He gave up 5 inches in height, over 11 pounds in weight and 12 inches in reach to the contender, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the 23-year heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson, was going to win, and win easily. Journeyman, Buster Douglas had fought well in previous years to deserve a shot, but little else.
In fact, very few betting houses accepted bets on the fight. One that did had Tyson, the undefeated champion from New York, a 42-1 favorite. But on this day yesterday, February 11, 26 years ago, the son of a boxer from Columbus, Ohio, delighted 40,000 fans at the Tokyo Dome, and shocked the boxing world. As ringside commentator, Jim Lampley said at the end of the fight, “Let’s go ahead and call it the biggest upset in the history of championship fights. Say it now gentlemen, ‘James Buster Douglas – undisputed heavyweight champion of the world’.”
Boxing history was made. But why was it made in Tokyo? According to Japan hand, Robert Whiting, holding the fight in Japan was an attempt to bring excitement to a fight that was expected to be a Tyson massacre, at a time when Japan was the hottest economy in the world.
They held the fight in Tokyo for economic reasons. Most fight fans in the U.S. thought the match with Douglas would be inconsequential — just a warm-up for an anticipated match with Evander Holyfield. Holding it in Japan would generate more interest. Moreover, at that time, Japan was at the peak of its economic power, buying up expensive properties like Rockefeller Plaza and Columbia Studios.
Staging a heavyweight title match would be yet another important status symbol. The Nikkei had just hit its all-time high two months earlier and the yen was the world’s most powerful currency. So it made economic sense for Don King and the rest of the Tyson team to hold the fight there.
Here it is, the end of that incredulous fight. Were you there?
Japan’s economy is not terrible. Nor is it robust. Generally speaking, the Japanese economy has been pushing hard against the weight of deflation with little result. GDP has dropped, and so have average wages. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, through his mixture of fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms, so-called Abenomics, is striving to get momentum rolling the other way, driving inflation and wages up, and getting people consuming and the economy pumping.
In the early 1960s, the economy was booming. And while inflation didn’t appear to be getting out of hand, at least according to the numbers, people like Machiko Hasegawa felt it. She wrote about it in her comic strip, Sazae-san. In the strip above, from the book, The Best of Sazae-san – The Olympic Years“, Hasegawa-san is able to reflect the average citizen’s perception that the price of everything is going up.
And in the strip below about people commuting on a bus, Hasegawa-san is showing that everybody was feeling the pinch.
And yet, it wasn’t by no means a desperate time for Japan. It was indeed a time of optimism and hope. After all, the Olympics were in Japan.
Me, several years after the closing of the New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows.
First things first. Novelist and futurist, Isaac Asimov had a caveat. If the world is destroyed by a thermonuclear war, his predictions would be meaningless. Got it.
Since there has been no nuclear war of significance, here are a few of the predictions Asimov made in the New York Times in August, 1964. Asimov visited the huge, big-tent event in the world that year that was not the Tokyo Olympics – the World’s Fair in New York, which happened to be in my backyard of Flushing, Queens.
By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button. A quick search reveals that available in the marketplace is electroluminescent advertising displays (which are paper-thin flexible panels), electroluminescent paint, electroluminescent wallpaper, and something more commonly known, electroluminescent fashion.
There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common. The reason Asimov gives for this idea is Man’s urge to control its environment, as well as expand the amount of land to grown more food to feed a growing world population. But another reason will be the Mega-city Trend, the continued massive migration to big cities that puts tremendous pressure on the infrastructure. Singapore, where I lived for a few years, has a population of 5.5 million people on a land mass of 710 square km, a country half the size of Los Angeles. The Red Dot, as it is affectionately called, will be considerably more dense as the government predicts the population to grow to 7 million in the near future. Singapore has built upwards with its skyscrapers, and outwards with land-fill areas, but is now planning underground working facilities on a scale not commonly seen. Designs for the 300,000 square-meter Underground Science City will be 30 to 80 meters below the surface, with plans to hold a working population of over 4,000.
The planned Singapore Underground Science City
Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. The I.B.M. exhibit at the present fair has no robots but it is dedicated to computers, which are shown in all their amazing complexity, notably in the task of translating Russian into English. It will be such computers, much miniaturized, that will serve as the “brains” of robots. The way Asimov describes robotics, and I suppose, artificial intelligence is far less aggressive than his imagination in his novels. I haven’t read that many Asimov works, but I do know that he was one of the most significant minds behind a philosophical framework or set of rules regarding the relationship between Man and Robot: The Three Laws of Robotics. Additionally, I recall his brilliant character, Hari Seldon in Asimov’s Foundation Series, a man who developed psychohistory, a precursor, to me, of what we now call Big Data.
