Is North Korea the Model for China? Lessons from the 2010 World Cup

The mystery team of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the North Korean national men's soccer team, attracted multitudinous fans in China. Chinese enthusiasm for the North Koreans was in stark contrast to their general disgust and disdain for their own national team.

North Korea's National Men's Soccer Team

How was it possible for North Korea, an impoverished and isolated nation of 23 million, to qualify for the 2010 World Cup, while a rapidly growing and open China with 1.3 billion people failed to do so? Debates about the performances of the North Korean team even entered the realm of political discourse in China, with many Chinese seeing in the North Korean experience a source of inspiration for reforming Chinese soccer and even Chinese society.

China's National Men's Soccer Team: A National Disgrace

Despite China's emergence as a sports superpower, as evidenced by its great success at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, men's soccer had become a national disgrace. To be sure, the Chinese women's national soccer team had been relatively successful in international competitions, winning the gold medal in the Asian Games three times, making the final two at the 1996 FIFA Women's World Cup and the 1996 Olympics, and currently ranking 10th on the FIFA list. In contrast, the Chinese men's national soccer team, among Asia's best in the 1980s, now only ranked 78th on the FIFA list. In its only appearance at the World Cup in 2002, the team lost all three games and failed to score a single goal. While China's neighbors, Japan, North Korea and South Korea all qualified for the 2010 World Cup, the Chinese team failed to do so. Exasperated with the long string of failures by the national men's team, Chinese soccer fans have dubbed it the National Pigs (guozhu国豬), punning on the abbreviated name for the team (guozu国足).

National Pigs (国豬)

The Chinese soccer players' "bad habits of excessive drinking, visiting prostitutes or other decadent lifestyles were blamed [by some Chinese] as the major causes of their failures in big international competitions." Others argued that government policy was an important reason for the mediocrity of Chinese men's soccer: the state funneled money "to individual sports like gymnastics, swimming and diving, and to sports in which Chinese have traditionally excelled, like badminton and table tennis," in order to produce the greatest number of winners and medals. Sports ministry officials focused on investing in "promising sports prodigies with a quicker guarantee of victory." Still another reason cited is that few children and young people play soccer: schools now de-emphasize sports, cities lack soccer fields, and the popularity of soccer among young people has been eclipsed by basketball, which is boosted by Chinese NBA players like Yao Ming as role models and by the aggressive marketing of the NBA in China.

Li Chengpeng, Sports Journalist

Perhaps corruption is the single biggest factor. As Forbes journalist Gady Epstein observed, "Chinese men's soccer failed to qualify for the [2010] World Cup finals but is outscoring the rest of the world in one category: corruption." Leading sports journalist and soccer commentator Li Chengpeng (李承鹏) co-authored in 2009 "Inside Story of Chinese Soccer 中国足球内幕" [ch] which provided a detailed exposé of close ties between gambling syndicates and professional soccer in China, resulting in the widespread corruption of officials, referees, coaches and players. The throwing of games, the fixing of matches and deliberately blown calls became frequent occurrences in the Chinese primary league competitions since the 1990s. Players even had to pay bribes to be admitted into national teams. Many players, coaches and managers were involved in gambling. Some players and coaches were victims of physical violence due to their involvement in or opposition to gambling: the owner of one soccer club allegedly tried to bury alive one of his players for throwing games, and one soccer manager was marched out of his house with a gun to his head for refusing to condone gambling. As Li Chengpeng saw it, professional soccer in China is organized not as modern organizations in the mold of the NBA, but along the lines of the Chinese underworld.

A government crackdown since late 2009 has resulted in at least 20 arrests, including Nan Yong (南勇), the head of the Chinese Football Association (中国足球协会), and Lu Jun (陆俊), a former World Cup referee who had been dubbed the Golden Whistle (金哨) for impartial refereeing in contrast to the Black Whistles (黑哨).

Foreign experts too have pondered the question about China's failure to send a team to the World Cup. Forbes columnist Ray Tsuchiyama dismissed some common explanations. If China was handicapped by lack of urban practice space and lack of money for balls, what about "Brazilian children practic[ing] soccer with a can wrapped in streets filled with parked cars?" If corruption leads to inferior playing, then what about successful soccer powers such as Brazil, Italy, Nigeria and Russia that have had their fair share of scandals?

Along with other expert panelists to which the New York Times posed the question, "Where Are China’s Soccer Stars?", Tsuchiyama suggested that one of the most important factors may be the lack of grassroots organizations fostering enthusiasm and nurturing talent among Chinese children and youth: "The Chinese state-managed sports focus yields a huge number of medals in Olympic and other world competitions. But it has prevented the development of local sports autonomy — in particular, independent soccer clubs which form a foundation for training young players. In America, by contrast, parents, teachers, coaches and parents-as-coaches have had a tremendous impact over the past three decades on youth soccer development." Historian Xu Guoqi cited the lack of soccer moms among other reasons: "Too many factors contribute to China’s poor performance in soccer, including its political system, lack of a decent pool of soccer players, and Chinese parents’ overemphasis on book learning and academic examinations over everything else, soccer included ... Chinese enjoy watching soccer games, but few really want to play or have their children play soccer." Anthropologist Susan Brownell agreed the Chinese sport system "does not work well for sports in which stars emerge slowly from a wide participation base, where talent becomes apparent only as the athletes mature physically." Moreover, corruption arises because power is concentrated: the Chinese Football Administration responsible for administration and the Football Management Center responsible for managing corporate sponsorships and business affairs are both run by the same person. Rowan Simons, the chairman of China ClubFootball FC, concurred: "Football is a mass participation sport in which the best players may not emerge until their later teens. The simple truth is that China needs a system of community-based clubs that are run by the people for the people."

North Korea: The Miracle Team of the 1966 World Cup

North Korea Team Flag

Whatever the cause, the Chinese soccer fans had no national team to root for in the 2010 World Cup, and instead lavished their affection and support on the North Korean team. This was not the first time that North Korea participated in the World Cup. Nor was it the first time that its national soccer team was embraced by the people of a foreign country. North Korea last competed in the 1966 World Cup hosted by England, when it became the Cinderella team of the tournament. As recounted in the BBC documentary The Game of Their Lives [trailer], the qualification process became a subject of bitter political controversy when FIFA allocated a single slot for the countries of the African, Asian and Oceania zones. With the African countries and most Asian nations boycotting in protest, Australia played against North Korea for the slot. By stunning the Australians, North Korea qualified along with 10 teams from Europe, 4 teams from South America, and 1 team from North and Central America (Mexico).

The lack of diplomatic relations between North Korea and host country England posed political obstacles. The British Foreign Office could not deny visas to the North Koreans out of fear that England would then be stripped of being the host nation. It was reluctant to allow any display of national symbols by North Korea lest that would imply diplomatic recognition and set the precedent for demands by East Germany which England did not recognize. Eventually a compromise was reached: the North Koreans were allowed to display their flag, but their national anthem would only be played at the opening match between England and Uruguay and at the championship match (as it turned out, the North Korean anthem was never played).

