Tomoyuki Hoshino's Blog
Tomoyuki Hoshino on Nationalism and Baseball
If you click here, you can read the original Japanese essay by Hoshino that appeared in the Tokyo Newspaper on April 3, 2006.
The following is Jodie Beck’s translation of that essay.
Jodie Beck is a Ph.D. student in East Asian Studies at McGill University. Ms. Beck is specializing in contemporary Japanese fiction, and her research interests include globalization, neoliberalism, nationalism, and gender studies.
For readers (like me) who don’t follow baseball, Ichirô Suzuki is a famous and popular player from Japan who currently is an outfielder for the Seattle Mariners, a Major League baseball team in the United States. For readers unfamiliar with the Yasukuni Shrine controversy, please check out this essay for a brief introduction.
Discrimination?
WBC Entangled with Nationalism
by Tomoyuki Hoshino
translated by Jodie Beck
Taking a sidelong glance at all of Japan’s excitement on the day Japan won the World Baseball Classic (WBC), I felt gloomy. It wasn’t just that the WBC was run by the USA’s warped administration, but rather because I couldn’t help being troubled by Ichiro’s remarks and the way people reacted to them.
I also have always had the greatest awe and respect for Ichiro’s talent and achievements. But it is because he is such a huge presence that his remarks exert influence in both positive and negative ways beyond his own intentions. What I question is the reaction of Japanese society to Ichiro’s remarks.
What bothered me in particular was, after suffering successive defeats to Korea in the second round, Ichiro’s comment that “Today is the most humiliating day in my life of baseball”. The word “humiliation” does not only express one’s inner feelings of rival-consciousness or regret, it also includes a sense of resentment that one has suffered an unjust insult from an opponent. I can’t help but feel the nuance of looking down on the other side. Lets say that you were promoted faster to the position of subsection chief or section chief than a close colleague who started working at the company at the same time as you. If that employee said, “That is the biggest humiliation”, wouldn’t you feel that he or she was looking down on you? Of course I also thought that, by putting the Korean flag on the mound as though they were American astronauts landing on the moon, the behavior of the Korean players was “unseemly”, but I did not think it was “humiliating”.
After that, when it was decided that Japan would play against Korea a third time, Ichiro stated that “it would be unforgivable for Japan to lose three times to the same opponent.” Then I thought, that tone of always wanting to fight reminds me of someone, and I realized that that was the way that Prime Minister Jun -“ichiro” Koizumi talked at interviews last summer when the postal privatization bill was rejected and he dissolved the House of Representatives.
Yes, the two of them resemble each other. With their fists and emotions bared, they work themselves up, create an imaginary enemy, and then sing their own praises after they have won. Right down until after winning the championship, the only thing that came out of Ichiro’s mouth was praise for how wonderful the Japanese players and Japanese baseball are. The two of them are also identical with regards to their lack of sensitivity in not making any effort to imagine the feelings of our neighbor, Korea.
But what I felt to be the strangest thing was that so many Japanese people also seem to possess that same lack of sensitivity. Even more odd is the fact that Ichiro’s remark about “humiliation”, which is discriminatory no matter how you interpret it, did not stir up a lot of fuss in Japan, starting with the mass media for one. I even think that it boils down to this; maybe nobody thought to question it because a lot of Japanese people have the same kind of discriminatory feelings lurking inside of themselves.
That’s just my opinion, but with the issue of the prime minister’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine getting messier and messier, feelings of repugnance toward Korea among Japanese people are probably getting stronger. And isn’t it true that Ichiro’s remarks at the WBC match perfectly with this trend? To put it in an extreme way, it even looks to me like Ichiro’s remarks, as a threat to Korea’s meddling in the domestic matter of the visit to Yasukuni Shrine, got the endorsement of Japanese audiences.
Regarding the Prime Minister’s Yasukuni Shrine visit, many opinion polls show an almost even split between those for and against. Yet the number of people who actually go to Yasukuni Shrine themselves is very small. Before Prime Minister Koizumi started going and it became an issue, how many of those people who agree with the prime minister’s visit would have been thinking, “Why doesn’t the prime minister go to Yasukuni Shrine?”
To me, it just looks like public opinion is creating an imaginary enemy. I even get the feeling that it’s just a kind of nastiness, like the Yasukuni Shrine itself is not actually important, but because Korea and China will complain about it, let’s really show them and go! Doesn’t that include a desire to offend, wanting to build oneself up by looking down on another?
I felt a dark shadow on what should have been the development and victory of a good game at the WBC, because it was an event where this kind of latent desire to offend within Japan plainly started to show itself. Until now in other international sports events, particularly in the Olympics or World Cup Soccer, I haven’t really seen nationalism that increases motivation and enthusiasm by discriminating against another as blatantly as this. I’m thoroughly discouraged that this has been questioned by so few, and that even within the newspapers there was no debate regarding discrimination.
