My Big Debut

It’s been almost a month since I last posted, but I’m sure you’ll agree by the time you’ve read through to the end of this one (if indeed you don’t lose interest within the next paragraph or two) that I’ve more than made up for my lack of posting with quite a sizeable word count here. For this I apologise, and I sincerely thank any of you who stick with me to the end.

And now, on with the story . . .

Sunday November 26th of this year was a big day for me. So big was it that I am certain I will never forget it. I had long been looking forward to it, though now that it has come and gone, I look back on it with a strange mix of bitter disappointment laced with astonishment and capped with a serendipitous high. It was the day I made my debut for the Batten Basketball Club.

Now, there had been quite a build-up to this day, and quite a few obstacles had to be overcome in order for me to play. Earlier in the year, on a cool Wednesday night in March, a friend took me along to the training session of said club, and introduced me to the guys. Incidentally, this was how I met Masa, whom you might remember from a couple of posts ago. From that night on I more or less made it to every Wednesday night session. In the beginning it was just a way for me to keep active, but it became much more than that, and it was undoubtedly the best thing that had happened to me, socially, for a long time. I went from feeling like little more than a conspicuous foreigner living in Japan, to feeling like a part of the community; and it was only after joining this group that the vibrant city of Fukuoka really began to open up to me.

Wednesday quickly became my favourite day of the week, and it wasn’t long before Masa and a few others began asking me if I’d like to join the team officially, for competitions. Naturally, I was very keen, but it didn’t happen until just recently, for a number of reasons. First of all, Masa had to speak to all members of the team to make sure that there were no objections to me coming on board. This might sound a bit over the top for a team that currently finds itself in division-D of the Fukuoka Company Worker’s League (a direct translation), but it was done in the interest of that very deep-rooted tenet of Japanese culture—group harmony. So, having received the green light from all team members, I was all set to go. But then, in a cruel twist of fate, my work schedule was changed, so that I would no longer have Sundays off—Sundays being game day. Thus, my big debut had to be put on hold until I could get some time off work; this I was able to do, but only after resorting to the use of some of my paid holidays, of which I have precious few. Lastly, and importantly, I had to have a uniform made up, which took time, and wasn’t cheap.

On the night before the big day, I went out with three or four teammates and a couple of friends. Masa was confidently predicting that I would get a lot of court-time, probably more than I expected. As a way of adding weight to these predictions he mentioned, in a conspiratorial tone, that he had spoken to Tsuitchi, our fearsome, yet super, captain-coach. I replied with a mix of false modesty and bravado, saying something to the effect of ‘I don’t expect to receive much time at first. I would prefer that Tsuitchi puts me in the game whenever he thinks is best; and when that time comes I will show him what I can do’. Nevertheless, in anticipation of all the minutes I would be playing, having taken Masa’s words to heart, and mindful of our ten-thirty start in the morning, I took myself home a little earlier than I normally would on a Saturday night, leaving Masa and co. to party into the wee hours of the morning—clearly they were not expecting much court-time.

The next morning, I was--owing to my newfound self-discipline--fresh and raring to go. When my big moment finally came, I stepped on to the court to the sounds of much cheering and encouragement from my teammates. I must confess, however, that I was not nearly as excited as they were. With Tsuitchi on the court, Masa, who had assumed the role of assistant captain-coach, put me into the game with about two minutes left on the clock—in the fourth quarter. What’s more, he chose Tsuitchi as the player I was to go on for--a move that I felt was perhaps not in the best interests of my future game time prospects.

The fate of the game had well and truly been sealed—in our favour—which is why this part of the game is referred to as garbage-time: the time of the game when all the good players come off the court so as to avoid getting injured, and the not so good players are set loose, eager to absorb every last nanosecond of court time they can get. And so, finding myself in the company of the latter, I gave it my best for two minutes. Let the record show my personal contribution to the team on my debut was as follows:

Collisions with teammates: 1
Points: 0
Rebounds: 0
Assists: 0
Steals: 1

One word to sum up my game? Symmetrical: at least numerically so, and when presented in the manner in which I have above. (Alternatively, leaving "Rebounds" where they are, you could put the other two zeros on the extremities, trading places with "Collisions" and "Steals", and the list would still maintain its symmetry.) Yes, well, anyway, the important thing is we won. I must admit, however, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps I had taken myself home a little prematurely the night before, and instead could have stayed out for one or two more drinks. In fact, I could have quite comfortably stayed out all night; I dont't think there would have been too much panic and concern had I slept in and missed the game.

