For example maybe this . . . Hopefully
- Samsung World Baduk Masters.png (153.86 KiB) Viewed 45075 times
Edit: here is the letter I sent them probably some time around july.
Dear CEO & President 홍원학,
Before the main part of my letter, I would like to note that Globis have now returned their system from the 1st to 6th editions even when being forced to use computers. I wonder If it would be possible for SFMI to do similar, while incorporating the proposals below.
The Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance is my favourite baduk competition, and even made me consider Samsung first if I were to get insurance in Korea. I would like to note an apparent missed opportunity to benefit both Samsung and baduk. It may be best to combine all special preliminaries, including for world group, into one preliminary for Under-14's, Female's, Over-47's, and World players with any citizenship or origin outside the four main baduk nations, all competing for 5 places. Just a few, and even so they have been shortened and simplified for brevity, of the reasons this seems to be an exponentially more effective means of both inclusivity and promotion are given below, however I apologise for my directness and lack of tact as my mind is not as sharp as it used to be and I'm trying to write this quickly. However this is an opinion I've had for nearly 10 years.
From the perspective of Women and Girls, men giving special preliminary places may be a good gesture, however, doing so in a way that perpetuates notions of inferiority or them needing special treatment or not being deserving or capable starts to call things into question. It would be similar to a westerner claiming to be trying to promote Koreans and Korean culture in the west, but only doing so with tired or negative stereotypes and emphasising every time a western government has given them help. You would begin to question whether the intention is really to promote Korean culture or use it as a cover to engage in racist practices. It may be that the westerner is genuinely trying to help, but their subconscious bias is creeping in. It seems this may be the case for female baduk. In fact one may think it seems like from powerful men subconscious sexist bias is creeping in even in their attempts to help women baduk pros, portraying them in a diminutive manner when it can be avoided and they can still have special groups. Helping someone or a group, but doing so in a way that portrays them in an unnecessarily diminutive or inferior way might be seen as only in a 'knight in shining armour' manner that make men look especially competent or generous, since when female pros are only paired against top pros and opportunities to pair them with western or youth&senior players are skipped, it perpetuates the notion that these groups are needing a handout by nice men rather than having something they somewhat deserve. In the SFMI baduk masters, if the Female, Senior and World preliminaries are combined, they would have played games against western male players and senior and youth male players, all of whom would be notable, but the only difference is that they would have won these games, thereby portraying a different image of performance against male players. Even if they go on to play male pros they might lose to, and least it doesn't portray a one-sided story or seem like backhanded feminism. It would be a shame if in baduk also men too often just help Women from a limited perspective that sees women as diminutive beings that require male help and looks over ways to portray women in a more powerful light to girls.
From the perspective of those outside the main four baduk nations, it would provide a far more valuable insight for them to play top female pros than top male pros, and probably prove to be more popular and more effective as a means of promoting baduk in the west since they would overall be doing better. In addition, I think the world group should be extended to all people who were born with any citizenship outside the 4 main baduk nations, since an inclusive system appreciates all players with origin outside the main four countries and would be more effective in promoting baduk worldwide. I would like to praise Samsung in that they have a 'World' group instead of a 'Europe and America' group. It's not fair, and perhaps even somewhat racist, to focus only on promoting baduk in the west while ignoring other nations around the world, but unlike in a few other tournaments Samsung didn't do this. In fact it would not surprise me if one of the reasons female pros were skipped over as opponents for western pros to test themselves against was that them losing to female pros perhaps might not give western pros as good an image than if they lost to top male pros.
From the perspective of Youth and Seniors, both of these groups would benefit just as much from games against top women players as between top Korean Kiwon or China Qiyuan players. In the case of youth, it's especially important for girl youth to witness matches between top boy youth and top Women players, since it makes gender seem as less of a barrier when it comes to them doing well against the top boy youth and then this can continue into when they are not youth anymore and are competing in the open section.