Tokyo Shimbun April 3, 2006 evening edition
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For readers (like me) who don’t follow baseball, Ichirô Suzuki is a famous and popular player from Japan who currently is an outfielder for the Seattle Mariners, a Major League baseball team in the United States. For readers unfamiliar with the Yasukuni Shrine controversy, please check out this essay for a brief introduction.
Discrimination?
WBC Entangled with Nationalism
by Tomoyuki Hoshino
translated by Jodie Beck
Taking a sidelong glance at all of Japan’s excitement on the day Japan won the World Baseball Classic (WBC), I felt gloomy. It wasn’t just that the WBC was run by the USA’s warped administration, but rather because I couldn’t help being troubled by Ichiro’s remarks and the way people reacted to them.
I also have always had the greatest awe and respect for Ichiro’s talent and achievements. But it is because he is such a huge presence that his remarks exert influence in both positive and negative ways beyond his own intentions. What I question is the reaction of Japanese society to Ichiro’s remarks.
What bothered me in particular was, after suffering successive defeats to Korea in the second round, Ichiro’s comment that “Today is the most humiliating day in my life of baseball”. The word “humiliation” does not only express one’s inner feelings of rival-consciousness or regret, it also includes a sense of resentment that one has suffered an unjust insult from an opponent. I can’t help but feel the nuance of looking down on the other side. Lets say that you were promoted faster to the position of subsection chief or section chief than a close colleague who started working at the company at the same time as you. If that employee said, “That is the biggest humiliation”, wouldn’t you feel that he or she was looking down on you? Of course I also thought that, by putting the Korean flag on the mound as though they were American astronauts landing on the moon, the behavior of the Korean players was “unseemly”, but I did not think it was “humiliating”.
After that, when it was decided that Japan would play against Korea a third time, Ichiro stated that “it would be unforgivable for Japan to lose three times to the same opponent.” Then I thought, that tone of always wanting to fight reminds me of someone, and I realized that that was the way that Prime Minister Jun -“ichiro” Koizumi talked at interviews last summer when the postal privatization bill was rejected and he dissolved the House of Representatives.
Yes, the two of them resemble each other. With their fists and emotions bared, they work themselves up, create an imaginary enemy, and then sing their own praises after they have won. Right down until after winning the championship, the only thing that came out of Ichiro’s mouth was praise for how wonderful the Japanese players and Japanese baseball are. The two of them are also identical with regards to their lack of sensitivity in not making any effort to imagine the feelings of our neighbor, Korea.
But what I felt to be the strangest thing was that so many Japanese people also seem to possess that same lack of sensitivity. Even more odd is the fact that Ichiro’s remark about “humiliation”, which is discriminatory no matter how you interpret it, did not stir up a lot of fuss in Japan, starting with the mass media for one. I even think that it boils down to this; maybe nobody thought to question it because a lot of Japanese people have the same kind of discriminatory feelings lurking inside of themselves.
That’s just my opinion, but with the issue of the prime minister’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine getting messier and messier, feelings of repugnance toward Korea among Japanese people are probably getting stronger. And isn’t it true that Ichiro’s remarks at the WBC match perfectly with this trend? To put it in an extreme way, it even looks to me like Ichiro’s remarks, as a threat to Korea’s meddling in the domestic matter of the visit to Yasukuni Shrine, got the endorsement of Japanese audiences.
Regarding the Prime Minister’s Yasukuni Shrine visit, many opinion polls show an almost even split between those for and against. Yet the number of people who actually go to Yasukuni Shrine themselves is very small. Before Prime Minister Koizumi started going and it became an issue, how many of those people who agree with the prime minister’s visit would have been thinking, “Why doesn’t the prime minister go to Yasukuni Shrine?”
To me, it just looks like public opinion is creating an imaginary enemy. I even get the feeling that it’s just a kind of nastiness, like the Yasukuni Shrine itself is not actually important, but because Korea and China will complain about it, let’s really show them and go! Doesn’t that include a desire to offend, wanting to build oneself up by looking down on another?
I felt a dark shadow on what should have been the development and victory of a good game at the WBC, because it was an event where this kind of latent desire to offend within Japan plainly started to show itself. Until now in other international sports events, particularly in the Olympics or World Cup Soccer, I haven’t really seen nationalism that increases motivation and enthusiasm by discriminating against another as blatantly as this. I’m thoroughly discouraged that this has been questioned by so few, and that even within the newspapers there was no debate regarding discrimination.
Tokyo Shimbun April 3, 2006 evening edition
---
If you are curious as to how this op ed was received and can read English and Japanese, please click here, where you can, for example, access an article entitled “Anti-Japanese Writer Tomoyuki Hoshino’s Controversial Remarks” and other responses.