North Koreans Celebrate Victory Over Italy

Although 1000 to 1 underdogs and with an average height of only 5" 5', the North Korean team achieved a miracle by advancing to the quarterfinals. After losing to the Soviets 3-0 in their first Group D match, the North Koreans squeaked out a tie with Chile by scoring a goal with two minutes to go. In their final group game on July 19, 1966, they managed to stun the highly touted Italians 1-0 with no. 7 Park Do-ik scoring the winning goal, thereby advancing to the quarterfinals (in 2002, South Korea would match this by beating Italy to reach the World Cup quarterfinals).

Li Chang-myung & Shin Yunk-kyoo Block Eusébio

By this point, the North Koreans with their active attacking style had won the hearts of the people of Middlesbrough, a town in Northeastern England where the team had been staying and playing. 3,000 Middlesbrough residents followed the North Korean team to Liverpool, where the quarterfinal game against Portugal would be played. The North Koreans started fast, scoring three goals in the first twenty minutes for a big lead, and it appeared that another miracle was in the offing. Alas, the Portuguese managed a comeback, with their legendary player Eusébio scoring four goals in response and Portugal winning in the end 5-3. The North Korean team returned home to a hero's welcome.

Surviving Members of the 1966 Team

In 2001, Director Daniel Gordon (who had been impressed by the North Koreans when as a kid his dad gave him a video of the North Korea-Italy match) and producer Nick Bonner received permission from the North Korean government to visit North Korea to make the documentary on the 1966 team, The Game of Their Lives. After completing the film in 2002, the filmmakers then secured permission from the governments of Britain and North Korea to bring the seven surviving members of the soccer team back to Middlesbrough for a memorable visit.

North Korea's Tortuous Path to Return to the World Cup

The North Korean national team took a tortuous path to return to the World Cup in 2010. For years it was rumored that the 1966 World Cup team was purged for womanizing before the game against Portugal. According to a history of North Korean soccer by blogger Joo Seong-ha, a North Korean defector who is now a reporter for the leading South Korean daily Dong-A Ilbo (translated by Ask a Korean: Part I, Part II, Part III), the team was indeed purged, not for falling for the "courtesan tactics" of the imperialists, but as innocent victims swept up in a 1967 political purge, the most prominent victims of which were no. 2 party leader Park Geum-cheol and party secretary Kim Do-man — Park and Kim had provided unconditional support to the national soccer team and claimed its success among their accomplishments. Eventually some members of the team were rehabilitated and returned to serve as coaches.

Nonetheless, the purge had set back progress in North Korean soccer for decades. An important step taken by the government to rebuild its national men's soccer team into an international competitive force was the 1991 hiring of a foreign coach, Hungarian Pal Csernai who had successful coaching experience in the German leagues. Csernai's first great success was a 2-1 victory at the unprecedented friendly match between his North Korean team and the U.S. team at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC on Oct. 19, 1991. The North Korean team made a creditable run to return to the World Cup by winning 7 of 8 games in the preliminaries in 1993, only to falter in the final qualifying stage in Doha, losing 4 of 5 games, the last to South Korea which advanced to the World Cup.

1966 Hero Park Do-ik as 2008 Olympic Torchbearer

With the return of Csernai directly from Doha to Munich, and the onset of the food crisis of the 1990s, the North Korean soccer program went through another difficult period. Nevertheless, a league system of 130 teams continued to function, and the age of selecting players to be groomed as future stars continued to be lowered to ensure the provision of adequate nutrition at a young age.

As reported by Chinese journalists Wang Wei (汪伟) and Wang Qian (王倩), after its failure in Doha in 1993, North Korea stayed away from international competition for the next 5 years [ch], while building a national training facility at Mt. Paektu, which would produce many of the future national stars. The North Korean national team made its first international reappearance at the 2001 Shanghai Invitational.

The internationalization of North Korean soccer accelerated with the failure of the national team to qualify for the 2006 World Cup [ch], after which Kim Jong-il decided to allow North Korean players to play for professional soccer clubs abroad, broaden their horizons, and raise their playing levels. Clubs in Asia and Europe took an interest in North Korean players, because of their work ethnic, low cost, and news value. From 2007 on, a number of national team players played professional soccer abroad, e.g. national team captain Hong Yong-jo in Russia and Kim Young-jun in China. Most national team players had competed in 30-40 games at A-level international tournaments [ch] before the 2010 World Cup, a few even close to 60. The collective international experience of the North Korean team was actually much more extensive than its Chinese counterpart.

Thus, despite the closed nature of North Korean society, soccer is its most open sector. Nevertheless, there were limits. Players abroad were accompanied by political commissars who handled translations and prevention of "the possibility of foreign hostile forces causing harm to the players" [ch]. North Korean players impressed foreign media as behaviorally reserved, emotionally restrained, resistant to exchanges with foreigners, and often holding the Quotations of Kim Il-sung.

North Korean Players Celebrate Qualifying for the World Cup

Unlike its 1966 predecessor with every player except the goalie on active attack, the North Korean national men's soccer team adopted a defensive style that earned it second place in Asia qualification round's Group B with 3 wins, 3 draws, 2 losses and 7 goals in 2009. At the last game on June 18, 2009, North Korea tied Saudi Arabia, thereby qualifying for the World Cup for the first time since 1966. The players were honored with a massive parade on their return to Pyongyang. Sixteen players received the honor of being named People's Athlete, the highest possible honor for athletes normally reserved for winners in the Olympics and the World Championships. Another three were named Contributing Athlete, usually awarded to winners of an Asia-wide competition.

The extravagant showering of honors on the national team player might be connected to the political significance that the North Korean government attached to the World Cup: North Korea watchers reported that, as the ailing Kim Jong-il was preparing for his son Kim Jong-un's succession, he had hoped that the success of the national men's soccer team could be attributed to Kim Jong-un, thereby "build[ing] support among military and workers' party elites for a transfer of power."

Still, with a world ranking of 105, the North Koreans were again a long shot to win the 2010 World Cup. Moreover, North Korea was seeded in Group G, the so-called Group of Death with 5-time champion Brazil, previous World Cup runner-up Portugal, and powerhouse Ivory Coast. Nevertheless, Son Kwang-ho, vice-president of the DPRK Football Association, was sanguine about North Korea's prospects, informing FourFourTwo reporter Neil Billingham on his visit to North Korea: “North Korea will win the World Cup ... it is because of the great support of our Dear Leader Kim Jong-il that our national team will make this great achievement.”

North Korea: Darling of Chinese Soccer Fans and the New Left

Chinese soccer commentator Li Chengpeng was not so sure. To him the North Korean model, relying on the revolutionary spirit of the people under the stern gaze of their leader Kim Jong-il, a military style of management, and training in a closed society, was irrational and unscientific. In response to many Chinese fans who demanded that he praise the North Korean team for its team spirit, he penned a highly sarcastic and satirical editorial "Good! North Korea, Seize the Crown! (好吧，朝鲜夺冠)" [ch]. In a more serious vein, Li did predict a narrow win by Brazil over North Korea in their opening match on June 15, 2010, not because he believed that the two teams were evenly matched or that the North Korean revolutionary spirit would prevail over the technical skills of the Brazilians, but because the Brazilian team would conserve its energy for the next round of the World Cup while the North Koreans would give their all under the watch of Kim Jong-il.

