Counting from the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, South Korean athletes has won 95 gold medals.
Since 1984, Taiwanese athletes have won only 7 gold medals.
Taiwan and South Korea are at about the same level of economic development. Although South Korea has more than twice the population of Taiwan, it has won more than 10 times as many gold medals at the Olympics.
Why do Taiwanese athletes perform far worse than South Korea in the Olympics?
There are nearly 51 million people in Korea, the more the better. Besides Taiwan is not that well developed in terms of sport venues. I live in a fairly big town /120,000/ and there is no a proper gym, no sport venues apart from basketball courts which is not enough.
Chabuduoism.
In Taiwan you learn how to make a half-decent bowl of noodles, in a half-decent flat, then go out and drink half-flat beer, while jamming with your friends in a half-hearted jam band.
Now imagine how this attitude is going to translate to pole-vaulting, or the triple jump.
Two words: afternoon bushiban
That’s not even a reason. Don’t Korean students go to cram schools?
The population density of South Korea is similar to that of Taiwan.
That’s not even a reason. Don’t Korean students go to cram schools?
It’s the probiotics and chili pepper in all the kimchi the Koreans eat.
Maybe Korean kids are actually allowed by their mothers to run around and break a sweat?
I don’t think Taiwanese culture is nearly as serious as Korean culture regarding sports – it seems a lot of middle class and above parents here are reluctant for their kid to get too far into sports, as there is a (tbh well-founded) fear that going the sports route will hurt their kid’s career potential (and their future safety net). I have heard that this is slowly changing though.
Korea obviously places academics higher than sports too, but they are HYPER COMPETITIVE regarding just about every facet of life. Combine that with (my opinion) one of the highest levels of patriotism in this region and plenty of funding from a government eager to boost their soft power projection…and you have what we have today.
I think sports isn’t given that much importance in Taiwan . Except that badminton girl,I don’t know any taiwanese sportsperson
Then again I wonder what is the thing taiwanese are usually in the top regarding international competitions if not sports
Please move this out of Taiwan politics
This really should be Taiwan versus East Asia, rather than versus Korea only. Japan, China, and South Korea all do very well in sports. For the other East Asian countries, the reasons for their poor performance are fairly obvious.
So why does Taiwan do so bad in sports? It’s cultural (not much importance is placed on sports), and political (the government simply doesn’t support sports financially).
It’s not genetic. Look how well Taiwan does in little league baseball, for example. And look how well Taiwanese do as adults in later years. There was that seriously badass ultra marathon runner a few years ago, as an example.
After elementary school, financial support from the government essentially disappears.
If those statistics include Winter Olympic medals, that could easily explain a big chunk of the disparity. Korea has a temperate climate with presumably decent training facilities for winter sports. I doubt if Taiwan has any winter sports athletes at all. Plus, I’m guessing, winter medals are competitively easier to earn in large amounts, since fewer countries even join the games (due to climate). If you just checked summer medals, I wonder if the medal/population ratio would be much closer
The statistics I listed for Korea do not include medals from the Winter Olympics, as I realize that the Winter Olympics are virtually non-existent for the Taiwanese.
The statistics I listed for Korea do not include medals from the Winter Olympics
taiwan pride isnt as big as korean pride. older koreans swear by LG, Samsung, etc decades ago, thinking that these brands are far superior than anything else. Do you see an equivalent brand like this? The good ol’ Tatung with the same old tech?
I think that’s because Taiwan has not produced too many world class brands… so there is nothing to be overly proud of in the tech sphere.
You need rigorous and consistent honesty to develop a product. You have to tell your colleague, or hear, “Im not sure if that would work” a thousand times, and still get on as teammates. A culture where everyone has to tap-dance around every difficult conversation will not help. That could make product development 5 times slower than other countries, and they will simply outpace you.
Added to that, you have a culture where the “high class” managers will rarely listen to their employees on any subject. How can anyone develop a good product under those conditions?.
Im not having a go at Taiwanese workers. They are punctual, honest, diligent, have integrity, etc…
I think Taiwan has some of the best workers in SEA, and the worst managers.
If this culture translates to the sports world, I can see why things go wrong.
HTC 
HTC
Yes it’s a friggin’ sentence
Damn. I thought maybe I had cracked it. In that case, I have no idea