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Korean Rags vs. Japanese Riches
Posted : 2009-03-19
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/sports/2021/09/600_41600.html
South Korean starter Bong joong-keun, left in the top photo, and Lee Jin-young fix the national flag “Taegeukgi” on the mound after a 4-1 victory against Japan in the second round of the WBC.
By Yoon Chul
Staff Reporter
``I will inject the idea to South Koreans that they can't beat Japan during the next 30 years,'' Japanese baseball hero Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners told the media as he joined his country's squad for the first World Baseball Classic (WBC) in 2006.
However, South Korea poured scorn on Ichiro's arrogance by defeating Japan twice at the Tokyo Dome Stadium during the Classic. Of course, the Japanese team, who defeated Korea in the semifinal, went on to become the first WBC champion.
But then Korea claimed the Beijing Olympic gold medal for baseball by crushing Japan twice last year, and advanced to the semifinals of the second WBC, Wednesday, by routing its Asian rival 4-1.
The talent within Japanese professional baseball is recognized around the world, but the level of the South Korean game is lesser known. That fact can be confirmed on the WBC Web site. While individual profiles of Japanese players have been recorded, the details of few Korean players are available.
Even though Korea advanced to the semifinals in the first WBC, many people regarded the nation as a surprise package.
Now, though, the reigning Olympic champion seems to be threatening to take center stage under the international spotlight.
One of the remarkable facts is that South Korea's baseball environment is somewhat constrictive in comparison to that of Japan.
Japan has more than 4,000 high school teams. Daisuke Matsuzaka is one of the iconic examples, in that he was well known not only in Japan, but also around the world, during his high-school years.
Japan manager Tatsunori Hara, coaches and players watch Korea’s winning celebrations from the dugout. The victory sent Korea into the semifinals. / Yonhap
But South Korea has only 50 teams at that level. And when they compete, only their parents, a few classmates and some baseball experts attend games.
Millions of Japanese join social baseball leagues for fun and are able to do so in large part due to the high number of baseball fields they have at their disposal.
In addition, Japan can boast six dome stadiums in their professional baseball league, the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) _ something about which Korea can only dream.
Ironically, Korean amateur baseball players are forced to struggle to find a place to play, and sometimes need to travel for more than three hours to enjoy a game.
``The Korean amateur league is quite big. But, as there are not enough fields, we can play either until seven innings, or for two hours. After that, we have to finish the game because of the next group,'' one amateur player told The Korea Times.
Based on these contrasting environments, Japanese professional players earn huge money _ as well as honor.
Among its stars, Major Leaguer Ichiro is the most expensive, earning $17 million (23.7 billion won) this season, and the total amount commanded by its 28-player WBC squad is 17.15 billion won. Their average salary is 4.7 billion won.
Conversely, the most expensive Korean is NPB player Lim Chang-yong of the Yakult Swallows, who earns 55 million yen (800 million won). The Korean squad total was 7.67 billion won, and their average 270 million won.
In short, Japanese players are 17 times more expensive than their Korean counterparts.
However, Bong Joong-keun of the LG Twins, who earned only 360 million won as his team's ace, zippered billionaire Ichiro in six appearances during two games.
But the Koreans _ not such wealthy stars but rich in mental power _ beat the gold-laden Japanese for their countrymen, whose smiles have been lost for sometime amid the gloomy economic crisis.
yc@koreatimes.co.kr>
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South Korea-Japan rivalry shows no sign of cooling
BY KEVIN BAXTERMARCH 20, 2009 12 AM PT
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-mar-20-sp-wbc-asia20-story.html
SAN DIEGO —
Nam Hyung Kim wants to make one thing clear from the start. “We don’t hate Japan,” the South Korean journalist insists.
But just the fact Kim feels the need to clarify that point suggests that, well, maybe there is more to the two countries’ baseball rivalry than just baseball.
Not that the games haven’t been compelling.
Last summer South Korea had to get by Japan twice to win its first Olympic baseball gold. Three years before that Japan handed South Korea its only loss in the first World Baseball Classic en route to the tournament title.
And now the rivalry is coming to Los Angeles, home to the largest Korean and one of the largest Japanese communities in the U.S.
The teams have already met four times in this month’s second WBC, with Japan winning the most recent matchup, 6-2, Thursday to claim a No. 1 seeding for this weekend’s semifinals at Dodger Stadium.
If both teams win -- South Korea against Venezuela on Saturday and Japan over the U.S. on Sunday -- they will meet again in Monday’s championship game.
But should that happen, a baseball title will be only part of what’s at stake.
“Because of history,” says Kim, a baseball writer with SportsChosun of Seoul, “there’s bad memories.”
That will happen when one country invades, then annexes, another, as Japan did to Korea, leaving only when expelled after World War II. Even now the suspicions and distrust run deep, leaving the nations as reluctant allies. But if the bad blood started with history, it also has become territorial and cultural. And the baseball field has not been immune to those tensions.
