Cultural Realization #523

Sports are a universal language, the World Cup is proof. Well, except for Americans....they don't speak the language of soccer, ahem football, too fluently. I am a coach for the Uenomura junior high school baseball team. It is nice to coach something as simple as baseball. Although I don't speak Japanese, the sport itself transcends all languages. It is simple. Also, it is convenient that English phrases, such as "nice pray", "two outto", and "nice catchie," have hurdled the language barrier relatively phonetically unscathed.



Last weekend, I also learned that basketball needs no language to be played. Sure, it would help if I knew what the play was and what my teammates were telling me. But there are certain things that trump communication in sports. For instance, generally, being big dwarfs being small and knowing the play. Thus, there isn't much to say when sheer dominance is being performed on the court and you don't even know what your teammates are saying. I don't want to say it was talent, it wasn't. Instead, it was a combination of being nearly eight inches taller than everyone else and them never playing against someone eight inches taller than them. In a way, I felt like my, then, teenage brother playing against myself (a chubby, underdeveloped lad). No wonder he always wanted to play against me--talk about a self-esteem booster.



Anyway, Brad and I had a fantastic time playing in the tournament. Last weekend was just the first couple rounds of the tourney. We won the first game 65-15 and the second by nearly 30. Our team consisted of all Japanese people and two foreigners. We were faux pas to say the least. We were turning more heads than a phillips screw driver. Our teammates really seemed to appreciate our contributions though, so they didn't seem to mind our incessant yelling of encouraging English phrases. Note: our rendition of "And 1" didn't really work. I guess cheers aren't directly translatable. Also, the ref did have to blow the whistle to tell me to not touch the ball after we (read as Brad or I) made a basket. I didn't actually know what she said, but I said I was sorry in Japanese, basically the only phrase I know. Anyway, it was a fun time...enjoy the videos.