Reform in the air
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 8:26 am
It appears that becoming a pro is about to become easier for those with real talent and harder for those without in Korea. Despite the best of intentions, the current system, sometimes called the Korean Insei League, is actually having the opposite effect, according to some, and is creating other problems.
A proposal to start reforming the system has been floated by the Hanguk Giwon in the Korean press. It will apparently be voted on on 3 June 2010, though it is as yet unclear what the new system would entail. The focus at present seems to be to do anything that gets rid of the current problems.
One current problem is stagnation. There are many players in the league but only one or two become pro at a time, and so the rest stay in the league until the age limit passes, causing a bottleneck. An 18-year-old at the top end of the league may have little realistic hope of becoming a pro, and even less of becoming a successful one, but he may still be strong enough to block a still developing 13-year-old with exceptional talent. Many believe that fast tracking the talented youngster may be the better policy. The likes of Gu Li and Kong Jie in China are quoted as examples, which seems to imply that the Koreans are looking at China for inspiration.
More problematical is what may be called the human cost. People who have obsessively stayed on to 18 and failed to turned pro have probably lost out on both a formal education and a social education. The phraseology being used is borrowed from human rights - these people are apparently regarded as suffering from a "deprivation of the right to the pursuit to happiness", which is a somewhat amusing but typically Oriental view of rights. This large number of too-old young Korean wannabee professionals, who are now looking to Japan and Taiwan as outlets for their obsession, was once pithily described by a distinguished British observer as "go bums". It seems, despite the stark difference in terminology, that the Koreans themselves are not too happy with the phenomenon.
There may, of course, be hidden currents. Conceivably this is a case of the Empire Strikes Back. Older Korean pros, now frozen out of the tournament prizes, may be pushing for a return to the system of pupillage where they provide all the future pros through their own schools.
It also looks, incidentally, in the various discussions, as if no concessions will be made to make it easier for westerners to become pros in Korea. Domestic concerns seem to have overtaken aspirations to spread the game internationally, just as, judging by the fall-off in new books from Korea, they appear also to have drastically revised their rather naive estimates of possible sales in the west.
But I stress that this is all merely discussion of a proposal at this stage.
A proposal to start reforming the system has been floated by the Hanguk Giwon in the Korean press. It will apparently be voted on on 3 June 2010, though it is as yet unclear what the new system would entail. The focus at present seems to be to do anything that gets rid of the current problems.
One current problem is stagnation. There are many players in the league but only one or two become pro at a time, and so the rest stay in the league until the age limit passes, causing a bottleneck. An 18-year-old at the top end of the league may have little realistic hope of becoming a pro, and even less of becoming a successful one, but he may still be strong enough to block a still developing 13-year-old with exceptional talent. Many believe that fast tracking the talented youngster may be the better policy. The likes of Gu Li and Kong Jie in China are quoted as examples, which seems to imply that the Koreans are looking at China for inspiration.
More problematical is what may be called the human cost. People who have obsessively stayed on to 18 and failed to turned pro have probably lost out on both a formal education and a social education. The phraseology being used is borrowed from human rights - these people are apparently regarded as suffering from a "deprivation of the right to the pursuit to happiness", which is a somewhat amusing but typically Oriental view of rights. This large number of too-old young Korean wannabee professionals, who are now looking to Japan and Taiwan as outlets for their obsession, was once pithily described by a distinguished British observer as "go bums". It seems, despite the stark difference in terminology, that the Koreans themselves are not too happy with the phenomenon.
There may, of course, be hidden currents. Conceivably this is a case of the Empire Strikes Back. Older Korean pros, now frozen out of the tournament prizes, may be pushing for a return to the system of pupillage where they provide all the future pros through their own schools.
It also looks, incidentally, in the various discussions, as if no concessions will be made to make it easier for westerners to become pros in Korea. Domestic concerns seem to have overtaken aspirations to spread the game internationally, just as, judging by the fall-off in new books from Korea, they appear also to have drastically revised their rather naive estimates of possible sales in the west.
But I stress that this is all merely discussion of a proposal at this stage.