“It goes back to our history and tradition,” agreed former Dodgers pitcher Jae Seo, who planted a South Korean flag on the mound at Angel Stadium after his country beat Japan in the quarterfinal round of the 2006 WBC, a ritual the Koreans repeated -- much to Japan’s anger -- after beating Japan again this week.
“It stems from our parents’ generation and us,” Seo said. “I’m sure that our next generation probably will feel the same.”
Yet nobody in the baseball world really noticed the rivalry until South Korea suddenly shot to international prominence in the sport by beating Japan to win the bronze medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Second-place finishes in the 2002 Intercontinental Cup and 2005 World Cup followed. And after South Korea rolled through the Beijing Olympic tournament unbeaten last summer -- upending Japan twice to send their rivals home without a medal for just the second time in Olympic history -- the International Baseball Federation ranked its national program as the second-best in the world, behind only Cuba.
Which, of course, made it the best program in Asia, all the Koreans -- and the Japanese -- really cared about.
As sports rivalries go, however, this is much less Red Sox-Yankees or Lakers-Celtics than it is a Cold War-style showdown between the Russian and U.S. hockey teams.
“Japan was always better than Korea,” said Acey Kohrogi, director of Asian operations for the Dodgers. “And then it became where Korea’s been dominating.”
Lately it has become ugly too, with some Japanese making statements that suggest the Koreans have outscored, outhit and outslugged the small-ball Japanese because of genetics as much as talent.
“They have big bodies,” Japanese outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, said through an interpreter. “They play closer to American-style baseball than Japanese baseball.”
In Japan, where ethnic purity has traditionally been revered, such comments smack of racism and ignore the fact that many of the country’s best players were -- and still are -- ethnic Koreans.
Masaichi Kaneda, for example, Japan’s only 400-game winner, and Isao Harimoto, the only player to get 3,000 hits, were both born to parents who were ethnic Koreans and are permanent residents of Japan but not Japanese nationals.
“Everyone knows that these top guys are all of Korean descent,” says Kohrogi, who believes the taboo over discussing that topic has faded a bit as some Koreans in the sports and entertainment fields have acknowledged their heritage in Japan, where Koreans make up the largest ethnic minority group. “They’re more open about it,” Kohrogi says.
Perhaps even philosophical.
Ichiro, the Seattle Mariners’ star who once called a loss to South Korea “the most humiliating day of my career” and said his goal was to prove that Korea won’t be able to beat Japan “in the next 30 years.” He now appears resigned to the fact the two countries, in baseball at least, might as well propose a peace.
“There is a destiny,” he said through an interpreter. “It’s like a girl you said goodbye to, and then you bump into the same girl again on the street so many times because there’s a destiny to meet again.
“Might as well get married if we are going to meet this frequently.”
--
kevin.baxter@latimes.com
Kevin Baxter
Kevin Baxter writes about soccer and other things for the Los Angeles Times, where he has worked for 24 years. He has covered five World Cups, three Olympic Games, six World Series and a Super Bowl and has contributed to three Pulitzer Prize-winning series at The Times and Miami Herald. An essay he wrote in fifth grade was voted best in the class. He has a cool dog.
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Ichiro’s Remarks Anger Team Korea
Posted February. 23, 2006 03:07,
https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20060223/246132/1
“I will make them see that they won’t beat Japan for the next 30 years,” said Ichiro Suzuki (33, Seattle Mariners, photo) in an interview after the first day of Japanese World Baseball Classic practice yesterday.
After the Japanese team’s practice at the Fukuoka Yahoo Dome yesterday, Ichiro said, “Not only will we win, but also we’ll make Japanese baseball fans feel that they saw a truly great game. I want to make [Korea and Taiwan] see that they will not be able to beat Japan in next 30 years.”
Ichiro: Korea Smells Like Garlic-
Ichiro’s provocative remark is nothing new. Back in 1997, Ichiro, a member of the Orix Blue Wave at the time, visited Korea for friendly baseball games against Korean pro teams. When asked what his first impression of Korea was, he replied, “It smells like garlic.”
Ichiro’s remark angered many Korean players. Pitcher Sohn Min-han (Lotte) said, “Hearing what he said, I want to make him eat his own words by beating the Japanese team.”
“I have been called five times to play on the national team, and from 2000 Sydney Olympics through the 2002 Busan Asian games, the Korea national team has never been defeated by Japan,” said the team’s slugger Lee Byeong-gyu (LG). “We have many world-class ballplayers on the Korea national team; we won’t be easy to beat,” Lee added confidently. The World Baseball Classic preliminary round match between Korea and Japan will be held on March 5 at the Tokyo Dome.
uni@donga.com
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