Felipe Melo (Brazil) vs. An Yong-hak (North Korea)

Indeed, Brazil won narrowly only by 2-1, an outcome that was considered to be a great spiritual victory by the North Koreans and their Chinese supporters, who took strong exception to Li Chengpeng's negative assessment of North Korea's chances. 13 of 15 papers that normally carried Li's commentary had refused to publish his "Good! North Korea, Seize the Crown!," probably because it was considered to be politically incorrect for denigrating a close ally of the Chinese government. But it was available on Li's blog and was widely republished online. Li's blog entry attracted close to 500,000 hits and over 3,000 comments, with over 70% critical of Li.

Chiek Tioté (Ivory Coast) vs. Hong Yong-jo (North Korea)

Many of these criticisms of Li and praises for the North Korean team were echoed by postings on the influential leftist commentary site Utopia (乌有之乡). This site reflects the perspectives of the New Left, whose proponents are highly critical of the market reforms that have been implemented in China since the 1980s for promoting social inequalities and injustice. Some leftists even look back to the Mao Zedong era as a time of material poverty but spiritual wealth, in comparison to the present time of material wealth but spiritual poverty. They see North Korea today approvingly as a reflection of Maoist China. Even before the World Cup, in January of 2010, Utopia hosted a screening of The Game of Their Lives [ch] (paired with South Korean film Peppermint Candy) in Beijing, at the discussion of which two leftist commentators and the audience were very positive about North Korea's political and social developments.

In the context of the World Cup and North Korea's narrow loss to Brazil, a representative posting on Utopia stated: "The game of soccer can best reflect the spirit of a nation and its inner qualities ... North Korean soccer demonstrates a simple principle. Material poverty cannot defeat a soccer team. It is spiritual poverty that is an incurable sickness. The soccer played by the Chinese players who have become rich is ugly to the extreme, while that of the North Korean players is blindingly brilliant ... Looking back in history our country has also gone through a period of material poverty but spiritual wealth. Regrettably this kind of period will not return. Of course it is better that material poverty not come back. But spiritual poverty may be scarier, as it makes the people disheartened and helpless."

Jong Tae-se, Striker for North Korea

One North Korean player who had gained the greatest admiration among Chinese soccer fans was Jong Tae-se, who is one of two zainichi players on the North Korean team. As of the end of 2008, there were 589,239 registered “zainichi,” “people of Korean descent born and raised in Japan,” mostly descendants of Koreans forcibly brought to Japan as laborers between 1910 and 1945 when Korea was a Japanese colony. As Ray Tsuchiyama points out, "To use a Korean name and Korean citizenship status in Japan means discrimination in education and employment, and difficulties in social interaction, including pre-marital checks and assumptions about ties to the criminal underworld. There are many ethnic Koreans who assimilated into Japanese society by taking Japanese citizenship and using Japanese names." Many more held on to their Korean identity in spite of, or because of, discrimination. Jong Tae-se was born in Nagoya and educated in pro-Pyongyang schools run by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. As a star player in Japan Professional Football League, Jong could have attained Japanese citizenship and possibly played on the national team of either Japan or South Korea. Instead he opted to play for North Korea, which had already courted him when he was a sophomore at Korea University in Tokyo (profile of campus in Chronicle of Higher Education).

Jong Tae-se in Tears

Because of his “charge-ahead and shoot” style atypical of Asian players, Jong Tae-Se was dubbed “People’s Wayne Rooney” by the Asian media, and has attracted a wide following among Koreans all over the world and also among other Asians. What particularly endeared him to Chinese fans, however, was his propensity to cry whenever the North Korean national anthem was played, which signified a fervent patriotism that was deemed lacking among the materialistically inclined Chinese players.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) vs. Jong Tae-se (North Korea)

Many Chinese fans remained faithful and declared their admiration of the indomitable spirit of the North Koreans even as they suffered lopsided defeats of 7-0 by Portugal (June 21, 2010) and 3-0 by the Ivory Coast (June 25, 2010), and failed to advance beyond the group stage. Li Chengpeng saw things differently: Portugal's rout of North Korea represented the total demolition of the latter's spiritual model. He asked the Chinese fans who clamored for modeling Chinese soccer on North Korean soccer: Why follow a model that China itself has gone through thirty years ago, when an athlete had to write his self-criticism after a mistake on the field, when he would be punished if he had an unauthorized interview with the foreign press, when he had to thank the great nation and leader whenever he crossed the finish line, and when national soccer team captain Dai Linjing (戴麟经) was persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution for having a bad class background?

Li agreed with the Utopia leftists that North Korea's present echoed the Maoist past in China, but drew different conclusions: "Don't let political faith give rise to illusions in sports or literature. Don't believe that if the great leader beckons and looks on, the country will become the champion. This is similar to some time ago when the leader of a particular country [meaning Mao Zedong during the Great Leap Forward] said that crop production must exceed 10,000 kilograms, that the country would surpass England and chase after America in 5 years. Subsequently millions upon millions of people smashed their cooking pots to smelt steel, and then millions upon millions of people starved."

Postscript

Kim Jong-hun, Coach of the North Korean Team

Why did the North Korean team lose so badly to Portugal and then the Ivory Coast after losing only 2-1 to Brazil? The euphoria of that narrow loss evidently led the North Korean government to optimistically abandon its normal policy and allow the live broadcast of the North Korea-Portugal game on June 21, 2010, probably the live broadcast ever of a sports event on North Korean television. According to the Chosun Ilbo citing Radio Free Asia, Kim Jong-il concluded that the team lost to Brazil because it focused only on defense in the second half. He then "gave orders for the team's defenders to be positioned forward and even specified where each defender should be standing in the field." The abandonment of a tight defense strategy, whether it was at Kim Jong-il's direction or whether it was a decision of coach Kim Jong-hun under extreme pressure to win on a live broadcast, proved disastrous. In its World Cup rematch with North Korea since that historic 1966 game, Portugal did not break through until after 29 minutes. The North Koreans, who had played well up to that point, collapsed completely, giving up six goals in the second half without scoring one themselves.

Parody: Jong Tae-se as Miner

Speculations that the North Korean team would be sent to the coal mines for its failure at the World Camp were rampant. In Chinese cyberspace, parodies (egao恶搞) based on mashups or Photoshopping existing images or videos were posted on this scenario: in one video, Jong Tae-se's weeping image was edited to show him wearing a coal miner's protective helmet and bemoaning his fate.

In reality, the two zainichi players on the North Korean team — Jong Tae-se and An Yong-hak — flew directly to Japan following the end of North Korea's run at the World Cup. On account of his strong play at the World Cup, Jong was signed by the German club VfL Bochum of the Bundeliga league in early July. The zainichi's North Korean teammates and coach might not have been so fortunate. Radio Free Asia reported that the team was summoned to appear on stage at a large auditorium at the Working People’s Culture Palace, and "subjected to a session of harsh ideological criticism" before more than 400 people for six hours. The players were criticized by other athletes and a sports commentator, and then forced to criticize their coach Kim Jong-hun for betraying heir-apparent Kim Jong-un. The players might have gotten off relatively lightly. Rumors circulated that Coach Kim might have been expelled from the Workers' Party or sent to do forced labor, for derailing plans to celebrate the World Cup as Young General Kim Jong-un's achievement.

