TOKYO - A century after an indigenous baseball team from eastern Taiwan toured Japan during the colonial era, the sport has become a lasting bridge between the two sides.
From the Noko team formed in the 1920s, through high school success at Japan's Koshien and the cultural legacy of Kano, to Taiwan's 2024 Premier12 world title, generations of players have moved along a shared path shaped by baseball, education and exchange.
A faded photograph captures players in uniforms marked with the word Noko across the chest. Beneath the image, their indigenous names are written in katakana.
The team was the Noko team (also known as Nenggao), formed in 1923 in Hualien on the east coast of Taiwan, primarily by young Amis players. Two years later, in 1925, they toured mainland Japan, recording three wins, four losses and one draw.
The team had been organized under Japanese officials stationed in Hualien. Kyoko Matsuda, a professor at Nanzan University who has studied the Noko team, points to the intent of the colonial authorities behind its creation.
She says it was likely part of a broader policy by the Taiwan Governor General's Office aimed at promoting the education of indigenous people through structured activities such as sport.
In 1926, three players from the team were recruited by Heian Junior High School in Kyoto, now Ryukoku University Heian High School. All three went on to compete in the prestigious Koshien high school baseball tournament, helping to lay the foundation of a team that would later claim four national championships across spring and summer tournaments.
Hundreds of kilometers away, in Chiayi City west of Hualien across a mountainous region, baseball is still commemorated in public monuments.
They mark the legacy of Chiayi Agricultural and Forestry Junior High School, known as Kano, which made its first appearance at the summer Koshien tournament in 1931 and finished as runner-up, led by ace pitcher Wu Ming-chieh.
The team, a rare mix of indigenous, Han Chinese and Japanese players, has since been immortalized in the 2014 Taiwanese film "KANO," which depicts their struggles and rise.
Among the players trained by coach Hyotaro Kondo, a graduate of Matsuyama Commercial Junior High School, were four indigenous members. Their success unfolded against the backdrop of Japanese rule in Taiwan.
Just a year earlier, in 1930, the Musha Incident had taken place in the mountainous regions, when indigenous residents rose up against long-standing discrimination before being suppressed by Japanese military and police forces.
Historian Andrew D. Morris, in his book "Colonial Project: A History of Baseball in Taiwan" has argued that the aftermath of the incident created pressure on both the colonial authorities and Taiwanese society, with baseball becoming a cultural space through which tensions and aspirations were expressed.
The legacy of Kano continues today through its successor, the Chiayi University baseball team, one of the strongest in Taiwan. On its green campus, indigenous vice captain Chao Chia-cheng reflects on that history.
After watching the film "KANO," he says he came to understand "the spirit of never giving up until the very end," and feels a strong connection with the players who once lifted a struggling team to prominence.
That cross-strait sporting connection continues to shape younger generations. Li Wen-hsun, who studied at Meishu Gakuen Hitachi High School in Ibaraki Prefecture, a school with a long history in the Koshien tournament, played as the cleanup hitter before passing the entrance exam to the University of Tokyo this spring. He has since joined its baseball team.
"When I was in elementary school, I watched the movie 'KANO' and thought baseball was wonderful," he said. "I also aspire to play in Japanese professional baseball. I want to help promote Asian baseball."
A century earlier, three indigenous players crossed to Japan to study at Heian Junior High School. Today, their echoes remain in the ambitions of a new generation of Taiwanese athletes whose journeys continue to be shaped by baseball, memory and exchange across the sea.
