baseball – Yamato Magazine

One evening not too long, my daughter surprised me an unlikely question about, of all things, Japanese baseball. I am keenly interested in Japan and always enjoyed attending baseball games during my many visits to that country, but still the question came out of left field.

“What is baseball to the Japanese?” she asked, explaining that “during the Second World War, Japan’s military government suppressed all things American, even the English language, but the Japanese continued to play baseball, even professionally.” She then added, almost innocently: “Didn’t they know it was an American game?”

I assured her that Japanese people knew the game’s origins well. Other than that simple fact, I had nothing specific to offer her. In the back of my mind, I sensed that the answer somehow connected to a broader mystery about the Japanese – how they can so readily adopt so much from abroad and never for a moment lose their sense of self or their commitment to steward Japan’s unique culture and values. Americans, when they adopt something foreign, often feel a tension between their identity and the new practice as if somehow indulging it makes them less American. Not so the Japanese.

Continue reading “Guest Post: Japanese Baseball: Fun, Modern, Sacred” →

Japanese baseball player.

For this gaijin, the great enigma of Japan has long been how its people can so readily adopt so much from others and yet remain unmistakably Japanese in spirit. Americans may be pragmatic enough to adopt things foreign, but they do so only reluctantly and with a sense of defeat.

Not so the Japanese. They readily embrace things foreign with not the least embarrassment or sense of loss. It all seems more graceful and reasonable than my own country’s way. Not only is it more graceful, but it somehow enables the Japanese to put their own unique stamp on what not too long before was entirely foreign.

This is a wonder to me, and no doubt feeds my never-ending interest in Japan and its culture, modern and ancient. Over the years of living in and visiting Japan, questioning and reading, I have failed to fully understand, though at times I have had glimpses of how the process works, and often in the strangest of places.

Continue reading “Guest Post: The Japanese Way” →