East Windup Chronicle slams Jason Johnson
09/30/2007 @ 4:00 am
EAST WINDUP CHRONICLE (EWC) has a post that is highly critical of Seibu Lions pitcher Jason Johnson, in which they say he is personification of the Ugly Gaijin in Japan - those who think Roppongi is Japan, complain that things here are so different from the U.S., etc.
Some of the commenters to the piece say that EWC was too hard on the young pitcher, while others think the criticism is spot on.
What say you, Japundits?
I only read the EWC post (and not the actual blog run by Johnson) but it came across as being a bit too harsh. The guy’s an athlete. Not the most stand-up, culturally curious guy perhaps, but not particularly offensive either. Not all ballplayers are like Curt Schilling (who apparently was taking some Japanese language lessons in anticipation of the arrival of Matsuzaka).
September 30th, 2007 at 4:59 amIt’s not an unusual thing that a business person comes to a foreign country who is neither speaking a word of local language nor understanding anything about its culture. He isn’t ugly but just plain foreign.
However if that foreigner has no respect to its local culture, he couldn’t be very agreeable for the local people.
September 30th, 2007 at 8:48 amWell, maybe his attitude and what he wrote on his blog was not a “model” as a foreigner in Japan. But I still have sympathy with him as he is an athlete who is also fighting with Diabetes.
September 30th, 2007 at 12:34 pmHe seems like a bit of an idiot, but no more than most. I thought they seemed pretty harsh on him. Almost like they’ve got something personal against him.
September 30th, 2007 at 1:37 pmWell, a $3 million a year salary will piss off people every time. So may guys get a good education, study Japanese, try hard to blend in, work hard and make a living - and then a guy like this breezes into town on a salary like that.
It would piss me off too, but that’s what entertainers (and athletes are entertainers) make in this strange era.
September 30th, 2007 at 4:19 pmI can’t say Jason particularly impresses me, but I suspect I’d much rather have a beer with him than with the self-important condescending butthead who wrote that piece.
September 30th, 2007 at 11:12 pmThere certainly doesn’t seem to be anything unusually outrageous about Jason to justify the hatchet between the shoulder blades.
October 1st, 2007 at 12:09 amI don’t think that its too harsh. If a Japanese pitcher came to the states for a huge salary, started bitching about management, keeping a blog about how he didn’t fit in in Japanese, started complaining about the culture and violating cultural norms, and then blew out his arm before ever pitching an inning, think about how badly he’d get blasted in the US media.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:09 pmaks: True, he would be blasted in the US media but I suspect that such a reaction would be primarily due to the injury and not any cultural oafishness on his part.
In any case, a more accurate comparison would have a Japanese blogger living in the States criticizing his compatriot for such behaviour.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:53 pmAnd I also doubt that many Japanese bloggers in this scenario would even notice or care about the cultural oafishness exhibited by such a pitcher.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:57 pmAnd I also doubt that many Japanese bloggers in this scenario would even notice or care about the cultural oafishness exhibited by such a pitcher. (I could be wrong, of course….)
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:58 pm