Mr Baseball Misunderstandings

Cultural Misunderstanding in the Mr. Baseball Movie

The movie Mr. Baseball is about a baseball player, Jack Elliot who played for the New York Yankees and got transferred to Japan. He got transferred to Japan because Jack Elliot lost his spot at the New York Yankees because of his arrogant and selfish behavior. His goal was to play for a season in Japan to come back in the major baseball league stronger and better than before. During his time in Japan he faces many misunderstandings in language, culture, attitude and his eating habits.

Language Barrier

Jack Elliot faces a language barrier from the beginning of the movie. When he arrives in Japan, he does not speak any Japanese. Because of this he gets a translator. When Elliot arrived at the

airport, he gave a speech to fans of the Baseball team where he was really direct and told them his real first impression. The translator he gets, tries to make him look better and changes the words he is saying. Jack also met the managers daughter and dated her after a while. It got obvious that there was a language barrier between both people. This language barrier was not because of the language, because both can speak English. The language barrier was because of a different interpretation of the words they said.
To overcome this problem, Jack started learning Japanese. This should help him to communicate with his teammates, the manager and his girlfriend and avoid the language barriers which were there at the beginning. It can be said, that it is really important to learn a language when he or she is living in a different country for a longer time. It helps a person to understand a countries culture and shows other people that this person wants to integrate.
Culture
Cultural differences can be found between the United States and Japan. This get obvious, when Jack gets to the first practice. The Japanese players always take their shoes off before they are going into the locker room, Jack did not do it in first place. The player got really mad at Jack because for them it is disrespectful to leave shoes on in the locker room. Another action, where he differs from the rest of the team is, when he spits on the baseball field. Spitting was one cultural difference, another one was using chewing tobacco on the field.
In this course we learned, that it is necessary to adapt a countries culture when going and especially working there. It is not a good thing when people are behaving different from the norm. Throughout the movie it got obvious, that Jack tries to adapt more and more from the Japanese culture. This gets obvious when he stops greeting the people with a handshake, because in Japan people are greeted differently. It also can be said that Jack stops spitting on the field.
Missing Attitude
Another misunderstanding is Jack’s missing attitude.

Throughout the movie it gets obvious that he thinks that he is someone better than the Japanese people. When the team manager tries to talk to him, he did not want to listen or participate in the exercises the manager gave him to do. Also when Jack went to a bar with his girlfriend, he talked about Japanese money like it was not worth anything. For Jack everything had to be the same then in the United Stated, otherwise it was not a good thing.

These aspects make obvious that Jack is a negative person and does not want to adapt. It can be said, that Jack started realizing that his missing attitude is wrong and he cannot expect American standards in Japan. It is important to adapt the things from the country you live in and learn to value them. This is also important in business. The same product might be sold all over the world but it is a little different in every country to fulfill the consumers’ needs in that country.

Eating
The way hoe Japanese people is different than the way Americans eat. While Jack was eating pasta he did not know what to do. First he was confused and did not know how to use the sticks, because he would eat is with knife and fork. Before Jack started eating, he observed the Japanese people because he wanted to do it like they did. When they started eating he recognized, that they were slurping the pasta and did not cut it in short pieces. When Jack started eating he tried to slurp too, but it sounded different then the Japanese’ slurping. Everyone was staring at him because they felt uncomfortable.
In my opinion Jack handled this situation wrong because he did not know the right technique to eat so he tried to adapt it while eating. This did obviously not work. Jack should have eaten without slurping or ask people why and how they are doing it because that would have showed them that he is not familiar with this but want to learn it. Most people like when especially foreigners try to learn things which are different in their culture.
Conclusion
It can be said, that Jack Elliot had multiple differences with people because of the different cultures and a different attitude.

First Jack did not want to adapt because he knew that he did not want to stay in Japan for a long time. He also thought that he would be better than all the other player. After a while he started realizing that there are different barriers between him and other people which made him start thinking. He realized that baseball is played differently in Japan then it is in the U.S. and he starts adapting the Japanese ways of life. This helps him to get accepted by more people and he gets respect. It can be said, that this change was needed. When someone goes to a different country he or she has to adapt the culture which can be found in that country. This is especially important for businesses. It can be said that the same smartphone models can be bought all over the world but inside they differ a little bit to satisfy customer needs in every area of the world. This is the same with Jack. He needed to adapt the culture and

behavior.