#2: Special Edition Baseball Newspaper Flyer Poster Thing!

The thing: Today I found a Special Edition Baseball Newspaper Flyer Poster Thing in my pocket! OK, when I say I found it in my pocket, I didn't ACTUALLY find it in my pocket. But, it comes with an interesting story and I definitely could fit in my pocket if I didn't care about it getting ruined, so I think it qualifies.

The story: So, as I mentioned in the last post, I teach English at a public high school in Japan. My school, Kita Otsu High School, is not particularly rigorous in an academic sense. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is the lowest ranking school in the prefecture (hooray for learning!). Perhaps not so coincidentally, my school is THE SHIT at sports. We have some of the best badminton, archery and American football teams in the area, and now, officially, have the best baseball team in Shiga Prefecture! That's right! Today, Kita Otsu won the prefectural high school baseball championship... and I was there to take it all in! Booooyaaaahhh!!!

I'll lay down a little knowledge about Japanese high school baseball so you can get a sense as to why what went down today is so exciting. Japanese baseball is unbelievably popular. If Japanese high school baseball were an American TV drama, it would be LOST. There's a fever 'round here, and I'm pretty sure H1N1 isn't causing it this time. High school baseball games are everywhere on television. Game saving highlights are remembered for decades. Heroes are exalted, and goats are forever relegated to a life working behind the counter of a 7-11, bagging your onigiri and nuking your naan-dog. If you don't believe me, check out this article about Daisuke Matsuzaka when he was 17. And you wonder where the hype came from...

So, anyway, these kids are under a tremendous amount of pressure to perform. People flock to these games by the thousands. Each player has an individual cheer, echoed by hundreds of adoring adolescent ladies in ridiculously revealing school uniforms. They practice year-round, every day after school for hours for ONE REASON. Their ultimate goal: THE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL TOURNAMENT AT KOSHIEN (from now on referred to as just "Koshien").

Koshien is a tournament held every summer at the legendary Koshien Stadium just outside of Osaka. It is the home of the Hanshin Tigers and is a hallowed ground in Japanese baseball lore. Just think of it as the Japanese Fenway Park or Wrigley Field. Each prefecture from Japan sends one representative team to the tournament every summer (except for Tokyo and Hokkaido - they each send two teams due to the sheer number of high school teams in the two areas). This makes for a total of 49 teams. The Koshien tournament is the most talked-about sporting event in Japan. It doesn't get much bigger than Koshien. So, as you can imagine, every little Japanese boy's wildest dream concludes with him raising his arms in victory with Koshien's holy dirt soiling his jersey. <--- (It's true. I've asked.)

Throughout the past week, our baseball team has been competing in the tournament that decides which team will represent Shiga at Koshien. I knew that we had a very strong team this year and that we had a really good chance to win the tournament, but these things are fickle. When you're relying on 17 year olds who can barely read a newspaper (in Japanese), nothing is assured. Anyway, I had been receiving updates about our games from other teachers and we absolutely CRUSHED our way into the tourmanent semi-finals. That's when I knew I had to go watch these hoodlums play ball.

I had every intention of going to watch our semi-final game on Tuesday, but due to a series of developments I slept in too late and didn't catch the bus to the game. Fortunately, every game is televised so I was able to watch us squeak out a dangerously close 3-1 victory in the semis, leaving the team one win from DA DREAM.

Of course, I made sure to set my alarms and drink my coffee this morning so I could be the only goofy, obnoxious white guy at the game. I feel like I did a great job of accomplishing this, and feel like I was biggest reason as to why we pulled it out. I really wish I had gotten my picture taken in my cheering outfit, but I was too busy yelling and acting like an idiot to mess with such trivial matters. Instead, I've allowed my ghost flounder friend to model my outfit for me.

Yes, I was wearing all of this for the sole purpose of trying to get on Japanese television. I thought my efforts would pay off, because immediately upon walking into the stadium, two ladies from the TV channel approached me and started asking me some questions. I was able to answer most of them (with a little help from an English teacher) and they said they would come back for an interview. That interview never happened. They left me hanging, and though I was a little disappointed, I wouldn't let it affect my cheers.

