Sang @sangbae13 - Tumblr Blog

Wellington Part 2

Today we had our first Maori speaker. Over this trip we only heard from Pakeha speakers therefore we only had one view of the race relations in sports. But today I got a glimpse into the other side.

I would like to start back at Dunedin, when I went to the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. Our tour guide at the hall of Fame was Pakeha. I quote him saying roughly that “in New Zealand all races are seen as equals and that there is no race problems in sport.” But like any nation there are underlining issues.

Issues regarding who has the honor of getting into the hall of fame, who chooses and elected the people that make the final decisions? And why are most if not all the sport hall of fame athletes ‘white’? You must be thinking well no Maori or Pacific Islander must have achieved great success. But that is the opposite. There are tons of Maori and Pacific Islander athletes that are great in the sport of rugby.

But just like our Maori speaker said “why have these race issues, just get over it and lets all move on.” In a prefect world this would be possible but we do not live in a prefect world. We live in a world were the people in power are mostly wealthy, white men and these men will remain in power for a long time.

Our visit to the NZRU, New Zealand Rugby Union, our speaker told us that the people who oversee the NZRU are all older white men with money and have one Maori representative. Out of a group of 10-13 people how can one Maori representative create change for the better if all the others come from a different world culture. Just like the US, the people in power are these wealthy white men and they have a similar way of thinking. And when you are no in that group you will be most likely be marginalized and exploited.

New Zealand sports have not gotten to the extremes like US sports. Since there is a governing body that oversee almost all sports it has not become like the US completely. But as sports in New Zealand becomes more privatized in the coming years I believe New Zealand sports will become like sports in the US. Where the sports brings in millions of dollars and most of that money will be put into the pockets of the people in power and little or no money goes into the grassroots sports.

This change will be slow but I predict in the next 10-25 years most sports teams will be all privately owned and managed. The next question that should be asked is what will happen to the grassroot sports if this were to happen. Will it also become privatized like the US, where parents who can afford clubs and camps will pay for their children to play sports or will governing bodies like the NZRU continue to fund grassroot sports?

Wellington Part 1

It has just begin to hit me that in a few days I will be back home. I will be missing New Zealand with all its crazy weather and everything else. But mostly I will be missing the people. The people of New Zealand are so nice and modest that it is almost unexplainable to a US audience. This nice and modest personality even is reflective in sports and sports athletes.

The phrase I have been hearing throughout the trip is “better men, make better All Blacks.” This idea that no one man is more important that the team is so great. They call it tall poppy syndrome, and if you are being a dickhead for a lack of better terms the other members in the team will regulate your behavior. These athletes are role models and all of these athletes are pretty much great role models.

Though the players are modest and people are nice and modest, it does not translate to fan behavior. We recently learned that there is a huge problem concerning fan behavior. From the under six athletes to the professional athletes. From what I have gathered, the issue is due to many complex reasons. One way of explaining it is the coaches and referees in the game of rugby. The coaching and referees in the grassroots level are all volunteers. And because of that some will make mistakes.

Parents forget that the young kids play the game for fun. Trying to remind parents that at the younger ages winning is not the important part of the sport but learning social skills and having some form of physical activity. I hope that with the audience programs created to make better audiences will succeed and bring the humble and modest Kiwi culture to audience participation.

I want to bring this back to the idea of the modest and humble Kiwi culture and try to ask you why would a country that is so humble have poor audience participation? In the U.S. it is normal to have crappy audience participation. And the American culture is known to be selfish therefore not being humble is a given. But why would a culture that is rooted in modestly and humbleness be terrible audiences?

