Ohh..those fragile Japanese women

Of all the countries in the world, I would not have expected them to do it. In fact, I thought they would be the last country in the world to be able to do it.

With due respect to them.

I am of course referring to Japan winning the Women's World Cup.

One of the commentators mentioned after game that Japan had the smallest team in the WC. I am not sure what he mean by that. I did not follow this world cup other than what were shown on the news daily and if there was none (on telly), than I would not know about it.

He could have meant that Japan has the smallest contingent in term of numbers, or he could have meant that Japan's team members, on average, have the smallest physical attributes in term of height and weight.

And I would not be surprised by such statistic.

I believe - and I am not backed by any statistic - that Japanese players would be the smallest physically and I don't know what possessed them to play like they did, and in the process won themselves, and their nation, the World Cup.

I have spent many months staying there - for a total of over a year, cumulatively, in their early 90s, and I must say that Japanese women, to my eyes, are the most fragile women I have seeen or met. 

Much more fragile than Malay women for sure.

They are very soft-spoken and the most well mannered persons in the whole world. I have read somewhere  - I think in the aftermath of the tsunami recently, that if you wish to see the Moslems at the height of the Islamic civilization, they should see just to see the Japanese. They are a first class society, and I would say that there is no equivalent society in the rest of the world.

Ours included.

Or should I say, ours especially!

I think we all remember how people would queue for their food rations in the aftermath of the tsunami and not like in US where there were heavy looting. We are no better, and we should remember the accident that happened on the hiway with hundreds of thousands of coins spilling on the hiway.

Many motorists had a field day then!

The end of our training at Tokuyama during one of my
visits there in 1988.

During my training days in Tokuyama, with nothing much to do after office hours, I would listen to Japanese music especially the traditional songs on the telly, obviously without knowing the lyrics or a single Japanese word.

Well, not quite, but close I guess.

And I love most of them. Typically of course they were sung by female singers, and I must say they sound so fragile as the songs would typically be so melancholic. I think the songs was probably about yearning for love or home or the country, I don't know. And coupled with the fact that the Japanese language is such a soft and melodic, they sound like they were in such much pain - not unlike our Asli songs, I must add, and that in turn made them so beautiful to my ears.

So I decided that I need to bring a couple of them home - the songs I mean (not the singers, as I was already married by then). But not knowing the singers, and the songs' titles were not a deterrent to me. All I need to do was bring the lyrics as I had phonetically spelt them, and sing them to the instructors and luckily one of them knew at least two songs; so I was able to then buy a couple of cassettes of Japanese melodies.

I know that's the very reason I love those Malay songs that were adapted from the Japanese song in 70s. There are too numerous to mention, but one stands out even today - Ku Ingin Bahagia by Rina Rahman.

I jokingly told my boss then, when I reported back for duty after my many trips there, that the announcement over the loudspeaker (presumably announcing on the day's event at the office, or safety announcement) sounded very much like the whispers of two lovers in bed!

Soft and romantic.

Hahaha, since this is PG13 site, I don't think I can divulge anything beyond that. I'll just let your imagination run wild for now!

I remember walking to the JGC office many times from the train station and I would be greeted by the ladies from the office. One morning, I stopped by a convenient store and while browsing for some stuff - I was so engrossed and was in deep thought (I think I was thinking of what I was going to have for lunch), I was greeted by one of them.

"Ohaiyo gonzaimas, Hariri-san. How are you this morning?"

My heart skipped a beat that morning. It was too melodic for my ears. May be I had been away for too long!

They were so soft-spoken that they spoke in whisper mode, and like they were singing. For a moment, I thought that some Japanese gals were trying to pick on me, but luckily I quickly recognized them and returned their greetings. Aah, well. ;-)

In Malaysia, our announcers sound like she (or he) is having a fight with herself in an empty room!

But in any case, good on them; the Japanese girls. We need to learn on how physicals are not a imitation to winning football matches and in this particular case, at the highest standard of football world, albeit one for the women.

I wonder how our Harimau Malaya would fare against the Japanese team in a match at Bukit Jalil.

The gals one, I mean.

EPILOGUE

What's my point really?

Well, football is supposed to be a physical game and there have been many analysts who pointed out the different physical between Asian players and their European counterparts, and reckon that Asian countries would not win the World Cup any time soon.

I am sure their analyses are no longer valid.

If the Japanese gals can do it, why not us?

What say you?