George R. Packard
President, International University of Japan;
Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, President, U.S.-Japan Foundation
George R. Packard was dean of SAIS from 1979 to 1993 and is now director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies as well as professor of East Asian studies at the school. He is also president of the International University of Japan. From 1965 to 1967, he was chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek. Prior to that, he served as special assistant to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer. In March of 1998, he was appointed president of the U.S.-Japan Foundation.
Packard Report - Aug. 1999
As hot summer days give way to cooler evenings, and autumn approaches, nearly every policy-maker and most smart journalists are on vacation, meaning that not much is happening in Washington. US-Japan relations remain on the same good track as last May, when Prime Minister Obuchi made his memorable visit to the city. Reports that Japan will participate in developing a theater missile defense system have been well received in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. There is watchful waiting to see if North Korea will be stupid enough to launch still another Taepodong missile.
Yet it would be wrong to say that nothing at all is happening in US-Japan relations. One of the extraordinary (though almost unnoticed) developments of this year is taking place not in the corridors of political or economic power but on baseball fields across the country. These are places where real Americans live, where families go to re-visit familiar rituals, where the heart and spirit of America are nourished and have their roots.
In the heartland of America, six Japanese pitchers are proving that they can not only play well in major league baseball, but that they have been totally accepted by their team-mates, their American fans, and the hardened journalists who call themselves sportswriters.
It has not always been easy for these athletes to gain such popularity. They were regarded as somehow different from their American counterparts: alien creatures speaking a strange language, isolated from their team-mates: with weird pitching motions. But Hideo Nomo showed such skill and dedication to the game that the barriers started coming down.
Still, when Hideki Irabu of the New York Yankees failed to hustle to cover first base on a ground ball to the first baseman during a meaningless spring training game, Yankees' owner, George Steinbrenner called him a terrible name: "Fat pussy toad." It is an expression most Americans have never heard before (and its Japanese translation must have been difficult!).
The point is that owners do not normally single out players for insults of this sort, and it struck me at the time that Irabu was picked on because he was Japanese.
Since that time, all six Japanese pitchers have performed reasonably well in their various assignments. Irabu has, in fact, become one of the more reliable starting pitchers for the Yankees; New York fans have come gradually to appreciate his contributions, and cheer for him as loudly as for any of the American pitchers on the team.
Even more astounding has been the role of Masato Yoshii with the New York Mets. In the past, there have been many times when Yoshii was on the brink of being released. At the beginning of August, he was fired from his job as a starting pitcher and assigned to relief work in the bullpen after a series of poor performances. But he returned as a starter on August 13 to fill in for an injured Met pitcher, and turned in two solid games for his team.
You have to understand that New York players and teams (Yankees and Mets) are judged more harshly by the local press than any other group of athletes. They are expected to win, and any thing less than victory is greeted by boos and angry criticism in the sports columns.
So here is what the tough-as-nails manager of the Mets, Bobby Valentine, had to say about Yoshii on August 19: "Yoshii is a true professional. There is no doubt in my mind that he understands competition as well as anyone in that clubhouse. He understands his job and what he has to do . . . There's no doubt he's made a major contribution to this team."
This quote is interesting not just because Yoshii made a remarkable come-back but also because Valentine is talking about him as if he were a normal American athlete - one of the boys. No longer is he treated as if he were special, different, alien, Japanese, but rather as a regular human being.
This may not seem surprising to those of us who have learned to speak each other's language and who have lived and worked in the other country. But it was only ten years ago that American "revisionists" told the world that the Japanese were somehow "different" and not to be trusted. And Japanese intellectuals such as Governor Shintaro Ishihara were only too happy to reinforce the image of the Japanese being "different" (and superior).
Several weeks ago, the Asahi Shimbun, in its "Tensei Jingo" column, reported on the suicide of the critic Jun Eto. The writer quoted Eto's assertion that he was "Japanese first of all, and a human being only second." This is an attitude which Japan, in its own interest, needs to get rid of as quickly as possible. The world needs to recognize the profoundly human qualities of the Japanese mind and spirit which have made them great.
And Americans need to stop viewing Japanese as exotic, strange or alien. It seems that a 34-year-old Japanese pitcher nearing the end of his career, has done more to bring the two peoples closer together than all the intellectuals on both sides.
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