Sure, what the hell, I thought. Nothing in my schedule keeping me from such frivolities. So after catching a nap at a manga cafe* from 1-ish to 3, we hit a bar in Shibuya and watched Team Oz get savagely maimed. My new associates were of course distraught to the point of tears, and I took the opportunity rub a little salt on their injured pride :-) ... but not too much. I'm a wiseass, not a jackass. We enjoyed several cuts of consolation sushi in Tsukiji afterwards, stumbled to our respective domiciles, and collapsed into sometime in the afternoon.
*Wonderful inventions. For less than $4/hour, you get a cozy private cubicle with a computer, broadband internet, a soft reclining sleeper-chair, and free coffee/tea. To top that off, the place has a huge selection of movies and comic books, and there's even a restaurant attached with food slightly better than McDeath. I hear some have showers, too.
All of that's beside the point, though. I didn't start this entry to gush about sports. Any of you who know me well know that professional sports are not a high point of my life. I don't follow teams, I don't know player stats, and the concept of fantasy football bores me silly. No, the reason I'm writing this entry is actually a tune and a few words that got stuck in my head, no doubt after I overheard it in a commercial or something.
"When I get older, I will be stronger, they'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag..."
Any nods of recognition out there? My brief Google research led me to the conclusion that this is a line from the refrain of K'naan's "Wavin' Flag," released in 2007 and adopted as the theme song of the 2010 World Cup. Listen to it. It's all over YouTube and the rest of the interwebs.
The lyrics are simple, but they come together for me in a way few things do. They carry a powerful message, and they thrust it out there boldly, telling the world to grow the fuck up and start seeing each other as all members of one race. And maybe that's what we need. What's more, since the song became the anthem of World Cup 2010, handfuls of translations have been recorded, into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and many others. K'naan has worked with artists all over the world to globalize this message, and if I knew him I would thank him in person. I can't say anything authoritative about most of the foreign language recordings, except for the Japanese one - which was brilliant. It wasn't a translation at all, actually, but what it did do is take the overall message and couch it in a deep cultural context that just makes sense. It takes topics that are natural to the Japanese way of life and uses them to carry K'naan's thoughts to this audience. It works well. I'm hoping - and thinking, probably, that that's what each language's version of this song has done. Why try to communicate the same words, anyway, to people who think differently? Touch each culture, instead, with an understanding of their ways and a presentation of your message that they can stand behind.
Now, we can't get perfection from this, the World Cup, or any such production. No matter how many songs are sung, it's not likely that North and South Korea will face each other on the green anytime soon. Israeli and Palestinian players probably won't clasp hands and congratulate each other on a well-played game in the near future. Blood will still fall and hatred will still burn. But if an event like this can bring as many of us together as it does, I say it's a damn good start. If Germany, Italy, England, and France have successfully transformed the death and horror of only 70 years past into a (more or less) friendly sporting competition, maybe we really do have something to look forward to. And if you still doubt me, try putting your cynicism aside for a day and just wondering what an event like this can achieve if it's done this much so far.
"...if you weren't involved before, it's never too late to start."