Following day I felt great mostly because I had a blast with the hike and luge. But most importantly Dan and I skydived from 15,000 ft. We had around 60 seconds of free fall. Not to menation that we also saw the Isengard valley from Lord of the Rings on our way down. All the pictures from the skydiving were really bad since I look like I was closing my eyes. I swear I saw everything. Also the fact that I was falling from the sky around 90mph might make my face a little bad. We booked our jump at 10am and if you have ever been to Queenstown you know that its cloudy in the morning every morning. We were talking about how it should have booked it later since the clouds would be a problem but just like the vistit to Hobbiton as soon as we got there the weather was perfect. My tandom master was talking about how this was one of the best jumps he had since there was a huge clear hole in the sky surronded by clouds. Let me take the time to talk about the views. The mountains were unbelievable. And the CLOUDS! There were clouds at different levels in the sky. We started way above the clouds and during the freefall we passed most of the clouds. During the glide there were clouds around half the hieght of the mountains and just passing by them... I have to say I can not put it into words. No really there is no words to describe it. You just have to come here. We came back from the skydive and got these amazing burgers at Fergburger. They began operating since 2000, but everyday I walked by it the line was basically a half a block or block long. But today the line was not that long so we got the Ferg Burger. As our lunch was coming to an end the we saw couple of the girls in line at Ferg Burger. We all said we would to kayaking after lunch so thats what we did. But when I got there, they had paddleboards so I wanted to be the odd man out and went paddleboarding. That was basically the end the day and I'm in the middle of planning the day for tomorrow. Lets see what awaits.

The day started with a hike up to the gondola. After Dan came back from his bungy jumping the six of us set out on the hike. Let me say this was not the casual hike that we did a few days ago. The first fifthteen minutes of the hike was at a 20 degree incline. I assume they made it that way to weed out the quiters and make them pay to go up the gondola. The six of us planned to hike up to the gondola and then meet up with two other people then hike up to the top of Ben Lomond track. Here is where things took a turn. Four of us stayed at the gondola to due the track and four others just wanted to walk up more. We aggreed that after my group found out how the luge around the gondola worked, we would hike up and catch up to the other group. You can only imagine that this did not happen. After my group found out that the luge did not go to the bottom of the mountain and that it was closing at 8pm I ran up to try and catch up to the others, Dan was following me. But Dan took the wrong turn and get up to the paragliding hill and not the Ben Lomond track. After my legs got tried from running up a mountain, I basically said F*** it and walked back to the luge. I when I got back I only saw two others not knowing Dan took the wrong track. The three of us waited another 30 minutes for Dan and the four of us finally just went down the luge. The luge was a great time. Saw Dan hit the side during a turn and Chole, Amber,, and I were the three that did not hit a wall. We than proceed to walk back down and the decline of the mountain was a killer on my knees. This was the day when six people went up but only four came down.

Professional sport is so close to the community. It can be seen in this picture here. I’m holding the Super Rugby Trophy. This is the trophy awarded to the champions of the Super Rugby division. The comparison to the US is holding the Lombardi Trophy or Ryder Cup. Which would never happen in the US, unless you are the one winning it. How many people can say they held a professional sports trophy?

I believe due to the population of the county allows New Zealand professional sport to be close to the people. In the past few days I saw three different professional teams practice and training. Back in the US I have never seen any professional sports teams practicing in person, let alone speaking with their managers or coaches.

As professional sports becomes more popular and more privatized in New Zealand it would be interesting to see if sports here becomes more like sports in the US. As more money goes into sports will professional sport be taken out of the community and put on a different level like the US. Will people still have access to the professional athletes like now in 5, 10, 15 years?

A casual hike Turned into a death sentence But with a great view

At the peak we sat Taking in the scenery We all made it safe

Hike down was easy Looking out for tomorrow But toast time for now

Toast time was foreign Yet it was fantastic time Made great memories

I will part adieu Until the next real blog post Goodnight and sweetas

#New Zealand #haiku #organpipes

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

I went on an adventure today, to a little town of Hobbiton, Middle-Earth. My journey started before dawn as my friends and I rode south. Passing the great mountain ranges of Angmar and the Hills of Evendium. The lush green fields were an excellent sight to see. If you are ever here in passing I recon you will enjoy the sights.

Our journey got us to Overhill road and took the wrong turn and ended up at Bag End. The hobbit holes were much smaller in person than I would have though. So were the hobbits. The tallest were just shy of 4 feet. Interesting that Bag End was the largest hole but had a sign saying “no admittance exception party business.”

The town was a buzz for Bilbo Baggin’s eleventy-one birthday. We weren’t in town long so we didn’t meet this Bilbo character but we made our way to the Green Dragon. Had a filling lunch with meat and potatoes and ale.

As we were finishing up lunch we took the time to sit by the lake and just look at the view of the little hobbits running around preparing for the big party. It was a shame we couldn’t stay and after a small lunch break we continued our journey south.

