Tag Archives: Tokyo Olympics

Commentary, News, Paid Content, Tokyo

Japan’s failure to communicate

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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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Commentary, News, Paid Content

Athletes are No. 1

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With Thursday’s news that Japan will be able to vaccinate its Olympic and Paralympic teams, the Japanese government and its sports bodies cheered and raised a finger to indicate that the nation’s athletes are indeed No. 1 in the hearts of those who matter, Japan’s politicians and monied grifters.

The vaccines will enable the 1,000 Olympians and Paralympians and their 1,500 coaches to be vaccinated in time for the start of the Olympics — due to officially open on July 23.

Yet Japan, the nation that likes to boast it invented efficiency and quality control, is not even scheduled to vaccinate its 30 million senior citizens until the end of July.

This means the Olympic and Paralympic athletes are No. 1, and that the finger being raised by those in charge to indicate the athletes’ special status is at the same time a middle finger to the rest of Japan’s residents.

The Tokyo Olympic motto: Faster, stronger, deadlier.

The message to the population is as clear as can be:

“We’ve procured the Olympics for you with your tax money. What else do you want? Don’t you know the Olympics are for the good of Japan? We’d like to tell the residents of Japan that we appreciate you sacrificing your wealth and your health for the national good, but frankly, the Olympics are a once-in-a-generation thing and you’re a bunch of suckers, so fuck off.”

If Japan’s citizens and their health are actually more important than the Olympics, then the vaccines received in May should be turned over to the government so that 2,500 elderly can be vaccinated earlier, and perhaps save some of their lives.

Otherwise, the Tokyo Olympics meant to show the world what Japan is capable of and what a warm and hospitable nation it is, will show the world Japan’s true colors — that in the big picture, the well-being of ordinary citizens doesn’t matter.