Published May 2, 2008
I am by no means a baseball fan. The last time I went to a baseball game was four years ago, and it was purely circumstantial. I think we were rooting for the Giants, and I think we won, but I could be wrong. For all I knew, going to a baseball game was a thinly veiled excuse for us to hang out, eat unhealthy snacks, and occasionally walk around enjoying the crisp night air.
A few weeks ago, when my friend invited me to go to a Waseda University baseball game, I was expecting more of the same thing: catch up, eat snacks, and if inspiration struck, occasionally cheer.
I was wrong.
I didn't have time to catch up with my friend. I was too busy standing up and cheering.
Upon entering the stadium, student volunteers give you two cardboard drumsticks and a pamphlet with the lyrics of the school cheers. Every time your team is up to bat, you are beating together your cardboard drumsticks in rhythm to the music played by the school band. You are also shouting out cheers with the rest of the crowd in unison to the dictation of the male and female cheerleaders interspersed throughout the aisles.
The male cheerleaders (or the "ouen-dan," as they are called) are smartly dressed in militaristic black uniform. The leaders of the ouen-dan stand on a raised platform and through their forceful choreography, will the spirit of the crowd to the player up at bat. You have no excuse of not knowing the cheers because people are holding up posters with all the words written out. You have no excuse of not doing the cheer, because everyone else is doing it. And by everyone, I really literally mean everyone.
Every time our team scored a run, everyone in the audience put their arms around each other's shoulders, swayed back and forth, and started singing the school song at the top of their lungs. That day, Waseda University happened to be playing against a very weak team, so there was a lot of singing and cheering to be had.
When we got hungry, we ate our hot noodles by the vendors downstairs. We didn't dare bring up any food to our seats, because that would have meant sitting down and disrupting the unity of the big communal cheer if our team scored another run.
No booing and heckling in a baseball game? No obnoxious, hotheaded jerks ruining the fun for everyone else? As an American, such differences are uncanny. Even in a mundane activity as a university baseball game, the very Japanese desire for cooperation is very apparent.
I thought about this when I read recent news about how movie theaters in Tokyo are canceling screenings of a documentary by a Chinese filmmaker about the Yasukuni Shrine. The Yasukuni Shrine, for those of you who don't know, is a Shinto shrine in Tokyo commemorating the spirits of those who died fighting on behalf of the emperor of Japan.
Much to the resentment of several neighboring Asian countries, some of these individuals include Class-A war criminals. Every year, controversy abounds over whether or not the current prime minister of Japan will pay respects to the Yasukuni Shrine.
The screenings were cancelled due to pressure from the right-wing nationalists who have decried this movie as anti-Japanese and have even sent death threats to individuals involved in the distribution of the film. Though editorials in major newspapers across Japan have criticized this turn of events as a major threat to freedom of speech, the general reaction of the Japanese population has been relatively quiet.
Every social virtue comes with a price. In America, the pride of individuality brings the risk of more fragmented communities. In Japan, the emphasis on societal harmony can be dangerous to the existence of an alternative voice.
At the end of the Waseda baseball game, the two teams raised their school flags up in the air. Each side quietly waited for the other to finish singing their respective school songs. Before the crowds finally dispersed, the two teams and their supporters chanted their support and recognition for the opposing side.
Both America and Japan can benefit more from this sentiment: mutual respect for the opposing side in the greater game of ideological difference.
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