《朝日新闻》迟到的英译
Sports can erase the boundaries of nationality
03/24/2008
The first foreign-born soccer player who acquired Japanese nationality was Daishiro Yoshimura, who died in 2003 at the age of 56. In the early years of the former Japan Soccer League, Yoshimura, born Nelson Yoshimura, a second-generation Japanese-Brazilian, turned Yanmar soccer team into a formidable powerhouse together with Japanese player Kunishige Kamamoto.
During the 1998 World Cup in France, Yoshimura met Wagner Augusto Lopes, a Brazilian native who had become a Japanese citizen the year before. According to "Soccer Imin" (Soccer immigrants), a book by Kiwamu Kabe, Lopes apologized to Yoshimura for playing in the World Cup because Yoshimura had not played in the World Cup soccer finals. But Yoshimura told the younger man, "You don't have to apologize at all. You are representing us."
Yoshimura blazed the trail for the naturalization of other Brazilian-born soccer players--Santos Alessandro, and Marcus Tulio Tanaka. And now, Carlos Alberto Carvalho Dos Anjos Junior (Juninho), a Brazilian with the J1 Kawasaki Frontale team, has expressed his intention to become a Japanese citizen. He was the goal-scoring leader of J1 last season.
If he becomes naturalized, he will be a strong contender for a berth in the Japanese national soccer squad.
The fact that these Brazilian-born players are representing Japan makes us wonder about the significance of one's nationality in sports.
Since some people obviously believe that fans' enthusiasm for the World Cup is dampened when a star player changes his nationality, FIFA, world's soccer governing body, examines the player's fitness to represent his adopted nation.
To root for those players without reservation, we also check their fitness in our hearts. We say to ourselves, for instance, that Ruy Ramos, who was also born in Brazil and became a naturalized Japanese citizen, is married to a Japanese woman; Santos is a graduate of a Japanese senior high school; Tulio was born a third-generation Japanese-Brazilian; and they all speak Japanese. We feel reassured if we see their "Japaneseness" in whatever form it may be.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the start of Japanese emigration to Brazil. In every field, "our representatives" come and go, creating a new force when their blood, souls and skills merge.
Come to think of it, soccer, too, has caused players' dreams, ambitions and even nationalities to merge, and the sport has acquired a magical power that can make the world one.
--The Asahi Shimbun, March 16(IHT/Asahi: March 24,2008) |