Game Day!

June 12

Today was a day of lectures in the hotel. I’m not used to sitting down for a long time, so at times I found it to be difficult to stay in my seat. We started in the morning with a lecture on the economy of Japan presented by Manabu Fukada, the chief legal and compliance officer of the Secured Capital Japan Company. He shared that since the mid 1990s, when Japan faced an economic downturn, the economy has been stagnant with a growth rate of less than 2%. Despite this, they still have the third largest eceonomy in the world. The US is first, and I thought China might be second, but he said that the Chinese were catching up and were fifth. I don’t know who comes after the US because I’ve always read the Japan was second. He also shared that thanks to the awareness of Japan of their scare resources, 90% of steel and aluminum and 60% of paper are recycled.

After Fukada-san finished, we had the opportunity to attend our keynote presentation, which was delivered by the President of the National Institution for Academic Degrees, Tsutomu Kimura. This was an excellent presentation, and Kimura-sensei reinforced many of the things that I read in the book Shutting Out the Sun. The biggest point that Kimura-sensei made was that the Japanese were not satisfied at all with their educational system, and view it as having serious problems. He said that Japanese children have large amounts of knowledge but lack in the ability to apply this knowledge and don’t have the ability to think for themselves. He said that school bullying is excessive, and that kindness to others, respect of life and human rights are not sufficiently fostered in school or at home. The primary cause that he cited for these problems was the “continuing decline of educational power of families and communities.” Among the last statistics that he shared was a survey given to boys. In elementary school, their career choices were rich and varied. The same survey given to the same group a few years later in middle school showed that over 60% of the boys planned to become salaried office workers. He said that uniform education in Japan has created a stereotype Japanese, and that every male is being put on the path to becoming a “salaryman.” He also showed that the same survey given to girls at both ages yielded a remarkably different result, one that showed that their future career choices never steered toward the path of “office lady,” but instead stayed varied throughout their schooling. Because of this, he has come to the conclusion that “this county has to rely on women going forward.” I plan to share these things and many more with teachers who attend my presentation during the Back to School Conferece on August 13 and I’m sure they will be shocked!

The afternoon session focused on Japanese government, and featured a discussion by Yuji Tsushima, the most senior member of the House of Representatives, and Wakako Hironaka, a member of the opposition party from the House of Councilors. They both shared their views of Japanese policy, and despite their constant compliments of each other and their expected deference, they both made strong arguments for their causes and against those of the opposition. I was made to think of Nancy Pelosi and Mel Martinez sitting in a room in front of 160 foreign teachers and being asked to explain Japanese government while being required to be very polite. It just wouldn’t happen! They both agreed that the biggest problem right now was taxation, and that Japan was having a challenge in finding a way to fund the universal health and pension plans each year. When asked what they saw as the biggest worldwide issue, they both said the environment. Wakako-san seemed surprised that Tsushima-san answered that way, but he went on to explain that not only is the environment a bi-partisan issue, but it’s a human issue and everyone should be concerned with it.

I enjoyed all of the lectures, but I had something on my mind all day: baseball. I spent all of the breaks hunting down 68 people to give tickets to, and as soon as we got out of the final lecture we changed and headed to the subway. This was my first time taking the Japanese subway, and as soon as we walked out of the hotel, we found that there were seven different subway stations outside of our hotel, each running in different diection with different lines. After about ten minutes of asking directions, we found the right one and headed off to the stadium. I found that I didn’t pay enough money for my ticket, so I needed to go through the ticket office where they stamped the face my ticket. I prayed that the stamp didn’t say “arrest this moron” in Japanese. After a longer ride on another train, we finally arrived at the Seibu Dome. As we were exiting the train, I found I had to pay 40 yen to leave the station as a result of not having paid enough at the beginning of the trip. That’s about 37 cents, so I was cool with it.

The game was awesome! I barely watched any of it, though… I was too busy checking things out. While the play of the game seemed mostly the same, there were a great number of differences. The most notable was that everyone in the outfield on each side of center field was some type of organized cheering section for their respective team. They were banging drums and singing songs and it was really impressive to hear them carry on the way they did. I also noticed that the stadium was split totally in half: the side where we sat were all silver-and-blue clad Lions fans, while across the field I could see the sea of gold and black that was the fans of the Hanshin Tigers.

Other things that seemed a little different: from time to time, a dance team would come out into right field an do a number; I actually ate octopus balls that I bought from a vendor (it was fried chunks of octopus in case you’re wondering); teenage girls sold beverages out of kegs they carried around the stadiums on their back (I think it was apple juice); during the seventh inning stretch, people let go of these balloons that slowly floated into the upper regions of the dome as the air blew out of them, making a whistling sound; people were walking around with trash bags and spectators were rushing to put their refuse into the trash bags, and we couldn’t find a spot of litter anywhere (except our section); the mascot walked around the stadium with no chaperone; there were no skyboxes in the stadium, and no upper deck.

The ballgame was one of my favorite experiences so far during the trip. A lot of other people have told me the same, and many have thanked me for organizeing the whole thing which has been very flattering. It was so much fun seeing this uniquely Japanese event, and I regret that more people didn’t come. I know not everyone in the group is a fan of baseball, but I can tell you that those that didn’t come really missed out.

Thanks for reading! I hope to post again soon!