It won’t be the first time I arrive in the Land of the Rising Sun and it probably won’t be the last, but at least it’s all for fun this time. My last journey into Japan took me to Okinawa, an island paradise where I found myself snorkeling and enjoying the beauty of the landscape whenever I was off the clock, but this time I’ll be diving headfirst into three of the four main islands: Honshū, Kyūshū, and Hokkaidō to get a real glimpse of Japan more separate from the US-heavy Okinawa.
Speaking of US-influence, as I write this I’m chowing down on some “Asian” food from the cafeteria and I think this is the perfect way to start my trip. If there’s one thing that America is known for, it’s embracing and adapting the differences of other cultures into the American identity (your mileage may vary, depending on what part of the USA you live in). It’s a side effect of the vastly different ethnic composition of our population slowly integrating into society, etc., etc., but this isn’t an American sociology lesson, so you get my point.
Now, if there’s one thing that Japan is known for, it’s embracing and adapting the things that America does and doing it better. There’s a reason why so much fear existed in the 80’s with respect to the rising industrial power of Japan. Everything about the country just seems like a more intense, slightly odd version of America to the outside. Employees work longer hours, students study harder, the fashion is crazier, and the obsessive obsess harder than anyone here in the states seems to. Watch any half hour of Japanese media, and you’re bound to hear someone yell “Ganbare!” enthusiastically to someone who is working hard. It means something like “keep going,” “hang in there,” or “fight” and it exemplifies to me how much the Japanese value doing one’s best and making the most of what they’ve got. I don’t think the Japanese are trying to out-America America; I think they are instead trying to infuse the Yamato spirit into everything they do, no matter where it comes from so that at the end of the day, when they come home exhausted and feel like they can’t go on anymore, someone will tell them to ganbare.
My trip to Japan is, ostensibly, to watch baseball, the Great American Pastime (TM), but I’m more interested in what turned baseball into yakyū. My father once read that if you were to tell a Japanese child that there were McDonald’s restaurants in America, that child would say something like “Wow, they’ve got those there too?” The point being that it is such an ingrained part of their culture that it doesn’t compute that something so Japanese could actually be foreign. I expect seeing baseball in Japan will evoke a similar reaction in me as I marvel at how the game can be so different and exactly the same while retaining a distinctly Yamato flair. Surely no adult Japanese person would think that the game originated on the island, but will they think that they’ve perhaps mastered the purest, best way to play the game?
Really though, that’s enough of all the serious talk, I’m not writing a paper here and I’m sure I’ve bored half of you to death already. Here are some questions (in no particular order) that I hope to get answers to on this trip out to the far east:
1. What do they do during the 7th inning stretch out here?
2. What kinds of crazy foods do they serve at the concession stands?
3. Just how rowdy do the fans get during games?
4. How different is it to fly internationally on a Japanese carrier compared to a domestic carrier?
5. Do cities outside Tokyo get crazy during game releases? At least one major game franchise (Pokémon) will have an iteration released while I’m out, but I won’t be in Tokyo when it comes out.
6. How rock and roll do the Japanese get? If I can, I’m going to try and make it into a show somewhere.
7. Is the fashion at Harajuku as crazy as everyone says it is?
8. Sumo. Great sport or greatest sport?
9. Is Akihabara still the mecca of electronics that it once was?
10. How much cool stuff can I find in a used game store?
11. Is Coco Curry House Ichinbanya still amazing?
12. How long can Dave and I sing in a karaoke box before we’re kicked out to salvage what’s left of the clientele’s hearing?
13. Do I have the nerve to go to a public bath?
14. Is the Japanese train system as punctual and efficient as advertised?
15. What’s the strangest item I can find in a vending machine?
16. Are Japanese arcades really dying?
I’m sure I’ll think of more along the way, but I think this is a good start for now. To those of you out there working hard while I embark upon my expedition into Japanese culture, I have but one word: GANBARE!
EDIT: Now that this travel feature is complete, I thought I’d add a table of contents to help you navigate around.
Part I – Preface
Part II – Journey to the East
Part III – Play Ball!
Part IV – In Which Our Heroes Depart Tokyo for Kyoto
Part V – Temples, Taxis, and the (Hiroshima) Toyo Carp
Part VI – Baseball Off-Day
Part VII – i believe lions
Part VIII – Tokyo Drift
Part IX – It’s a Small World
Part X – Boredom on the Orient Express
Part XI – “That’s my wife. You no touch.”
Part XII – The Curse of the Colonel
Part XIII – Beware the Ninth Ward
Part XIV – The One Where We Miss Darvish
Part XV – Someone’s Got To Be The Worst
Part XVI – Unstoppable Force, Meet Immovable Object
Part XVII – In Which Our Hero Casually Greets Professional Players
Part XVIII – Homeward Bound
Part XIX – Epilogue
Bonus: Jersey Special
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