Kitty-chan meets Jabbito!
I went to my first ever baseball game last night, with the students and staff of my department. We watched the Giants (Tokyo) vs. the Tigers (Osaka), a resounding Giants victory (about 6-3) – or at least I guess it was a resounding victory, because I know nothing about baseball. One of our students was a graduate of a famous baseball high school, so before we went we arranged a special seminar for him to educate the foreign staff and students (about half the department) on the ins-and-outs of this mysterious game, but sadly his lecture was shambolic and his explanations mostly confined to teaching us the Giants’ song. How that took 40 minutes I cannot fathom, since it consists only of saying “oooooooo” a lot.
It was fun, although most of the time I was talking to the people around me – just like cricket, I suppose (there’s lots of ways that baseball is like an abridged version of cricket). The woman in front of me, pictured here with her Giants-themed kitty chan scrunchie, was not interested in conversation however – she was a very serious fan indeed. Perhaps it was through the power of her regular banzai that her team won.
This trip to the baseball and some recent experiences in Akihabara have me marveling at the gender-inclusiveness of Japanese hobbies and sports, and I’ll be posting on that when I get time in the next few days…
Compromise and Conceit 
July 26, 2012 at 6:50 pm
I recommend going to Jingu stadium to watch Yakult Swallows. That’s where the hard-core baseball fans in Tokyo go. Not corporate at all, lots of blue collar fans, and much cheaper. I used to go with US and Canadian friends who said it was much more of a ‘North American’s style down-and-dirty baseball stadium too.
July 26, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Noisms! You’re back! I have to make a post about how your favourite author is racist, STAT!
I don’t have any plans to revisit baseball, it was a one off I think. But have you read Basil Chamberlain? He has a great commentary on Japan in which he claims that if you truly want to understand Japanese culture you need to avoid all forms of “high” society and head straight to the working class folk, because they are the custodians of Japanese cultural difference. An interesting theory! What say you?