The good news was we had another game to play at around 1 o’clock. It was this game that my girlfriend, Tomoki, was coming to watch, and so, naturally, as far as I was concerned, this next game was all that mattered. She may have missed my two minutes of brilliance in the first game, but I was confident I still had enough left in the tank to put on a show for her, to show her what I was made of. To see me play the game that has been such a big part of my life—which prior to this day she had not—I believed, would afford her a deeper understanding of my character, my spirit, and my soul (exactly how these three differ I’m not sure). In other words, I had desperately wanted to show off. Strangely, and inexplicably, I was in an optimistic frame of mind, believing, having received a mere two minutes in the first game, that things could only get better. That Masa was again assuring me I would get substantial playing time should have perhaps struck me as inauspicious. But it didn’t.

When my girlfriend arrived, accompanied by one of her friends, I showed them to a couple of seats in the stand which I had carefully chosen for them, and from which I thought they would have the best possible view of the game, and, more importantly, of my glorious performance. Upon reflection, however, it seems quite a ludicrous thing to have done, as the stand consisted of only a handful of seats, all of which had, more or less, the exact same view of the court.

As the warm-up began, I was to be found, in between lay-ups, strutting about with all the sublime confidence and swagger of an Olympic hundred-metre sprinter, and, I imagine, with an egomaniacal twinkle in my eye. Indeed, all throughout the warm-up, I affected as much grace and style for every shot, pass, and rebound, as I could muster, with the sole aim of impressing Tomoki. Whether or not this worked I will never know because in an attempt to appear cool and indifferent I refrained from looking over to where she and her friend were sitting.

Pride goeth before a fall . . .

We won! Again! Normally this would make me happy. But having received a sum total of ZERO minutes . . .well suffice to say I was not in a celebratory mood. After the game, judging by the way everyone was giving me a wide berth I think my demeanour must have been somewhat akin to an angrier version of Battler-san, whom you might recall from an earlier post. It was a humbling, maddening, humiliating, and confusing experience. When you cannot get a go in division-D of your local competition something is wrong with the world; or, more specifically, something is wrong with our still fearsome, though no longer super (at least not in my estimation) captain-coach, Tsuitchi.

They say that every cloud has a silver lining. Well in this case the silver lining would be that Tomoki’s father had been unable to accept my invitation to come and watch. And so, my humiliation was not as complete as it otherwise might have been. After the game, Tomoki was very sweet and understanding, and it was only after I had assured her that I was okay, that she reluctantly let me go home alone so that I could have some time to myself in which to sulk and lick my wounds.

After I had changed out of my uniform and was preparing to leave the gym, Tsuitchi came up to me and, very cautiously, offered what turned out to be (I think) an explanation and apology: “Zaku, gomene. Something-something-something-something. Getsu-yobi ne.” This translates very roughly into, “Zak, I’m sorry. Something-something-something-something. Monday, OK?” As he said this he seemed to be keeping what he must have felt to be a safe distance from me, as though he were afraid that at any moment I might erupt in a violent fit of frustration. I responded with a very curt "Hai" though I could barely bring myself to look at him. Despite not being able to understand every word he had said, his reference to Monday was enough for me to go on, as our team’s main practice session is on Monday nights. The significance of this will become clear if you bear in mind that I have never attended Monday night practice (because of work). Recall that I go to Wednesday night practice, which in fact is not our team’s practice at all, but is instead another team’s practice at which we are the guests, our role being to provide them with somebody to practice against. Equally significant is the fact that Tsuitchi never attends Wednesday’s practice. Thus, prior to the day in question, he had never seen me play, and evidently was not willing to trust the things he had heard about me from Masa and others. So, essentially, what he had said to me was that if I start coming on Mondays I can get more game time.

Unable to hide my disappointment, I declined to join the team for the post-match dinner. Instead, as I mentioned before, I went home alone to wallow pathetically in self-pity.

Now this story would not be complete if I left it at that, and in so doing left out what happened later in the evening. After the game, Masa, concerned about me, and perhaps feeling bad about the way the day had played out, asked me to meet up with him after he had had dinner with the team, so that we could have a beer and talk about what had happened. At first I had sulkingly declined, saying that I didn’t think I would make very good company.
“OK,” he said, concern evident in the expression on his face. “I can understand how you are feeling. And I’m really sorry about it.”
“I don’t blame you, Masa.”
“I know.” But again, the look on his face suggested that he wasn’t so sure. Wanting to put his mind at ease, I agreed to meet up with him later that night.

