Green IslandThe First Night of The World Cup
June 12th 2010 09:18
Now that's what I call Samurai
Those countries who are seeking to mount bids to host future World Cups are missing a key variable when considering their possible chances of succeeding. Everyone knows about the ‘bung’ (I love that word, is it because it is only a vowel away from ‘bong’?), about wining a dining the FIFA officials, about the persuasive powers of high class hookers sent to hotel rooms, and about unleashing the ultimate weapon in charm offensives, David Beckham; but do they know about the Trippy Traveller effect?
Patently not. This virtually unknown rule of the Universe states that the World Cup will always be held at least 7 time zones away from where I’m residing. It’s uncanny: when I lived in Japan before it was in Germany and Switzerland. When I lived in England last it was in Japan and Korea. And now that I’m back in Samurai Japan (more on the samurai thing shortly) it’s in South Africa. Think of all the resources, bungs and hookers that could be saved if they only bothered to find out where I was likely to be before going to the trouble of stroking the egos, bank balances and genitalia of Blatt and Platini and all those other stiffs in suits.
It is curious being in Japan this time for the World Cup. I presume that when they were hosting the event that they were stoked with excitement and caught up in the razzmatazz of it all. For this one it seems to be far from the case. The TV showed some really pathetic looking parties in Tokyo. On one show I was watching last night they had cobbled together a party and had invited a bunch of South Africans, Mexicans and Japanese footie fanatics. The cameras rolled hours before the opening game and showed this motley group jumping up in the air and shouting as if there was something to get excited about. There wasn’t a single alcoholic drink on the tables that I could see, not even an alcohol substitute like Bud. I can’t imagine that NHK would supply ecstasy or some other euphoria inducing drug to elevate the mood to fever pitch. It must be the sad phenomenon of people prostituting their feelings to get on TV.
I’ve been talking to my students about the World Cup. Well initially I was just taking the piss without mercy. I asked them if they knew whether the Golden Boot could be awarded to a player with a fine string of home goals. If that was the case then Tulio, their Brazilian, must be in with a good chance of lifting the coveted award. Once I could rein in my facetiousness I started asking classes who they thought was going to win the tournament. I don’t know how the Japanese do it but somehow they reach a consensus without any prior consultation. This must be the famous collective consciousness of the Borg coming into play. Thus one class was near unanimous in declaring Brazil would win; another class that South Africa would win (that one really betrayed a complete lack of understanding of the game); and another that Argentina would lift the trophy.
I asked them about Japan’s chances. Nobody rated Japan’s chances. Indeed many of my students seemed a bit put out that I was even discussing the World Cup with them. They really wanted to ignore the whole thing. The Japanese as a whole, and especially old Japanese, only follow sports which feature some media-made Japanese celebrity. Female golf to the rest of the world is a tiresome spectacle involving hours of televised air and dumb fashion; but because some cute-ish young wholesome Japanese bird is causing a minor splash in bird-golf the TV is full of it. Because Ichiro Suzuki moved to the Seattle Mariners, afternoon TV is full of Mariners coverage. The fact that nobody knows who is winning the American league or who the other stars of the yank game are doesn’t seem to matter. The Winter Olympics, that epic display of pointless sports, gets Japanese approaching near orgasm when one of their just pubescent girls takes to the ice. “How is ice dancing a sport?” I continually ask my students. That question gets blocked from entering the cerebral cortex by some gadget installed by Sony. I tried a different tack:
“Do you think disco dancing should be incorporated into the Summer Olympics? It could be like figure skating without ice.”
That never got a response either. Shame because the spectacle of John Travolta doing some Saturday Night Fever moves for the glory of the States would be eminently more watchable than twirling girls in skin coloured leotards.
Better than ice skating
The last Winter Olympics also saw a sudden Japanese interest in curling. A sport that previously had a virtually zero interest quotient in Japan (and probably the entire world) suddenly developed a massive following because of the three doable J-girls competing for medals.
