rugby

Rugby is an alien sport to me. i seldom see it on sports channel or read it on newspaper, and have never heard anyone discuss it before. Today i saw a movie, Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood. Rugby plays a good part in the movie. It becomes a symbol of how the people of South Africa unite together under the leadership of Nelson Mandela. It may be an exaggeration or over-simplification that a sport can have such a great power, but it gives me, a foreigner, a rough sketch of reconciliation between black and white after the apartheid in South Africa. i can feel the same aspiration, as a baseball fan, that spans across the racial and political differences; black and white over there, blue and green here in Taiwan. To my surprise, Taiwan also plays a part in the movie; couple of appearances of our national flag, and Nelson's plan to visit Taiwan in the conversation; and i feel as if Taiwan were a member of the UN, eyes smart with brimming tears. While rugby satisfies their hunger for extraordinary, our national sport, baseball, is plagued by game manipulation. Money, that's what we are famous for.