I was looking at Far Eastern Games awhile ago. However, since Taiwan’s own baseball only started to pick up just as the Far Eastern Athletic Association dissolved, only a handful of Taiwanese participated, mostly in track and fields, such as Tiunn Sing-Hiân (張星賢) who went to the last Far Eastern Games in the Philippines (1934). Tiunn was also the first Taiwanese person to compete in the Olympics (1932’s LA Olympics, he competed in the 400m hurdles event). Tiunn attended the 1936 Berlin Olympics as well and participated in the 4 × 400m relay.
In the 1921 Far Eastern Games, Lí Iân-ti̍k (李延澤) and Siau Lo̍k-siān (蕭樂善) also represented Japan in the Far Eastern Games in the 100 yard dash, long jump, high jump and pole vaulting events.
Since the Far Eastern Games ended, Japan came up with its own versions of “international” sporting events to distract it’s citizens from the on going war effort. These are the East Asian Games.
The first one held in Manchuria, August of 1939, was actually called Japan-Manchuria-China Friendship Games (日滿華交歡競技大會). The Japanese choice of kanji is a bit obscene in Chinese, as the word 交歡 typically means sex in Modern Chinese. I’m sure most Chinese had a good laugh when they saw that title, as the Japanese army defeated them time and time again in battle. The Chinese representation was sent by the puppet state in Beijing, Provisional Government of the Republic of China.
The next 2, one held in Japan, June of 1940, and one held in Manchuria, August of 1942 are called East Asian Games. The 1940 games was the biggest and most international one, with the Philippines and Hawaii both sending delegations to Japan. They were absent from the 1942 games because Japan invaded both places in 1941. The Chinese delegation in these games were sent by the Wang Jin-wei led Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China in Nanjing.
Here are the Japanese’s records of the 1940 East Asian Games:
As far as baseball goes:
Japan 4A:3 Hawaii
Manchuria 7A:2 Philippines
Philippines 4A:2 Hawaii
Japan 5A:3 Manchuria
Manchuria 1A:0 Hawaii
Japan 8:1 Philippines
Very little detail is offered in the records. There’s no mention of player’s names. There’s something interesting in the boxing and wrestling events though.
Both events seemed to be played only by Japan and the Philippines. The matches are more like a team event rather than individual events as we are accustomed to. Each team has several boxers or wrestlers and the gold is awarded to the team with the most wins.
There are several Taiwanese or Korean names on the Japanese teams. For Boxing there’s 李禧昱, 鄭鳳鉉, 文光一 and 文春成. For wrestling there’s 郭東允 and 黃柄寬.
