Taiwan Today

Since a young English schoolboy, William Bebb Ellis, in 1823 introduced a variation into soccer, rugby football has nourished, spreading to more than 50 countries. Rugby in Asia followed the British, coming to British stations in distant cities, like Shanghai in mainland China, in the late 1800's. British army and navy elements in many colonies of the Far East introduced rugby in the areas where they were posted, and some scholars also carried the game with them, along with the old school tie. Taiwan's rugby, somewhat uniquely, was introduced from Japan in the early 1920's. Though several groups have claimed credit for initiating the first rugger team in Taiwan, the Taiwan Rugby Football Union gives formal credit to Chen Ching-chuang, a graduate of a Japanese university who began teaching at Tamkang High School here on the island in 1923. At the end of that year, he organized the first all­ Chinese rugger team at a time when Taiwan was still under Japanese occupation. Chen's first rugby match was staged a year later. Tamkang played a Japanese team, dubbed Taipei United, and Tamkang won. Over the following 10 years, 19 additional games were played, pitting Chinese against Japanese. Then World War II broke out, and rugby activity was halted. After the war, when Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China, the Japanese rugby coaches and players, along with other Japanese on Taiwan, left for their own homes in Japan, leaving behind them a rugby vacuum. Yet, very soon after, in 1946, veteran local players and fans got together and formed the Taiwan Rugby Football Union to promote the sport. The Union, which was originally only two teams and several scores of members, now embraces 100 teams. And as in other countries, the players are now heroes, symbols of he-man achievement—it takes strength, discipline, skill, and cooperation to be a good rugby team player. Because the participation of young ROC athletes in many international athletic events was blocked by the Chinese Communists—for whom "ping pong" diplomacy has a much darker side—the Taiwan Rugby Football Union took the initiative and organized the Pan Pacific Youth Rugby Football Tournament for all young ruggers in the Pacific region. The ROC, United States, Japan, and Tonga joined in the first tournament in 1979, with the ROC's historic Tamkang team emerging as first place winner. In the second tournament, in Taipei, New Zealand, Korea, and Tonga participated, and New Zealand took the championship. West Samoa triumphed in the third tournament. The Fourth Pan Pacific Youth Rugby Footfall Tournament was recently staged in Taiwan's rainy port city of Keelung, with ten teams from seven countries participating—Japan, Korea, Thailand, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, the Solo­mon Islands, and the Republic of China. After eight days of struggling, scrimmaging, kicking, tackling, and near swimming on a swampy field—muck mixed with very regular rains—the three participating ROC teams finished one, two, three, sweeping the tournament and setting the stage for more widespread competition in 1985.