I won't bore you with the details of the game, but just know that it was an extremely close and thrilling game. We were up 3-1 going into the ninth inning, and when their leadoff hitter smoked a single into center, I started getting the nervous sweats. Fortunately, my boy Okamoto, our star pitcher, threw some filth up there and got them to ground into a double play. After that... well, you can watch what happened in this video:

[Edit:  Many apologies, but after considerable time spent trying to upload my video, blogger decided it didn't like my video enough and rejected it.  Basically, you missed out on a video of the last guy grounding out to third base and the team streaming out of the dugout and jumping around while we all each gave each other high fives]

Alright, I know the celebration seems a little bit subdued, especially after what I've been saying about the baseball fever. But, I've been told that's just the way that Japanese fans celebrate. After I stopped filming, some of the players from our team collapsed on the field and started sobbing uncontrollably. Although I usually like to make fun of my students when they cry, this time it kinda got me a little bit choked up. These kids worked their asses off in order to achieve da dream, and they made it. I feel proud of them, like I had something to do with their success. The only effect I can honestly see myself having on their big win is allowing them to sleep during my class so that they can rest up for baseball practice. That's gotta be good for something, right???

So, today, Kita Otsu is on top of the Shiga baseball world. Koshien starts on August 9th and I plan on going to any and every Kita Otsu game I can. My predecessor told me about the time he went to see the team play at Koshien and said it was one of the best experiences he had while in Japan, and he wasn't even a baseball fan!
 

One more note about the thing: They were handing out these posters outside of the stadium immediately following the game. There were throngs of people ripping them out of the poor publicity guy's hands before he had even whipped them out. I saw one of my students with one and instantly knew I had to have one so I could write about it on my blog. So, I elbowed my way through a crowd of obaasan and snagged a Special Edition Baseball Newspaper Flyer Poster Thing just before they ran out. This is my trophy, reminding me of my victory over vicious old Japanese ladies and Kita Otsu's big win!

KOSHIEN HERE WE COME!!!

#1 Japanese Medical Check-up Evaluation Form

The thing: Today I found a Japanese Medical Check-up Evaluation Form in my pocket. I have no idea if that is the actual translation for what is written at the top of the paper, but I think it pretty accurately describes the fine artifact pictured above.

The story: I teach English in a public high school in Japan. In April, all staff members at our school were required to undergo a medical evaluation to ensure that we were fit enough to endure the rigors of the Japanese public school environment. These tests included assessments of our liver function, hemoglobin, body mass index, cholesterol levels and all that other good stuff that one requires to be a adequate educator. Unfortunately, the morning of the check-up, I had been pounding Cafe Americanos like my life depended on it and had spent my entire first period resisting the urge to draw and quarter the students in the back of my class who were brushing up on their jousting skills in preparation for the upcoming Medieval Times tryouts. I was about as high strung as a tennis racket.

A few weeks later, I got the results of my check-up: Surprise, Surprise!!! My blood pressure was WAY above the normal healthy level, and I would be required to get it checked out my a physician if I wanted to continue my futile attempts at teaching my darling students English.

So, that brings me to today. I had my first experience at a doctor's office in Japan. Considering I've been living here for exactly one year (to the day!), I'm pretty impressed that it was my first time to consult a physician. One of the English teachers from my school who has been appointed as my "supervisor" accompanied me so that I could de-cypher the paperwork and let the doctor know that I wasn't here for a refill on my arthritis medication.

If you've caught wind of the rumors about Japanese clinics you've probably heard that they're chock full of the old, withered and worn. From my experience, that is absolutely, 100% accurate. The demographic breakdown of patients went something like this:

Japanese men over the age of 60: 45%
Japanese women over the age of 60: 45%
Japanese kids under the age of 12: 9%
Tall, skinny, blonde 23 year old, clueless foreigners: 1%
(This would be an excellent place for a pie chart. Once I figure out how to make those I'll stick one in here)

Alright, so there weren't actually 100 people crammed into the waiting room... more like 50. But you get the idea. Essentially, my supervisor and I waited for about an hour and a half in the Wani Shady Oaks Retirement Home lobby. I passed most of the time attempting to read The Very Busy Spider in Japanese. I decided that confirming the fact that I couldn't understand a book written for four year olds probably wasn't too great for my blood pressure, and piddled away the rest of my wait chatting with my supervisor.

Finally, they called me to sit on the bench closest to the doctor's office. I was on deck! My supervisor remained comfortably seated on her bench in the back of the waiting room. I was flying solo on this one! All of a sudden, I started to get really nervous and thought about all the awful scenarios that would arise if they confused my fumbled attempts at describing a blood pressure check for an emergency lobotomy or hepatic transplantation.

Much to my relief, the doctor whisked me into his office with a friendly "Hello!" (not "Konnichiwa"!). He spoke English quite well, and we had very little trouble communicating about what I needed to have done. Everything checked out normally with my blood pressure and he left me with a hesitant suggestion, very Japanese in its form:

"Maybe, eat less salt?"

So, I survived my first trip to the Japanese doctor without any personality-altering procedures or disfigurations. I got out of going to school for the entire morning (BIG +!) and now have peace of mind that I'm not some hypertense stressball that has blood pressure problems in his early 20's.