Analysis: Why a Baseball Celebration Went Viral in Taiwan

TaiwanPlus News

Baseball commentator Daniel Shih talks about why a home run celebration by the captain of Taiwan's national team Chen Chieh-hsien at the Premier12 tournament went viral.

Transcript

00:00Taiwan's national baseball team's captain has gone viral for a gesture he made during

00:04the country's gold medal match against Japan.

00:07After hitting a critical three-run homer at the WBSC Premier 12 Tournament, Chen Jiexian

00:13seemingly pointed to a blank spot on his jersey.

00:16Taiwan competes under the name Chinese Taipei at international sporting events due to pressure

00:21from China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory.

00:25Chen says he tried to show the absence of Taiwan's name on their baseball jerseys to

00:29call attention to the restrictions Taiwan faces on the world stage.

00:50To learn more about the significance of Chen Jiexian's gesture and why it's caught on

00:54in Taiwan, Leslie Liao spoke with baseball commentator Daniel Shi.

01:00Tell us about really quickly the gesture that Chen Jiexian made.

01:04What was that gesture all about?

01:06And why was it so significant?

01:08It's one of those things that you see a lot of the other teams make.

01:12Doesn't matter if it's like here in the States, like even when you're doing like intercollegiate

01:17sports, especially when they have like the name of the school on their, on their chest

01:23of the jersey, they do a lot of this to say like, Hey, we're Texas.

01:27When you look at all the teams in the premier 12 this year, every single team has either

01:32a, some sort of abbreviation or the full name of the country on the chest, Taiwan still

01:37uses the former design.

01:39So if they change the design, but they still only have the, um, the national team logo

01:45with, which is the C and the T on the left side of the chest.

01:49And then the rest of the chest is basically blank.

01:53And then because the, because the middle of the chest is empty, but then, and then

01:59the logos on the left.

02:00And then when he was doing this, he also covered up the CT logo.

02:03So it really seemed like there was a, like he was pointing at something, pointing at

02:08nothing, which for us also felt like you're pointing at something, right?

02:12As you said, Taiwan competes as Chinese Taipei, but it's Taiwan.

02:18Why is it that Taiwan can't compete as Taiwan?

02:21The premier 12 is hosted by the world baseball softball confederation, which is the Olympic

02:27sanctioned association responsible for all international tournaments of baseball and

02:34softball.

02:35Um, if you know, Taiwan competes under Chinese Taipei, under the Olympics and all of the

02:40other, other Olympic sanctioned events.

02:45And since the premier 12 is hosted by a committee that's also sanctioned by the Olympics, then

02:52the corresponding team names has to be under, it has to be Chinese Taipei, even if they're

02:59come, you know, um, representing Taiwan.

03:02Why do you think Chen Zexian's gesture just caught on just striping his hands across the

03:07chest like that?

03:08Why is that such a huge cultural phenomenon in Taiwan right now?

03:11First of all, it's the first time team Taiwan has won a world championship at the adult

03:16level, um, in baseball.

03:19It is quite literally the first time that we can tell the rest of the baseball world

03:25that we are the best at this sport.

03:27And so that alone can manifest a lot of pride and not a lot of national pride within is

03:34so much work into this sport that we are world's number one.

03:39But when you do that, and at the same time they go online and they go Taiwan world championship

03:46by technicality, they won't find anything because the name is not Taiwan.

03:53You want to tell people where you're from.

03:56You want to tell people that you are the best.

03:59And this gesture I think is the best way to do that without actually doing it without

04:07actually saying it.

04:08And I thought that was a very, I mean, I'm a, I can't imagine being in this, being in

04:14this situation where you have probably the biggest swing of your life and you still have

04:18the ability to get, Hey, let's, you know, let's do this.

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