Professional baseball team KIA continues its precious relationship with Kyoto International High School
Professional baseball team KIA continues its precious relationship with Kyoto International High School
Blog Article
The professional baseball team KIA Tigers is seeking to continue sponsoring Kyoto International High School, which became the first school founded by Korean residents in Japan to advance to the finals of the 2024 Japan National High School Baseball Tournament (Summer Koshien), the stage of dreams, and won the championship on the 23rd.
The KIA Tigers will continue to maintain the valuable relationship with Kyoto International High School and will review the method and scale of support through internal discussions.
Kyoto International High School, run by Kyoto International Academy, is a small Korean school with a total of 160 students, including middle and high school students. 65% of the enrolled students are Japanese, and about 30% are Korean.
Its predecessor was Kyoto Korean Middle School, which was established in 1947 by Koreans living in Japan who voluntarily raised money to provide national education
This school became famous thanks to its Korean school song, which goes, "Across the East Sea, the land of Yamato is the sacred place of our ancestors' ancient dreams."
NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster that broadcasts all Koshien games, airs scenes of athletes from participating schools singing their school songs with subtitles.
Even though most of the Kyoto International High School baseball team members are Japanese players, the scene of them singing the school song in Korean leaves a deep impression on the Korean community in 한국을 Japan and Korean and Japanese fans.
The KIA Tigers began their relationship with Kyoto International High School by chance in February of this year.
Before moving on to the first-team spring camp in Okinawa, Japan, KIA Tigers general manager Shim Jae-hak visited the second-team (Futures) spring camp in Kochi Prefecture and heard the sad story of Kyoto International High School from a Korean resident in Japan.
After hearing that the Kyoto International High School baseball team was recycling torn balls due to lack of sponsorship, Manager Shim collected 1,000 usable balls and sent them to Kyoto International High School after the second team spring camp ended.
Our clubs that train in Japan during the winter usually return home with the balls they used during training as gifts to schools around the spring camp.