That time when I learned about Dominican baseball with a Japanese guy

That time when I learned about Dominican baseball with a Japanese guy

I arrived in Tokyo on March 18th of this current year. It was a long and tiresome flight, add to that the fact people will look at you as some sort of alien and the awkwardness of one's day could only intensify.

A few days prior to our trip our country won the Serie del Caribe championship and we became, at least for a few days, worldwide famous, still I didn't assume our popularity could reach the farthest corners of the earth.

Currently mistaken by an African woman (which was pretty cool by the way, specially when you're as proud of your African roots as I am), people kept staring at me and my family everywhere we went; in a few cases when people felt like asking about our country instead of assuming where we were from, the word 'Dominican' caused a mayor and positive reaction among people.

They kept saying with a surprise look on their faces: 'Dominican?!' 'world-champion!' and kept going, on something similar to English, about how great Alex and Manny are and gave me a very graphic description of their greatest games while I kept nodding and smiling because the truth is they knew more about Dominican baseball that what I've learned in 26 years.

To conclude, baseball -sports in general- are as popular as music, no matter where you go it is a very well known topic, it's part of the world culture, so please save yourself the embarrassment of not knowing your own national sport or you might end up learning about it by a Japanese guy in a random subway line somewhere in Tokyo.




Written by: Ruth Indhira López Capellán
ID: CG-2624