From the perspective of Fans overall and SFMI, it being far more interesting to watch a game between a 'World' player and top female pro than with a top Korea Kiwon or China Qiyuan pro is true. This is because, with the exception of 최정, it's significantly more likely for the western pro to showcase their ability and playing style, and also, it seems more respectful to female pros to consider them first as a way to measure the abilities of western pros. In addition, it would promote female baduk since it showcases them winning against notable western players. On the other hand, skipping them when they are the obvious first choice to pair western players against seems to portray female pros as irrelevant, and pairing female pros with top pros isn't necessarily good since it seems like deliberately trying to portray female players as weak compared to male pros, some may even interpret this as deliberate through a veneer of catering to women pros due to how exactly the catering to women pros is done. For this reason, only those who qualify through a combined special preliminary of all special groups amongst each other should play top pros. One can say this is especially true 20, 15, or 10 years ago, but even today it is true. It is the obvious method, and the fact that it is avoided all these years by various parties seems to only be explainable by subconscious sexist bias even by men who try to support female baduk . . . Chinese culture seems to understand this for Female-Youth pairings, and Korean culture seems to understand this for Female-Senior pairings. There are complex cultural reasons and history explaining both of these understandings. However, no culture on it's own is sufficient, including in promoting baduk, and no one should aim at becoming successful only in their culture's narrow viewpoint, as all cultures inherently will be compared to the vastness of all cultures worldwide. In order to showcase baduk worldwide as an Intangible Korean Cultural Asset, it's important to cater to the perception of cultures outside owns own. In addition, one should not limit the judgement of ones actions to a particular place in time or space, but based on universal realities that are yet to become noticed by the mainstream, in essence creating the future cultural perceptions, and taking the lead in this would give one a cultural strategic advantage in the future. That being said, I believe that Korean culture is closest among all to this idea, and has the most universal and timeless perspective, and most of all this seems to be because Korean culture seems to focus on what can be seen to be objectively true more than any other culture. This seems to be one of the reasons Korean cultural exports are on the way to becoming no.1 in all cultural exports worldwide as humanity moves into a digitally inter-connected, world-oriented age, and I hope by Korean baduk tournaments incorporating this that this trends will continue in the baduk world, and perhaps even beyond if it helps baduk be considered by all the world as a world-class sport. The is because it's not the mainstream practice and people end up thinking they want things that they don't. It's part of much of worldwide human culture to objectify groups of people and objectify mastery. Because of this, people think they want to skip over the obvious matches and instead see a match between a top pro and these special groups. However, if one were to simply start holding these matches between different special groups, and just do it, but companies aren't always rewarded for doing what's most profitable according to the current paradigm and status quo, but what is right, and then gaining unexpectedly more benefit then they ever would have acquired through the status quo (SpaceX could be considered an example of this phenomenon) through the monopolistic benefit of being first through a blue-ocean strategy.
One might claim that Samsung and others define themselves as giving places to these special groups in baduk tournaments, and changing the system to combine theses groups would change that definition. But again, these definitions negatively objectify the groups in question if it's seen as more important for them simply to have a place than to showcase themselves against each other, as it the factors that place them in the special category as more important than their baduk itself. Objectifying special groups you're trying to help worldwide is a very common bad practice worldwide, but I think Korean companies like Samsung are the one's most qualified to buck this trend and then reap the social rewards from taking the lead in solving a moral problem most people didn't even bother to notice, or even thought made them morally good.
I'm sorry in that I'm not properly able to explain what I am trying to say due to my current state of health, nevertheless I hope that SFMI will take the opportunity to elite social contribution in even a baduk tournament, redefining even it's purpose, by taking into account subtle nuances to make sound judgements, part of why I liked the Samsung cup in the first place.
Yours Sincerely,
Elom Hycy Kushatior mumayaWillson
P.S.
Holding Special preliminaries at the same time as the Open preliminaries seems odd, since again, this may be seen as perpetuating negative values since it implies that if a female player wants to have any special group, they must forego their chance to compete against male pros in the open section, and when they do compete against male pros it is only against the male pros from the Korea Kiwon and China Qiyuan they have the least chance of doing well against, meaning it also has many of the same problematic implication as separating out the special preliminaries.