Alas I hereby bid you adieu. As we ride on to Mordor. The one place in Middle-Earth we don’t want to see any closer. And it’s the one place we’re trying to get to. It’s just where we can’t get.

#LOTR #theshire #middleearth

Just another day at a sports stadium. Today we went and visited the Mt. Smart Stadium. The stadium is home to the Warriors who are a rugby league that plays in Australia. This stadium is a host to all sorts of events like soccer, music concerts, and other sporting games.

What I did find interesting was that since the Warriors are playing in the Australian Rugby League all the games for the warriors are scheduled around the time zone in Australia. And our tour guide today told us the attendance of the games are not that high on Saturdays compared to Sunday games since there are so many other things to do on Saturdays.

Since the Warriors play in the Australian league I wonder how much of that affects the attendance and interest for the people living in New Zealand. Rugby Union is the dominate sport in New Zealand but at the same time Rugby League is still rugby. Though the two are different games I wonder if Rugby League will become as formal and structured as Rugby Union in New Zealand.

Since Rugby League is much more popular in Australia it makes sense that the Warriors play in a league in Australia but I wonder if Sport New Zealand will structure Rugby League more formally in the future.

On that note, Sport New Zealand is the government body that makes the rules and regulations for all sports in New Zealand. They also fund the key sports as this idea of an investment on return and the return is basically public health and medal counts. But just like any government bodies, certain sports get more funding and certain sports get less. When funding runs short the first couple sports that gets cut are female rugby and Maori rugby. But at the same time women’s rugby might perform better than the men’s, and the justification is that “since you won, you will win again.”

I would like to end here with that and leave you with the idea that why at this day in age there isn’t that much money in women’s sports. More often than not these women are playing at a high level and performing better than there male counterparts. Like that of UMD’s basketball. A few years ago the men’s team were not that great but attendance was still high, while the women’s team had get performance with low attendance. What can be done so that in the future there will be more equality or will it ever be equal?

With the small Q&A in Eden Park’s weight room we had an interesting talk about the rugby structure in New Zealand. In the past three years kids of ages 17-19 coming out of school have the possible to be signed by a Super XV. The Super XV is the professional level rugby right below the New Zealand All Blacks national team. Since this has been happening over the past few years the club rugby scene in New Zealand has been on the decline. The club rugby in New Zealand was traditionally above the high school teams but with the rise of the high school teams the pool of rugby players for club has been declining. I believe that there isn’t a similar comparison for the United States since most of the professionals athletes take the traditional route of playing in high school, then college, and then hopefully getting signed. But in New Zealand kids have the chance to go straight from high school to the professional leagues.

I would like to see the affects of having the chance to go professional at such an early age. Do students in New Zealand just focus on sports for the chance go to into the Super XV? I wonder if students push aside school to practice sports? Do stereotype like athletes not taking school seriously for the sake that they will go professional happen at the high school level for New Zealand students like that of the top US college athletes? Will the New Zealand government place in laws that bans students with low grades from playing sports or already have them? Since the lure of going professional is there I believe that some form of system would need to be put into place in the education system so that students don’t slack off in school.

Started the day with a lecture with Tony Bruce. This idea of a country of four million opened by eyes. The 2011 World Rugby Cup (WRC) was advertised as a country that adopted rugby as a whole. Dr. Bruce look at how critical this idea was and through her research it was seen that there was a large population of people that wasn’t that involved. But since the games were hosted in New Zealand it was almost unavoidable and because of that many people had to act like they were part of the whole WRC train. Some people wanted the All Blacks to win because of the fear of violence. But what was most interesting was that the role of the women in being part of rugby. Women in New Zealand are mostly pushed out of rugby and even questioned on why they do play rugby if they happen to play it. The role of women in rugby is the stereotypical role of kitchen and household roles. It was different from my views on rugby back in the States because my little sister plays rugby in WVU and women playing rugby in the States isn’t looked so down on like it is in New Zealand.

oh sweet sweet ice cream

Entry 1

Just met up with the UMD students the New Zealand trip. Had a very chill day, walking around the city. A lot of walking was involved. According to my phone I walked over 13.5 miles. But mostly today was traveling around the Central city and meeting the other students. I look foward to all of the lectures and the other activities planned out for us. Until tomorrow~~

#sweetas #thenewyears

Early morning hike to Mount Eden. Behind me is the crater of the volcano.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Sang