Research On The Historical Evolution And Local Identity Of Baseball Culture In Taiwan

Abstract:Baseball,which not only contains athletics and entertainment functions,but reflects the development of social history,culture and especially power structure,is a significant component of Taiwanese social life.This sport started in Taiwan from Japanese occupation colonial period,under the reign of Emperor Taish(1912~1926).It developed following the order of northern area,southern area,centre area and eastern area,as well as established the foundation for Taiwan baseball and acted as an integral part of Taiwan sports culture.In recent years,folk views were used to explain social phenomenon.There were no doubt that baseball becoming the symbol of Taiwan was partly because of market and media,but what was more important was its profound mass basis and concealed political factors.In this thesis,the baseball development history was divided into three stages,Japanese occupation period(1895~1945),interference and non-interference of KMT official ideology period(1945~1980),establishment of professional baseball period(1990~).For revealing the sociology meaning of baseball,I would study the background at different stages and analyze their interactive relations including the connections between baseball development and society,sport and power field,social leisure and common memory.In fact,the three respects were not self-existent.They connected with each other and formed the relationship society--sports culture--power.On the basis of connection among social,sport and power,it is easy to find that on account of interference and utilization of the government,relationships in plenty of respects were built between sport and the field of power and then formed the“culture formation”.Firstly,the culture formation must be identified by receivers.When receivers accepted such cultural awareness,they would form the approval consciousness.Therefore,the source of community played a crucial role.From the early 20~thh century till now,baseball had profound historical origins and was a pivotal component of contemporary Taiwan history.Its time-honored historical culture not only mixed the strong memory of colonization,but the influence of government and the preference of people.These complex characters formed unique baseball culture.Meanwhile,from another angle,studying the development of Taiwan baseball culture is also for analyzing the microcosm of society,including the state of society under government control,the transformation from agricultural society to commercial capitalist one,and the value conflicts between native sense and global vision.Although,baseball is the symbolic sport of Taiwan,its cultural value was explained passively by political and economic community because of the lack of unartificial steps during the development processes so that the baseball culture could not be constructed normally and positively.Under the impacts of these upheavals,the baseball culture of Taiwan formed new features and its characters were changed continuously.The baseball culture formation was influenced by society and power simultaneously,and molded different types.Based on it,I would analyze relationships among social development,power field and the status of baseball at different stages.Then I could reveal the unique baseball culture in Taiwan,dig its covered consciousness,and establish the pairwise correlation between the development of baseball and Taiwan politics,baseball culture and its local identity.From this angle to learn baseball development,we could know more about the relations between Taiwan baseball culture and spirit of the time.