One of my old ladies said a remarkable thing about this World Cup. She claimed the Japanese team stood no chance because they lacked the ‘samurai spirit.’ I used all my powers of self-restraint to not point out to her that it wasn’t ‘samurai spirit’ that they lacked but football skill. And besides how does being like a hired thug for a landlord help win a football game? I know that she meant the ‘will to win’ when she dusted off the sad samurai cliché but it occurred to me that if a samurai had only the will to win at sword fighting the chances are that the warrior in question with bags of motivation would still be cut down in his tracks by a samurai who had a modicum of fighting skill at his disposal. These are all lies. Like the American dream, the people are fed this garbage about you just having to want something hard enough to get it. I’ve been wanting the young voluptuous girl who works at the 7-11 where I get my fags for ages now. And it’s not been any slacker kind of wanting. I’m talking really disciplined wanting, perhaps up to samurai standards, but so far I’ve failed to get a smile let alone a happy ending from the cutie giving me my change. I am as much of as a humanist as the next Darwinian supporter but I’m certain that man triumphs over adversity through ingenuity and adaptability not through blind faith in a Hollywood (or Bangkok) happy ending.
And just before I lay to rest the samurai joke, I’d like to point out that the Japanese of all people should not be fooled into a Tom Cruise perception of their own history. The Samurai were ruthless motherfuckers that worked for their Lords. By keeping guns out of Japan for centuries these ancient gangsters were able to put to the sword any peasants who dared to challenge the unjust status quo whereby the vast majority toiled as serfs for heartless and tyrannical land owning nobility. The modern equivalent is the yakuza who have been willing bully boys for big business interests keen to quell lawsuits (famously the Minamata mercury poisoning incident by the Chisso Corporation) and break up the irritatingly democratic gatherings called ‘company annual general meetings’. Sometimes it seems to me that the only part of their history the Japanese don’t distort is the terrible day of 6th August 1945 when the Yanks dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
A man willing to do anything for money other than score goals
So to get back to the World Cup, despite a general lack of public interest the TV in Japan tried to generate some false sense of euphoria to get their ratings up. They got the requisite dumb pretty girl in the studio and some minor football star with a major show off suit and suitably tousled hair to give their vapid opinions. At the stadium of the opening game Hidetoshi Nakata (who was superlative in lacking both samurai spirit and exceptional football skills) was supposed to grace TV viewers with his expert opinions. Unfortunately, he was stuck in traffic coming from the hairdressers and only made just made it before kick-off. When he did bless the camera with his exquisite 2 day growth and trade mark orange mini Mohawk TV viewers such as myself must have been entertained by the visible proof that his ears were protruding even further than usual from his cranium. I suspect this was a Sony modification brought out just for the World Cup just to make sure the Borg could reach him in spite of the bad wi-fi connections in Africa.
Not being fluent in Japanese I was spared Nakata’s opinions but I have a strong suspicion that they were as dull as the game itself. The Mexicans displayed admirable football skills but lacked any killer touch (that’s the samurai spirit again), whereas South Africa played like Burnley on a wet Sunday in front of 200 die-hard fans. Route one being their only tactic. It wasn’t just the football that disappointed, it was the crowd too. There were no boos, chants or songs just a constant hum of people blowing through cheap vuvuzelas. One long vibration might please Indian gurus but really irritated the fuck out of me. Come on people voice your opinion.
blowing vuvuzela
The second half was better because Burnley Africa took an unexpected lead and Mexico was forced to take off the over-rated Carlos Vela (Arsene has already posted him his P45) and play for an equalizer instead of playing for European contracts. I started to enjoy the game and get in the World Cup mood (a euphemism for getting blind drunk and unashamedly jingoist). And then the game ended.
All right. Beers. Pissing in fountains. Bringing up the war and a kebab. But no my samurai supporter spirit was utterly quelled by the realization that the next game was an eternity away, no kick off until that miraculous time called 27.30 by the Japanese who have cunningly improved on the Gregorian Calendar to include 3 and half more hours in a day. This must be another Sony breakthrough.
Fuck it. I went to bed without finding a solitary German or American to abuse.
I’m glad I did because I watched the highlights of France and Uruguay this morning and the match just confirmed the truism that there has never been a scoreless draw in a game of football that couldn’t have been improved with a goal. Even a Tulio classic would have surely been a welcome addition.
And as I finish this piece I risk ridicule by suggesting that Mr. Wayne Rooney lacks neither the thuggish-ness of the samurai or the skills of a football legend and now is the time my lad to make your nation proud.
Minamata Disease
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