Go away, COVID-19! You’ve kept baseball away from us long enough, already! It’s bad enough that you scared us with Shintaro Fujinami and friends, plus ex-coach Atsushi Kataoka. But to keep us baseball fans in limbo this long… well, that’s just cruel. (Not to mention millions of infections worldwide.)
As a Hanshin Tigers fan, I long to watch my team beat up on (and be beaten up by) its opponents. As a writer, I yearn to blog about those game results. And as a podcaster, I need to talk about the team’s good, bad and ugly. I miss baseball, and if you’re reading this, chances are, you do, too.
In fact, I was on the verge of drying up, wilting away and never coming back to life. Until, that is, I received an opportunity last week to chit-chat about my experience as a Tigers fan. Ever heard of Pecha Kucha Night (PKN)? Neither had I until the invite was extended to me.
PKN was started some 17 years ago by a couple of ex-pats in the Tokyo area. The name (pechakucha is Japanese for “chit-chat”) goes a long way towards explaining what it is. Speakers get to talk about whatever they want, but the idea is, talk less, show more. And so…
There’s a six-minute, 40-second limit on talks. Actually, the slideshow that accompanies the presentation must be exactly 20 slides, each of which is on screen for exactly 20 seconds – no more, no less. If you want to chit-chat more than that, tough luck! You have to save it for the beer breaks!
PKNs are now held in over 1,200 cities worldwide in more than 140 countries. Chances are, if you were to look up your nearest urban center, you’d find a PKN there. The cost to attend is fairly low, and you’ll definitely benefit by meeting a bunch of really interesting people who live in your area.
Normally, these meetings start at 8:20 pm (or 20:20 — think about the slides, people!) and consist of 8-12 presentations that sandwich a “beer break.” The one I was invited to was scheduled to take place at Konan University Cube Campus in Nishinomiya, my current home city.
However, no thanks to COVID-19, this particular PKN was not a live one. We took our meeting onto the Zoom platform, and talked it up in front of our own computer screens while others watched from theirs. It presented some challenges, but was also fun in its own way.
Naturally, my talk was about the Hanshin Tigers. More specifically, it was about how I have gone from burnt-out career man to part-time sports journalist. So technically, I didn’t talk much about the Tigers themselves, other than briefly introducing the team and a few of the players I have had the pleasure of meeting.
Perhaps it’s because I’m a teacher, perhaps it’s because I am a fairly experienced podcaster, but I was not one bit nervous at all. I had my slides ready and knew what I needed to say for each one. It wasn’t hard for me to speak with passion – after all, I’ve been dying to talk about the Tigers for months!
I have to say, it was quite exhilarating reliving my history as a blogger, and talking about all the people who have helped me along the way. A Brazilian graphic designer in Dubai. An American Fedex pilot. An American entrepreneur in England. An ordinary Japanese businessman who likes English. And more.
But here’s the thing… deciding on a topic took way longer than I thought, and ultimately I chose a pretty safe one. There are definitely more exciting, strong anecdotal stories I could have told. As I finished my maiden presentation, my mind was flooded with ideas for other topics I could present at future PKNs:
(1) The truth behind the Curse of the Colonel. You’ve probably heard that the Hanshin Tigers have been cursed by the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken because some rowdy fans threw his statue into a polluted river while celebrating a monumental win back in 1985. But the legend is fatally flawed…
(2) How baseball helped me understand Romeo and Juliet. As you know, the star-crossed lovers have broken with a generational family feud. It was simply NOT acceptable for a Montague to have positive feelings towards a Capulet. Now, put this in Japanese baseball terms and throw me into the starring role, and voila!
(3) The life and death of a legend. Back in the year I started this blog, I started to look into the depths of team history and came out with a friendship. Gene Bacque’s success story with the Tigers, plus his trade, retirement, post-playing career, old age, and untimely death are a truly fascinating story.
(4) How to take hate in stride. No one can please everyone. Even at my minute level of fame, I have come across my share of naysayers. Many of them started as allies but ultimately turned their backs on me. Not worry, though – I’m still moving ahead, released from their venomous attacks.
(5) What makes the Tigers so darn appealing. It is an objective truth that this team is not a successful one. The Tigers’ foibles outnumber triumphs by a longshot, and yet there is no disputing their popularity. If the baseball itself isn’t what has people thronging the stadium, then what is?
Thankfully, I might even get a chance to do one of these talks. The organizers of last weekend’s PKN enjoyed my talk enough that they informally invited me to the next live PKN. It will be my pleasure! Though my life is more than just Hanshin, I think I’ve found my niche.
I would like to extend an invitation to you to attend one of these events, especially when they return to being live. Think TED Talks but with less length, formality, maybe even academia. Best of all, you are encouraged to drink beer during and between presentations!
Not sure if you noticed this, but if you read this article in a “presentation cadence” (i.e., the speed at which you would present it to an audience), it comes out to roughly 20 x 20 = 6 minutes, 40 seconds. I guess you could say I’ve taken a bit of a shining to PKN’s format. How about you?