In August of 2010, FIFA, the governing body for world soccer, launched an investigation into whether North Korea had punished some of the national team players and their coach. In a letter responding to FIFA's letter of inquiry, the North Korean Football Association stated that there was no truth to the allegations of humiliation of the players and their coach, and that the team was training as usual for the Asian Games. FIFA stated that it was "satisfied with the information received," and declared the matter closed.

(Last revised: September 25, 2010)

Barack Obama: America's Multicultural President & His Asian Connections

Barack Obama has been hailed as America's first black president, and his candidacy and election have led some commentators to even proclaim America as a post-racial society, in which race no longer matters. But perhaps he should be better identified as America's most multicultural president, if not the first multicultural president, given his own living experiences in communities ranging from Honolulu to Jakarta to Chicago, and the extensive African and Asian connections in his immediate and extended families. As Time observes in detailing his family tree, "With roots in Kansas, Kenya and beyond, [Barack Obama] is a one-man melting pot."

Barack Obama's African Family, With Stepmother Kezia in Front of Him

The African and Midwestern roots of Obama's life are well known: his father Barack Obama Sr., a bright Kenyan villager who was one of the first Africans to attend the University of Hawaii and later pursued graduate studies in economics at Harvard; his extended family in Kenya through his father, including, among others, his stepmother Kezia who was Senior's first wife; his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who married and divorced two men from foreign cultures, "was a teen mother who later got a Ph.D. in anthropology," and helped build the microfinance program in Indonesia from 1988 to 1992; Ann's parents, Madelyn Payne and Stanley Dunham, who raised Obama in his mother's absence; Obama's community roots and work as community organizer, civil rights lawyer, law professor and state senator in Illinois; his immediate family composed of wife Michelle, and daughters Malia Ann and Natasha; and his brother-in-law Craig Robinson, the basketball head coach of the Oregon State Beavers.

Much less in the public consciousness are Obama's connections to Asia. Aside from his stepfather Lolo Soetoro and his half-sister Maya Soetoro who are from Indonesia, he has a half-brother-in-law Konrad Ng who is a Malaysian Canadian of Chinese ancestry, and an African half-brother Mark Ndesandjo, who is a businessman in Shenzhen, China.

Barack Obama, right, with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro, mother Ann Dunham, and half-sister Maya Soetoro

After Ann divorced Barack Obama Sr., who had returned to Kenya, she fell in love with another fellow student at the University of Hawaii, Lolo Soetoro. They married and moved to Lolo's native country Indonesia, where Barack Obama Jr. would live from 1967 to 1971, when he returned to Hawaii to be under the care of his grandparents and to attend Punahou School.

Obama recalls his stepfather as one who "possessed the good manners and easy grace of his people." When Obama returned home one day with "an egg-sized lump" after being hit by a rock in a fight, Lolo Soetoro taught him how to box.

[Then] the stepfather mused about the nature of things, and about what it took to survive in a difficult and dangerous world: "Men take advantage of weakness in other men. They're just like countries in that way. The strong man takes the weak man's land. He makes the weak man work in his fields. If the weak man's woman is pretty, the strong man will take her ... Which would you rather be?"

Obama told Newsweek's Jon Meacham: "I remember that very vividly, and my stepfather was a good man who gave me some things that were very helpful. One of the things that he gave me was a pretty hardheaded assessment of how the world works."

Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro credits Obama with driving her to excel: "He was always pushing me to sort of, at that point, exceed my own lazy inclinations. My mother and father divorced when I was 9, so I think he started giving me a great deal of guidance as a big brother. And he helped me find my voice and my passion and helped to work to offer a lot of guidance."


Maya met her future husband, Konrad Ng, while both were pursuing Ph.D. degrees at the University of Hawaii. Konrad's parents were originally from Sabah, Malaysia, who moved to Canada where Konrad was born in 1974. Konrad and Maya married in 2003, and have a four year old daughter Suhalia. Today Maya Soetoro-Ng, who has a Ph.D. in education from the University of Hawaii, teaches U.S. History, global studies and peace studies at La Pietra Hawaii School for Girls. Konrad Ng, holder of a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Hawaii, is an assistant professor in the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawaii, where he teaches courses in the Critical Studies track.

Konrad Ng's Message in Support of Barack Obama

A Times of London story, pejoratively entitled "Barack Obama’s brother pushes Chinese imports on US," is probably the first media report on Mark Ndesandjo, the son of Barack Obama, Sr. and his third wife Ruth Nidesand, an American woman who now "runs the up-market Maduri kindergarten in Nairobi." Journalist Michael Sheridan points out that Obama and Ndesandjo have contrasting views towards their African heritage. Moreover, "while Obama chose to live in the glare of publicity, his half-brother submerged himself in the crowds of the most cosmopolitan city in China." (Thomas Crampton, a former correspondent with International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, has compiled the most extensive biographical information on Mark Ndesandjo.)

Mark Ndesandjo and His Business Partner and Close Friend Sui Zhengjun

Like Obama, Ndesandjo received an elite education in the United States, graduating from Brown University, and then earning an M.S. in physics from Stanford and an M.B.A. from Emory University. The half brothers met for the first time when Obama went to Kenya in 1988. While Obama celebrated his "rediscovery of his African inheritance," Ndesandjo dismissed Kenya as “just another poor African country” to which he felt little attachment, and also the notion of racial identity: “life’s hard enough without all that excess baggage.”

Obama and Ndesandjo's stands towards China are not consistent either. The financial meltdown has dominated the attention of the American public and the presidential candidates to the degree that the topic of U.S.-China relations, arguably the single most important issue in American foreign policy, has hardly surfaced at the presidential debates. However, during the campaign Obama has repeatedly charged China with trade measures that were detrimental to American workers: dumping goods; not opening their own markets; theft of intellectual property; undervalued currency. While stating his commitment to free trade, he also called for confronting China on its alleged unfair trade practices. Ndesandjo, on the other hand, has a company that provides services to Chinese companies to help them to export to the United States.

USC US-China Institute, "Election '08 and the Challenge of China," Part 8: Obama and China

After working at Lucent Technologies and Nortel, Ndesandjo went to Shenzhen in 2002 to teach English as a volunteer in a U.S.-China cultural exchange program, and fell in love with China so much that he settled and established roots in Shenzhen. He has developed fluency in Mandarin Chinese, and learned to write Chinese characters in cursive script with a brush. A self-taught pianist, Ndesandjo has taught orphan children how to play the piano at Shenzhen Social Welfare Center since 2002. He has recently married a Chinese woman from Henan province. With his friend and business partner Sui Zhengjun (隋政军), Ndesandjo founded a eatery chain called Cabin BBQ, with its first outlet in Shenzhen in 2003 and seven branches today. Their consulting firm, Worldnexus (天下), "has provided corporate communications and website design to Chinese firms seeking customers in English-speaking markets."

