Tag Archives: Jingu Stadium

Japan’s failure to communicate

Today’s post is not about baseball but about Japanese culture as revealed through a current big sports story in Japan, how the nation’s best basketball player, Rui Hachimura, voiced his concerns about how the national team is run, and how the sport’s domestic authorities have responded.

One sign of an authoritarian mindset is blaming deviations from desired outcomes on “a failure to communicate.” The popular media example of this is the favored expression of Strother Martin’s character, the sadistic prison work farm warden, in the movie “Cool Hand Luke.”

Shut up and dribble

Whenever one hears the expression in Japan, you can bet it is said by one in a privileged position explaining how disagreements are others’ fault. We heard this Nov. 20, when Japan Basketball Association Secretary General Shinji Watanabe responded to criticism by the Los Angeles Lakers’ Hachimura by essentially saying the player was mistaken.

“He’s an important player, and I take this very seriously,” Watanabe told reporters. “There was miscommunication, and this has placed a burden upon him.”

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Karma is a bitch, Koike

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, whose lies and obfuscations have been the public face of a Tokyo Metropolitan Government plan to gentrify the vital green Jingu Gaien oasis in the center of Tokyo got a taste of karma on Tuesday,

For some reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to honor her at Meiji Jingu Stadium by having her throw out a ceremonial first pitch at the historic ballpark she is working hard to tear down.

And while the stadium cannot speak or act, it take a toll on the governor, who stumbled on her throw. The 72-year-old suffered a knee injury in the form of an avulsion fracture, when the bone is too weak to withstand the strain exerted on it by a ligament and splinters.

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