In some ways it is closer to a tea ceremony than, say, a boxing match. As far as sports go it has more cultural baggage than most.
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Personally, I’m tired of saying ‘o well it’s just their cultural beliefs’ if their cultural beliefs are degrading of others. Western culture has it too. So it’s not like I have some idea of moral superiority of my own culture. But we’re all just people trying to get along. And sexism is sexism and racism is racism. Shining the lens on this incident is illustrating a much broader issue. Sure, it’s just a sporting match… but there’s so many times that it’s ‘just’ some thing and all those little times add up to a very big narrative that needs to change.
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I assume this was a demographic commentary, but considering they are still a highly-populous nation and one of the largest economies on the planet, I like you think it was more than a bit exaggerated.
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What is it you want to call out? A Japanese sports announcer said something stupid and there was outrage among the Japanese over that stupidity.
Why assume the stupid action of one announcer represents Japanese attitudes better than the reaction of hundreds of regular Japanese people?
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Great news! Women can now be momentarily exempt from disrespect under life-and-death circumstances!
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As a member of the impure sex, who has lived most of her life in Japan, I have some strong feelings about this incident, and I don’t mind sharing my judgement of right and wrong, despite being visibly more ginger than your average Japanese.
That said, my reaction to this was, way to go women!
Many of us have been waiting for the straw that would break the rikishi’s back. A female governor of Tokyo, not allowed to step onto the dojo to present awards? No. Nothing.
Maybe we’ll finally get a female prime minister and that will make this rule end. Or if that isn’t enough, once we run out of princes and finally return to allowing a woman to ascend to the imperial throne, they’ll have to let women onto the dojo.
Well, it has happened. It took a stroke and some trained medical staff. This was all over the news yesterday. The general public was mostly livid that the onsite announcer was willing to let traditional superstition outweigh a man’s life. It was the talk of the news and the genie is out of the bottle. Hurrah!!
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IIRC Exactly the same thing happened in Australia. Journalists do go into locker rooms and there was outrage from some quarters when a woman was employed for that role.
Oh, come on, they play baseball, isn’t that enough?
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My comment extends way past this specific incident. This incident isn’t isolated. I am sure he wasn’t the only one to feel that way, but he happened to be the one who has a voice. And in this incident we had a medical emergency over riding tradition. Had there been another less pressing reason for entering the ring, it would have been a social party foul.
Yes, this specific incident was rather mild, but there is still a lot of sexism ingrained into culture and tradition in Japan, and way more racism and nationalism. Not just in attitudes but their laws (try immigrating to Japan).
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You don’t know the politics of the mayor; he isn’t necessarily a patriarch just because he’s a male in a position of power. And even if he was, hearing the story of how he was saved by a woman and nearly wasn’t might have changed his mind to some small degree.
Finally, it wasn’t the mayor who told her to go, it was the referee.
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Really, a very silly thing for the referee to say, even within a religious, patriarchal mindset. If the ring is de-purified by whatever action during the saving of a man’s life, then it can just be re-sanctified. They have a priest right there during the matches, don’t they? Don’t they have to re-sanctify the ring every season, anyway?
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Hmmm… okay, that’s okay they do play baseball… but that means, since Cuba and Venezuela play baseball, it’s time to invade! INVADE!!!
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Wow, that is some major understatement.
Japan is a developed prosperous country with vast global links. Their culture is not so much as inscrutable as much as just plain retrograde. At this point its essentially the US in the 1950’s. There is a lot of criticism and blowback for the racism and sexism of the culture coming from the Japanese themselves. Japanese people will be the first to tell you these kind of restrictive norms are not accepted willingly except for those who benefit most from them (wealthy men). For the most part there is the strong element of coercion involved in maintaining them.
This morning NHK made a big deal over the outrage by the Japanese public against the announcer for doing something so stupid.
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It should be easy now. The only time anyone sees the Japanese military is when they are being squashed by Godzilla.
"You see, that’s one of the great things about getting involved with someone from another country. You can’t take it personally. What’s really terrific is that when we act in ways which might objectively be considered asshole-ish or incredibly annoying… they don’t get upset at all. They don’t take it personally. They just assume it’s some national characteristic. "
-Ted Boyinton, Barcelona (1994)
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I was trying to have a measured response.