Mark Ndesandjo Teaching Orphans How to Play the Piano

Ndesandjo became the subject of considerable attention from the media towards the end of July after his fraternal connections to Obama became known, to the degree that he disappeared from public view，in order to avoid any negative impact on Obama's campaign. He was also approached by the wine producers of Shenyang Dragon Medical Co. Ltd., Liaoning Province to be their product spokesman, but he declined.

Chinese TV News Program on Mark Ndesandjo (in Cantonese), Showing Him Teaching Piano at an Orphanage and Doing Chinese Calligraphy

Pete Rouse, White House Senior Adviser-Designate

In addition to the Asian connections in Obama's family members, those in his staff and cabinet nominations may also be noted. At least two of his senior advisers have Asian American roots. Pete Rouse, Obama's Senate Chief of Staff, Co-chairman of the transition team and Senior Adviser-Designate in the White House, who "helped Obama find the delicate balance between being a rank-and-file senator and high-profile national figure," has a white father and a Japanese mother. Chris Lu (盧沛寧), Legislative Director of Obama’s Senate Office, Executive Director of his transition team and Cabinet Secretary-Designate of his White House staff, is a Chinese American classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School, and responsible for his legislative work in congress.

Chris Lu, Cabinet Secretary-Designate of Obama's White House Staff

Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs-Designate

Two distinguished Asian Americans have been nominated by Barack Obama for his cabinet. Eric Shinseki, nominee as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, was a four-star general serving as Army Chief of Staff who in February of 2003 recommended that the U.S. should deploy several hundred thousand troops "to ensure that it could maintain order and genuinely control Iraq's sizable territory and potentially fractious society after it ousted Saddam" Hussein, and was publicly rebuked by Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. As James Fallows, journalist for The Atlantic Monthly points out, Shinseki is "the first Asian-American in a military-related cabinet position, not to mention a Japanese-American honored for lifelong military service on Pearl Harbor Day," and also "the man who was right, when Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, et al were so catastrophically wrong." The fact that "a Japanese-American patriot from Hawaii should receive this news [of his nomination] on December 7" was "karmic justice."

Fallows describes the nomination of Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy as "An even more impressive pick than Shinseki." According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, of which the Chinese American physicist is the Director, Chu is "is a Nobel laureate physicist and a Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. He is also one of the nation’s foremost and outspoken advocates for scientific solutions to the twin problems of global warming and the need for carbon-neutral renewable sources of energy." Fallows observes that Chu is a "scientific explainer-in-chief" who is "Modest, funny, and willing to explain the work of of a scientist in terms and images most people can understand." In Fallows' judgment, "policy politics," not "identity politics" or political loyalty or ideological purity, was the most important reason for the selection of both Shinseki and Chu. The fact that Barack Obama makes professional expertise the most important criterion for his personnel decisions, and that he comes from by far the most multicultural background of any president in U.S. history, is an encouraging harbinger for the future of our increasingly multicultural nation in an increasingly multipolar world.

"Conversations with History: Steven Chu, A Scientist's Random Walk," U.C. Berkeley, Feb. 13, 2004

Chinese Girl the Youngest Woman to Attain the Title of Chess Grandmaster Ever

14-year old Chinese Hou Yifan (侯逸凡) has achieved another milestone in her brief but spectacular career in chess competitions this fall: the title of International Grandmaster with an Elo rating of 2578. At the age of 14 years and 6 months, she became the youngest woman to achieve the highest rank in chess, and is currently the youngest grandmaster of either sex.

Back in 1991, Hungarian sisters Zsuzsanna (Susan) Polgár and Judit Polgár became the third and fourth women to achieve the title of International Grandmaster, and the first women to do so by achieving it the regular way --- three grandmaster (GM) norms and an Elo rating over 2500. The previous two holders, Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, who competed in chess in women-only events at a time when men and women played in segregated tournaments and matches, had been awarded the GM title for the World Chess Federation (FIDE) under special circumstances. To this date FIDE maintains separate ratings and separate world championship cycles for women, who can earn norms for the Woman FIDE Master (WFM), Woman International Master (WIM), and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). However, the Polgár sisters, Susan, Sofia, and Judit broke the sexual barrier by competing in previously men-only events. Today, women routinely compete in open events and some have earned FIDE Master (FM), International Master (IM) and Grandmaster (GM) titles, which have more demanding norms than the women-only titles.


Judit Polgár gained her GM title at the age of 15 years and 4 months, thereby breaking the record for the youngest grandmaster, held previously by American Bobby Fischer, who had achieved the title at 15 years and 6 months back in 1958. Fischer subsequently defeated Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in 1972, thereby breaking the monopoly of the Soviets on the world chess championship, and becoming a Cold War hero and icon.

In 2002, Humpy Koneru of India became the youngest girl to gain the grandmaster title, beating Judit Polgár's record by 3 months. Now Koneru's own record has been broken by Hou Yifan by 7 months. However, the youngest person of either sex to attain the grandmaster title remains Sergey Karjakin of the Ukraine, who did so in 2002 at 12 years and 7 months.

Born Feb. 27, 1994 at Xinghua (兴化) in Jiangsu (江苏) Province, Hou Yifan demonstrated a precocious gift for chess at a very age[ch]. At the age of 6 she was sent to the Shandong Evening News Chess Academy (齐鲁晚报棋院). Hou's progress was rapid. She became a national master at age 8, national grandmaster at age 9, the youngest representative of a Chinese national team at age 10, and the world's youngest Woman Grandmaster at age 13. Among her competitive successes are: 1st place in the girl's under-10 section of the 2003 World Youth Championship; reached the final 16 in the 2006 Women's World Chess Championship at age 12; silver medal for fourth (reserve) board performance at the 2006 Chess Olympiad; youngest player to win the Chinese Women's Chess Championship at age 13 in 2007.

Hou Yifan in Kabardin Costume at Nalchik

Having already won her second China's women chess championship and attained two of the three required GM norms earlier in 2008, Hou Yifan competed in the Women's World Chess Championship, held at Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic in Russia, from August 28 to September 18. She reached the finals against Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk, who has been dubbed as "the Anna Kournikova of chess," as she "has traded on her looks, modeling for fashion magazines like the European editions of Vogue and Marie Claire, and selling bikini-clad images of herself through her Web site."

Kosteniuk put the comparison with Kournikova to rest by winning her match with Hou 2 1/2 to 1 1/2, thereby becoming the 14th women's world champion. Despite this near miss at becoming world champion, Hou Yifan did achieve the third and final GM norm during the championship. "Kosteniuk said she was afraid of how strong Hou would become in a few years, and predicted that Hou would soon dominate women’s competitions."

Hou Yifan's success, however, is not a fluke. Her innate talent has been nurtured by a system that has made China into a formidable chess power in only a couple of decades, particularly in women's competitions. At the Shandong Evening News Chess Academy, she had trained under IM Tong Yuanming (童渊铭), who was national champion in 1993 and a renowned chess coach whose students have won scores of championships [ch] in world and national competitions. After Hou won a gold medal at the 2003 World Youth Championship, Tong introduced her to train with GM Ye Jiangchuan (叶江川), the chief coach of the Chinese national men's and women's teams since 2000.

