision techniques and scientific understanding as much as mental strength and determination.
Even the oft-noted reliance on rote training to build such skills seems more like facile commentary, not necessarily positive, on Koreans’ ethnic character. This seems to explain well national success in golf or sports that seem connected to long-established traditions, like taekwondo, which boasts Korean origins but is actually more modern than traditional. But this explanation cannot account for South Koreans’ remarkable accomplishments in short-track speed skating, which is chaotic and requires quick decisions, or their triumphs in badminton and table tennis, which rely on rapid and creative responses to opponents. And why aren’t South Koreans good in Olympic equestrian, given that horsemanship (often combined with archery) was a central component of Korean military arts since ancient times?
The answer seems to be, then, that national traditions, whether in sports or other realms, are new inventions as much as revivals or continuations of some deeper practices from history. And the core factors behind South Korea’s success in certain sports draw likely from specific contemporary circumstances more than from a wellspring of great tradition passed down over the generations. The general popularity of sports like archery may stem from historical traditions, but such popularity works in tandem with government support for systematic training in producing performance success, which in turn further builds popularity and sponsorship.
These points tend to get overwhelmed amid the patriotic fervor of the Olympics, but it’s wise to keep in mind that Koreans, like every other modern nation, have had to construct traditions as a way to establish their modern collective identity. And sports, especially those for the Olympics, tend to demonstrate this process very well.
Hwang Kyung-moon is professor in the
Departments of History and East Asian Languages
and Cultures, University of Southern
California. He is the author of “A History of
Korea — An Episodic Narrative” (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010; second edition, 2016).