I some times fall down rabbit holes of people who live abroad, or locals who make videos for people who want to learn about places like Japan and China. You will have Japanese regurgitating rhetoric about say black people that, as you said, sounds like something from the 50s. To be partially fair, their exposure is primarily western media which until very recently almost certainly catered to many of these stereotypes, and often time still does. But still. And it isn’t just tradition racism, but other nationalities of Asians are looked down upon. They have a shrinking population due to low birth rates, and their immigration numbers are crazy low.
One thing that blew my mind in China, is that if you are a Chinese person, born in the UK or America and speak perfect English, you will be passed over for a job to teach English in China for say a Russian who has a thick accent and overall poor English skills. They would rather have someone who LOOKS like they should speak good English, rather than a Chinese person who actually speaks perfect English. They consider a Chinese person Chinese, no matter where they are born.
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You are still making an assumption Japanese culture is really all that alien in comparison to Americans. But there comes a point where prosperous developed countries start looking more alike culturally than not. A person living in New York has a lot more experiences in common with someone from Tokyo or Paris than someone in Beijing or Moscow. Least of all because of the similarities in income, costs of living and relative political freedom.*
Since the 1990’s when cross-pacific flights got immeasurably cheaper and shorter Japan saw larger numbers of foreigners coming as tourists and to work there than it had in all the years before. Their popular culture is becoming Americanized. That exposure is not as limited as you think. Japanese going abroad and foreigners coming to the country have increased dramatically over the years. Even immigration is finally becoming more obvious. Tokyo even has a festival for its Brazilian immigrants.
“And it isn’t just tradition racism, but other nationalities of Asians are looked down upon.”
The idea of a single Asian race is a concept imposed by people outside of Asia. The attitudes aren’t all that different from how Americans treat other cultures or British treat Continental Europeans. There is a measure of arrogance which comes with what amounted to isolation from one’s neighbors. Not helping in that regard was Japan’s historical role of colonizer/conqueror to those other Asian neighbors, especially China and Korea.
But the interesting thing is the chief support of patriarchy/conservatism/tradition in the US, religion has virtually no major impact on Japanese culture. The culture is largely secular these days.
There is more of an open acknowledgment and even criticism of how traditional norms are enforced by coercion and fear than genuine respect for them. Japanese comedies and dramas tend to make work of these. The Japanese media’s take on the announcer was about as negative as the rest of the world.
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Actually I meant invading Venezuela and Cuba, but what the hell, let’s invade Japan too and take advantage of the Godzilla thing.
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I wouldn’t call it alien, but is different. I agree there has a been a lot of cross pollination. I mean, I remember when only select Manga like Akira made it to the US, and Anime, or Japanimation, was hard to come by on VHS. Now their animation and art heavily influences sects of US art. And of course the Japanese aren’t all running around in kimonos, but suits and “regular clothes”. And as a sorta gamer, the games we have exchanged with each other. Perhaps too it is the media I consume where you have people warning you of all the things to do and what NOT to do so you don’t come off as a rude westerner, as well as friends who have visited and their experiences (one of whom is black and thus subjected to a few things I wouldn’t have been). By no means did I mean to suggest they are some how insulated from the rest of the world, but they have their own way of doing things.
Right, I agree. It is just a bit jarring how badly they look down on some. Granted while this isn’t as common today in the US, it was way more common in the past, and still is today to a degree. Europe was even worse, part of the reason for an because of the near constant war fare for so long. So yeah, Japan isn’t unique in that respect, but I do get a sense it is “worse” there today than in most other areas, but that is personal speculation.
It has its impact with their popular culture, though most of it using it as a mythology. Though some things like Samauri Champloo included stories of Japanese Christian martyrs. But yes, in the real world they are mostly Buddist and Shinto, which doesn’t usually have people fighting over dogma or forcing people to adhere to it. So that’s nice.
That said, I still really want to visit. I thought I had a shot at it when I was getting good over time, but now… eh… gotta find a better job.
I also have been learning more about modern China, and it too is interesting how different it is.
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