Although China's number of titled players (85) is very small compared with several other countries (1844 for Russia, 1068 for Germany, 500 for the United States, 386 for Ukraine, and 371 for Hungary), its competitive strength is very high as measured by the average rating of the top 10 players. China's men ranked third in the world with an average rating of 2651 as compared to Russia's 2719 and Ukraine's 2690. China's women are top-ranked with an average rating of 2479 as compared with Russia's 2457 and Ukraine's 2428. It appears that China's chess system under the Chinese Chess Association (中国国际象棋协会) [ch] focuses on training a small number of internationally highly competitive players who can win medals and championships abroad rather than promoting the popularity of the game among the masses. If that is a correct assessment, then the situation for chess is similar to that for sports. "China's sports system is an elite programme that pools the best youngsters and trains them in athletic academies at various levels." As Jin Can, a sports researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, points out, "This `gold medal strategy' means every official, from the top level to the grass roots, focuses on producing only gold-medal-winning athletes. Only the sports directors who can train gold-winning athletes are good directors ... As a result, the officials care only about achieving good results. They don't care about promoting sport to the public ... There is a consensus among academics that the new strategy should promote mass participation in sports activities."

There is no denial however, that China has become a great chess power, particularly in women's competitions. In 1991, Xie Jun (谢军) broke the monopoly held by players from the former Soviet Union in the women's world championships since 1950 by defeating Georgia's Maya Chiburdanidze, who had held the title since 1978, in a title match. After losing the title to Susan Polgar of Hungary in 1996, Xie regained the title in 1999 and held it till 2001. Two other Chinese women have also become world champions: Zhu Chen (诸宸), who won the title in 2001 by defeating Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia (the current world champion) but did not defend her title in 2004 because of pregnancy; Xu Yuhua (许昱华), who won the title in 2006 with a victory in the finals over Russian IM Alisa Galliamova.

The Chinese women's team has been highly successful in the biennial Chess Olympiads, winning a medal in all competitions between 1990 and 2006: 4 golds, 1 silver, and 4 bronzes. The men's team has been less successful, winning a medal only in 2006 with a second place finish. China's performance at the 2008 Chess Olympiad in Dresden, however, was disappointing. Both the men's and women's teams were seeded no. 3, but finished no. 7 in the open section and no. 8 in the women's section respectively. Armenia won the open section, while Georgia broke the Chinese women's string of medals in the Olympiads and won the gold medal by defeating China 2 1/2 to 1 1/2 in the 10th round and Serbia 3 to 1 in the 11th round.

Xie Jun, World Champion, 1991-1996, 1999-2001

Zhu Chen, World Champion, 2001-2004

Xu Yuhua, World Champion, 2006-2008

Three-Peat for China: Chinese Dominance at the Olympics, the Paralympics, and the World Mind Sports Games

Tang Dynasty Ladies, Opening Ceremony, Aug. 8, 2008

China's splendid performances and spectacular shows along with controversies about alleged underaged gymnasts and a lip-synching young singer at the Beijing Olympics have attracted worldwide attention. Although the United States won the most medals (36 gold, 38 silver and 36 bronze for a total of 110), the Chinese team had the most gold medals (51) to go along with 21 silver medals and 28 bronze medals.

Yang Wei (杨威), Gold Medalist in Men's All Around Gymnastics

Some Western commentators see the sports rivalry between China and the U.S. as "a competition between systems, between state-sponsored athletes and individualists, East and West, democracy and the single-party state." Michael Allen Gillespie of Duke University points out that in fact Americans brought home more gold medals than Chinese citizens. This is because in official counts a team medal is counted the same as an individual medal, whereas in the actual awarding of the medals, all 12 members of the U.S. basketball team, for example, get one gold medal each, while the Chinese winner of the men's table tennis singles gets just one medal. Because Americans do better in team sports such as basketball than the Chinese, the Americans actually hauled in more medals: by Gillespie's count, "Americans took home 118 gold medals, 99 silver medals and 76 bronze medals, while the Chinese took home 76 gold, 35 silver and 38 bronze medals. That is 293 total medals for the USA to 149 for China." For Gillespie America's superiority in team sports over China is no accident:

Voluntary cooperation has always been a hallmark of the American system, suffusing the lives of children and adults alike, an outstanding factor in our playrooms and in our boardrooms.

China, by contrast, has always put much less emphasis on voluntary cooperation than on hierarchical control and the obligation of those below to take directions from those above. Such discipline and obedience can produce individuals who become superb at repeating individual tasks, as in the diving competitions where the Chinese were outstanding, but it cannot produce the creativity and voluntary cooperation necessary to the successful operation of a team.

Dancers at Closing Ceremony, Aug. 24, 2008

Interestingly, many Chinese were not convinced that China's record number of Olympic medals mean that China is a great sports power. In an online poll on the portal 163.com on the question "Is China a great power in sports?", 4730 respondents said yes while 17,030 chose no. The naysayers pointed out that China is still weak in the most popular sports in the world, including basketball, soccer, and track and field. Moreover, many of the sports that China won gold medals are totally irrelevant to the daily lives of the people: for example, few people in China actually lift weights or row boats. Most importantly, some of the naysayers argued that "the number of gold medals implies a great investment on professional athletes training, but don’t necessarily mean adequate support for populace health and sports, namely enough stadiums, spaces, infrastructures built for common people."

Still, the shortcomings of the Chinese sports system notwithstanding, most people would argue that the Beijing Olympics was a great success for the host country and set a very high bar for future Olympics host cities beginning with London.

The Paralympics, which was held at Beijing following the Olympics from September 6 to 17, also commanded considerable global attention. The Paralympics had its origins as a program to rehabilitate British war veterans with spinal injuries, founded by neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttman in 1948. What began as sports competitions among patients of several hospitals coinciding with the London Olympics of 1948 evolved into the modern Parallel Olympics or Paralympics over time. The first Paralympics took place in Rome which was hosting the Olympics in 1960: Sir Ludwig Guttman brought 400 athletes in wheelchairs to compete there. The movement took a giant leap forward when South Korea, hosts of the Olympic Games in 1988, decided to hold a truly parallel Paralympics "staged on the same scale and lines as the Olympics." At the 2004 Athens Paralympics, a record 134 nations competed. China topped the tables for the first time, winning 63 gold medals, 46 silver medals and 32 bronze medals for a total of 141 medals.

Fireworks at the Opening Ceremony, Sept. 6,2008

The number of countries participating at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics was the largest ever: 12 more than at the Athens Paralympics. At the opening ceremony, "6,000 performers and 4,000 disabled athletes from 148 countries took part in [a three-hour spectacular show] in front of 91,000 ecstatic spectators."