So it was at around 10PM that Masa and I took a seat at the polished timber counter of a very traditional-looking sushi restaurant in Tenjin. That he had chosen this kind of restaurant for us to go to said a lot about how he was feeling: this was his way of saying sorry. We ordered some beer and sashimi (like sushi but without rice) and started chatting. Before long, the topic of conversation turned to the huge anti-climax that had been my debut for the team.
“What do you feel about today man?” Masa asked me.
“Well, two minutes in two games . . .I can’t really believe it. It’s incredible. I don’t know what else to say.” After a few more beers, however, I found that I was able to give a more detailed, if heartfelt, account of why I was so upset. Masa was very patient with me and seemed to agree with most of the things I was saying. When I was done he told me a story of how he had had a similar experience when he first joined the team, seven or so years ago. In fact, he said almost everyone on the team had similar stories.
“I don’t want you to quit our team.”
“I don’t want to quit. I want to play (play being the operative word). But you know, I think I realised today that even if I want to play, it just won’t be possible unless my work schedule is changed again so that I can have Sundays off. I just can’t keep using my paid holidays.”
He said that he understood but didn’t want me to make a decision right now. Instead he wanted me to take a day or two to think about it and then let him know. This I agreed to, though in truth I had already decided that I would be content with just playing on Wednesday nights.

“Have you ever eaten whale?” I asked, partly out of curiosity, and partly from just wanting to change the topic. I often find when I ask this question that many older Japanese have, while many of the younger generation have not.
“Sure,” he replied, as I had expected he would. He went on with a sentimental air, “You know, when I was in the elementary school we could eat whale for lunch in the school cafeteria. But now, you know, it’s kind of rare.”
As I was conjuring up images of a whale steak with chips, Masa called out to the stocky and stoic gentleman behind the counter, “Sumimasen!” Excuse me! “Something-something o kudasai.”
“What did you just order?” I inquired, a touch of alarm in my voice.
“Whale.”
Oh . . .you didn’t have to do that, I thought to myself, though I could only verbalise it in the form of a very meek “Really?”

As you might imagine, I watched with interest, and a slight sense of dread, as the abovementioned stocky gentleman with stoic countenance—who I’m reluctant to call a cook, or even a chef, and am instead leaning towards master, because it is, I think, the term that the Japanese use—worked away behind the counter with much industry and an arsenal of very sharp knives. After a few moments he solemnly placed a plate of whale sashimi in front of us. He then took a step back, and with the look in his eyes seemed to be issuing me with a challenge, as though he didn’t believe that I would really eat it. There were three different cuts of whale meat on the plate, all of which I sincerely hoped were not from one of the more endangered species.
“What’s this?” I asked Masa.
“That is whale bacon,” he said matter-of-factly.
Of course it is, I thought to myself. I had made it nearly two years in Japan without eating whale; at least I had never knowingly eaten whale. But all that was about to change. Taking my cue from Masa, I tentatively picked up a piece of the meat with my chopsticks, dipped it in some soy sauce mixed with shredded ginger paste and brought it to my mouth, my left hand underneath so as to catch any soy sauce that might drip. I put the meat into my mouth and began to chew, conscious of the master, and now his assistant, eyeing me closely.
“How is it?” Masa asked, the master still watching me.
“Unnn, oishiiii yo,” I said, with as much animation as my very poor acting skills would allow. It’s beautiful! The master seemed to be satisfied with this and so turned his attention to another group of customers at the other end of the counter. When Masa felt it was safe to do so, he asked me, “Really?”
“No. Well, it’s okay.” Owing to the somewhat overpowering mix of soy and ginger, I was unable to detect any distinct whaley taste.
“I thought so. Actually, I don’t really like whale so much.”
Nevertheless, thinking that it would be sacrilegious to let it go to waste, we ate the remaining whale sashimi, which included what Masa referred to as flesh and meat from the stomach. I did ask what kind of whale it was that we had eaten, and they (Masa and the Master) did tell me, though at the time we were unable to translate it into English, and I’ve since forgotten the Japanese. Perhaps it’s for the best.

Anyway, there was little point to this latter part of the story other than to share with you what is one of the more recent experiences I’ve had this year that go under the heading of ‘Things I never thought I’d do’. Among other things, the list also includes:
(1) Drinking with Sumos in a ‘Snack’ bar (more on snack bars later).
(2) Having a "conversation" with a Nepalese man, in Japanese, on a train heading to Nagasaki (much to the amusement of some of our non-gaijin co-passengers).
(3) Eating a still beating eel’s heart (in a restaurant, not whilst lost in the wilderness).

And on that note, fearing that I’ll be stretching the friendship (if I haven’t already) if I go on any longer, I’d like to wish you all the best for Christmas and the new year. I’ll have some big news (hopefully!) to share with you in my first post for next year, so be sure to come back!

Peace,
eyechan