Qi Shun (祁顺) of China Wins the Marathon T12 Race

China's performances at the Paralympics were even more successful than in the Olympics. 322 Chinese athletes competed in all 20 sports. China won a total of 211 medals (89 gold, 70 silver, 52 bronze), more than double the total medals won by runner-up Great Britain (102), with the United States just behind with 99 medals.

Thousand-handed Guanyin, Closing Ceremony, Paralympic Games, Sept. 17, 2008

Receiving little to no attention in the Western media is the 1st World Mind Sports Games (第一届世界智力运动会), also held in Beijing, from October 3 to October 18 of 2008. The International Mind Sports Association (IMSA), founded in 2005, includes 4 international federations among its members: World Chess Federation (FIDE), World Bridge Federation (WBF), World Draughts Federation (FMJD) and International Go Federation (IGF). According to IMSA's Web site, "The goal of IMSA was to gather different mind sports federations to pursue common aims and interests, to organize the World Mind Sport Games under the aegis of the General Association of International Sport Federations and further realize the inclusion of mind sports in the Olympic movement. In particular, the organization's long-term plans include running World Mind Sports Games by analogy with Olympics, which will be held in Olympic host cities shortly after Winter or Summer Games." The Beijing World Mind Sports Games is thus conceived as the inaugural event in the series.

According to World Bridge Federation President José Damiani, who is one of the signatories of the the founding declaration of IMSA, "We clearly consider ourselves a sport ... Our events are no different from physical sports. They are all sports." While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognizes the international bridge and chess federations, none of the mind sports are accepted as Olympic events. Nonetheless, IMSA hopes that eventually IOC can be persuaded to do so. Georgios Makropoulos, vice president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and another signatory of the founding declaration of IMSA, stated: "We hope that this event in Beijing will be so important and so big that the IOC will understand that they need us."

In fact, since the 1990s FIDE has been lobbying to gain the approval of chess as an Olympic event. Towards that goal drug tests were introduced in international chess tournaments in 2001, even though the World Anti-Doping Agency classifies chess as a "low risk sport," and it is highly unlikely that chess players can gain an edge by doping. The reason is that if chess were to become an Olympic event, it must submit to the anti-doping rules of the IOC. For the same reason the World Bridge Federation has also signed up to the World Anti-Doping Code, and at the 1st World Mind Sports Games contestants were subject to doping checks.

The 1st World Mind Sports Games featured five mind sports competitions: Bridge, Chess, Go, Draughts, and Xiangqi (Chinese Chess). 143 countries/regions and 2,763 competitors participated [ch]. The official logo "is a truelove knot which represents affinity, friendship, solidarity, communication, good luck as well as the traditional elements of China," with each sport represented by a color.

According to Xiao Min (晓敏), Assistant to the Head of the General Administration of Sport of China (国家体育总局), the World Mind Sports Games would fully actualize the theme of "harmonious development" (和谐发展) [ch] -- the harmonious development of mass sports and competitive sports, of physical sports and mind sports, and of Olympic events and non-Olympic events.

Peformance at the World Mind Sports Games' Opening Ceremony

The 1st World Mind Sports Games was again a great success for the Chinese team in total medal count, marking the third successive world sporting event that China has both hosted and finished on top. China ranked first with 12 gold medals, 8 silver medals and 6 bronze medals. Runner-up Russia had 4 gold medals, 1 silver medal and 3 bronze medals. South Korea and Ukraine, which tied for third place, each won 2 gold medals, 4 silver medals, and 3 bronze medals. The United States ranked no. 11, with just 1 gold medal and 1 bronze medal.

Go Player Gu Li (古力) Taking Oath as Representative of All Competitors at the Opening Ceremony, Oct. 3, 2008

The Chinese may have an advantage in Xiangqi, the Chinese version of chess, and indeed they won five gold medals and three silver medals in that category (Vietnam won one silver medal and two bronze medals, while Hong Kong took two bronze medals, and Australia was runner-up in the women's team competition). However, even if one discounts those medals in Xiangqi, the Chinese team is still comfortably ahead of second-ranked Russia in total medal count.

Zhao Ruquan (赵汝权) of Hong Kong, Bronze Medalist in the Men's Rapid Xiangqi Event, Playing against Ji Zhongqi (纪中启) of the U.S.

Where the Chinese fell flat on is draughts, the only category that they failed to win any medals. This category was dominated by competitors from countries that had been part of the Soviet Union who took 12 of 15 medals, with Russia winning two golds, one silver and one bronze. The United States' only gold medal at the World Mind Sports Games was won by Moscow-born Alex Moiseyev in Checkers (Mixed).

Bridge and chess are probably the two mind sports that have the broadest geographical distribution of players and competitors, and this is reflected in the diverse origins of medal winners in both categories. Bridge was the most successful category for Norway, accounting for five medals out of a total tally of six that Norwegians won at the 1st World Mind Sports Games, and also for Turkey, which won two gold medals, the only medals the Turks won at the Games. As for host China, the Chinese won one silver and two bronze medals in bridge.

Bu Xiangzhi of China, Gold Medalist in the Men's Individual Rapid Chess Event

Countries that had been part of the Soviet Union not unexpectedly did well in chess events, but their performances were nowhere as dominating as in draughts. Ukraine won 1 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze medals, which accounted for all but 2 of its overall medals. Russia managed 2 golds and 1 bronze. China was even more successful than Ukraine, winning 4 golds, 3 silvers and 2 bronzes. Chinese grandmaster Bu Xiangzhi (卜祥志) was the gold medalist in the men's individual rapid event. Teen phenom Hou Yifan (侯逸凡), who is the world's youngest grandmaster of chess at age 14 and whom I have profiled on this blog, won the bronze medal in the women's individual blitz. That event was won by Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk, who defeated Hou at the finals match of the Women's World Chess Championship earlier this year. Hou Yifan also won the gold medal in the mixed pairs rapid event (with Ni Hua (倪华) as her partner). In addition, as team member she won the silver medal in the women's teams blitz event, and the gold medal in the women's teams rapid event.

Hou Yifan of China, Winner of Four Medals in Women's Chess Events

Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia, Winner of the Women's Individual Blitz Chess Event

From the perspective of the East Asian countries, Go (weiqi 围棋 in Chinese) is probably the most prestigious of the mind sports. Go is a board game that is deceptively simple in terms of its rules, and yet profound in its strategic possibilities. Not surprisingly, all the medals were won by East Asian competitors. Although the host team garnered a respectable 5 out of 18 total medals (3 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze), it was overshadowed by the South Korean team that won 2 golds,4 silvers and 3 bronzes (which accounted for all the medals won by South Korea at this event). Japan won bronze medals in both men's team and women's team events. Taiwan (which again has to compete under the name of Chinese Taipei at the insistence of the People's Republic of China) won its only medal: a silver in the pair Go event.

China's Gold-Medal Winning Women's Go Team against Great Britain

The Taiwan team was composed of Chou Chun-Hsun (周俊勳) [ch] and Hsieh Yi-Min (謝依旻) [ch]. 28-year old Chou Chun-Hsun, the finest professional Go player in Taiwan, was the winner of the LG Cup in 2007. Born in 1989, Hsieh Yi-Min was a Go prodigy who moved to Japan to enter a Go Academy at age 12 and became the youngest female to attain a professional rank (dan 段) at age 14 in Japan. She has already won 3 of the top 4 women's Go competitions in Japan by age 19. In the finals of the pair Go event, however, this formidable team was defeated by the China team of Huang Yizhong (黄奕中) and Fan Weijing (范蔚菁). Although both are first-class players, neither have achieved the very top ranks in Go. However, they have a personal chemistry as a team [ch], able to reach tacit agreement and tolerate the mistakes of the other.

Hsieh Yi-Min & Chou Chun-Hsun Accepting Their Silver Medals in the Pair Go Event, with the Chinese Taipei Flag Behind Them

But will the Beijing World Mind Sports Games be the first of a series that will follow the Summer or Winter Olympics and the Paralympics in the same host city? The question remains open. At the press conference concluding the event on October 18, 2008 [ch], World Bridge Federation President José Damiani praised the preparation and the implementation of the Games by the Chinese host and the achievements of the Games. He pointed out that even though mind sports cannot attract as big an audience as the Olympics or the World Cup Soccer, the five mind sports featured at the 1st World Mind Sports Games are sports with the greatest number of direct participants. In his words, "There are approximately one billion people who directly participate in these five sports. This is the biggest difference for the World Mind Sports Games; it has the highest rate of participation." However, Damiani also revealed that the location of the next World Mind Sports Games has not been determined, and that several candidate host cities as alternatives to London has been lined up. "We hope that we can come to an agreement with IOC, and that the Mind Sports Games can be linked to the Olympics like the Paralympics. But at this point we have still not received a response from IOC."

Businesswoman Zhang Huamei: China's First Licensed Private Entrepreneur in the Reform Era

December of 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the era of economic reform in China. A pioneer is businesswoman Zhang Huamei (章华妹), who received her getihu license (个体工商户营业执照) from the Institute of Industry and Commerce in the city of Wenzhou (温州) in Zhejiang Province on December 21, 1980, and thus became the nation's first licensed private entrepreneur (个体户). Her story has been celebrated in the People's Daily, Sina.com, Zhejiang Commercial Network (浙商网), and other Chinese language news media.

Zhang Huamei holding her getihu license

Zhang is typical of the background of many of China's first small private businessmen in the first stages of economic reform, who took up commerce out of economic necessity because the government could not or would not find work for them. Many were youth awaiting employment (待业青年); others were newly released from prison.

As the youngest of seven siblings, Zhang Huamei had no hope of landing a regular position in a work unit (单位) -- a government or collective enterprise or institution, since each household was entitled to job placement for only one son or daughter by the state. With the encouragement of her parents, Zhang set up shop in a small room in her house adjacent to the street in the fall of 1979.

At that time people who held regular jobs in work units had social status and were entitled to social benefits such as low-cost housing and medical care. To go into business was considered to be shameful, and Zhang was shunned by her friends and schoolmates.

Business was not easy: in addition to social prejudice there was a lot of competition -- on Zhang's street more than ten families had also set up shop, following her example. Moreover, the Office to Strike at Speculators (打击投机倒把办公室) could accuse petty traders of engaging in speculation (投机倒把) and confiscate their goods. Nevertheless, by selling knitting needles, elastic bands, souvenir badges, toy watches and the like, Zhang Huamei was able to earn over 100 yuan each month, as compared to the typical monthly wages of 20 yuan for an employee of a state-run work unit.

As economic reform got underway, the Office to Strike at Speculators in Wenzhou was reorganized as the Institute of Industry and Commerce (工商所), charged with promoting commodity production and exchange. The Institute announced at the end of 1979 that licenses to legalize commercial activities would be issued. Zhang Huamei immediately applied. She finally received her license a year later, making her the first legally licensed businessman in China.

After Zhang married her neighbor Yu Xinguo (余新国) in 1982, she gave birth to a son and closed shop. Zhang resumed business in 1985, selling beads, the hot commodity of the period. She was so successful that in the following year, she entered the ranks of the 10,000-yuan household (万元户), the standard for the newly rich at that time.

Facing increasing competition as more and more Wenzhou natives entered the bead trade, Zhang Huamei switched to shoes in 1990. Unfortunately, due to her lack of knowledge about the shoe trade, over the next few years she lost her savings and even accumulated debts of tens of thousands of yuan.

After she sold off her remaining stock of shoes in Tianjian, Zhang Huamei returned to her old trade of selling garment accessories, and once again achieved success in business. Her Huamei Garment Accessories Ltd. (华妹服装辅料有限公司) today sells several millions of yuan of buttons, zippers and other garment accessories each year.

Zhang Huamei being interviewed by journalists

Today, as a single shop proprietor with five employees, Zhang Huamei is an ordinary businessman in a nation of many millionaires and billionaires. Yet, as Song Shengfeng (宋乘风), the official who issued her a getihu license back in 1980 pointed out, that license announced the end of an era and the beginning of a new one [ch]. The rise and fall and rise of Zhang Huamei as a businessman epitomize the era of economic reform [ch]. As Zhang reminiscences, just over one hundred individual proprietors in Wenzhou got licenses at about the same time as she did, and the process took a year. The number of individual proprietors in the nation surpassed 1 million at the end of 1981 and 10 million at the end of 1987. Many of those who jumped into the sea of commerce (下海经商) in that first wave became so successful that today they run companies and even conglomerates.

The growth of individual proprietorships reached a peak at the end of the 1990s, numbering 31.6 million in 1999. As a result of cutthroat competition and some enterprises neglecting product quality, the number declined to 25 million at the end of 2006, leading some to predict the demise of individual proprietorships. However, the number rose back up to 27.4 million units by the end of 2007. As of November 2008, there are 285,321 units in Wenzhou. The process to apply for a license at the Industry and Business Bureau (工商局) can be completed in a single day.

The global financial crisis has affected the Wenzhou economy adversely. Yet, entrepreneurs such as Zhang Huamei depend on the domestic market, and may ride out the storm better than those in regions that are export-oriented, such as the Pearl River Delta. She is hopeful that Wenzhou can overcome current difficulties.

MIT professor Yasheng Huang has pointed out that Zhejiang Province (where Wenzhou is located) offers a significantly different model of achieving economic wealth from that of its neighbors to the north, Jiangsu Province and Shanghai Municipality. Although all three administrative units are among the richest province-level units in China, in Huang's words, "Zhejiang is rich because it has grown faster; Jiangsu [and Shanghai] is rich because it has always been rich." In Jiangsu and Shanghai, "the reigning economic model is to court, woo, and placate foreign investors while imposing onerous regulatory and financial constraints on indigenous entrepreneurs." In contrast, "The Zhejiang model is characterized by a heavy reliance on private initiatives, a noninterventionist government style in the management of firms, and a supportive credit policy stance toward private companies. Probably the most famous product of the Zhejiang model is Wenzhou, a city in southern Zhejiang province that today accounts for a disproportionate share of rich entrepreneurs, asset owners, and China's manufacturing prowess." Prof. Huang is likely to share Zhang Huamei's guarded optimisim concerning the future of Wenzhou.