If you want to watch something historic, as well as geeks geeking out, here’s an incredible video of IBM’s Watson beating two humans at Jeopardy. The two humans are Jeopardy champions.
Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with “Robot-brains” vehicles that can be set for particular destinations and that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver. I suspect one of the major attractions of the 2014 fair will be rides on small roboticized cars which will maneuver in crowds at the two-foot level, neatly and automatically avoiding each other. Two obvious parallels to today’s technology: self-driving cars, which are all the rage, as well as maglev technology. By 2020, there are some who claim that Japan will have significant driverless transportation on the roads when the Olympians arrive.
The maglev train, which is already operational in Shanghai, will connect Tokyo to Osaka in an hour, achieving a speed of 500 kph, although it won’t be in operation until 2027.
An ad for butter and cheese by the dairy company, Yuki Jirushi. From the November 1964 Asahi Graf, Tokyo Olympics Special Edition
A derogatory term in Japan for foreigners at the turn of the 20th century was “batta-kusai” (バタ臭い), literally “stinks of butter”.
In the 16th and 17th centuries in Japan, when the Portuguese and Dutch established relations and trade with the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Japanese were exposed to non-Japanese who had meat and milk in their diets. The Japanese, due to the influence of Buddhism and Shintoism, were forbidden from eating meat, and thus by extension, dairy products. On top of that, Japanese were generally lactose intolerant.
Because of the fundamental differences in diet, the Japanese thought, quite simply, that Westerners, with the residue of beef, milk and cheese in their systems, reeked.
Milking at a small farm in Japan in 1933_Mainichi Photo Gallery
But when Emperor Meiji came to power in the late 19th Century, the emperor and his government embarked the country on a massive modernization campaign to make not only the Japanese military, science and industry equal to the levels of excellence in the Western industrialized world, but also the size and strength of Japanese people.
According to this article, the Meiji Government not only lifted the ban on meat and dairy-products consumption, they put the word out, quietly, that the Meiji Emperor also enjoyed meat, cheese and milk.
Jersey Cows arrive from New Zealand to a farm in Japan in 1953, from the Mainichi Photo Gallery
Clearly, the Meiji Government was also picking up advanced marketing techniques, such as celebrity endorsements to sell products. But when the 1960s rolled around, using data to back your claims was all the rage. The advertisement at the top of the page was published in November, 1964 in Asahi Graf’s Tokyo Olympics Special Issue. The headline text states, “These Children Will be the Strength of Japan in the Future”. The company making this statement is “Yuki-Jirushi”, one of the dairy products companies (along with Meiji) established by the Emperor Meiji.
The statistics shared in the ad show how, from 1955 to 1962, the height of the average 5-year old went from 104 to 106.1 cm tall while the average individual daily consumption of dairy products (I suppose they mean butter and cheese) went from 0.8 grams to 5.4 grams.
Distribution of milk containers in Japan in 1955, from the Mainichi Photo Gallery
A few years later, an AP article from May, 1969 cited a government survey indicating the trend was continuing. “A ministry survey showed the average height of 11-year-old boys has increased by 4.6 inches over the past 68 years. Girls of the same age had an increase of 5.4 inches. During the 1900-1968 period, the 11-year-old boys gained 13.6 pounds and the girls 18.9 pounds in weight, the survey said.”
The article went on to explain that the Allied Occupation under the
President Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as the 31st President of the United States on March 4, 1929, during a period still known as the Roaring Twenties, when wealth and excess were touchstones of American culture. Nearly 8 months later, the façade came crumbling down as the stock market crashed, sparking the onset of the Great Depression.
While President Hoover, a staunch Republican, directed the government to invest in large public works programs – think Hoover Dam – he was unfortunately more well known for the shanty towns that sprung up all over America housing the dispossessed and despairing – think Hooverville.
Hoover was naturally invited to Los Angeles, to represent the federal government at the 1932 Olympic Games hosted in Los Angeles, California. But Hoover declined, becoming only the 2nd sitting president (after Teddy Roosevelt in 1904) not to participate in an Olympic Games on US soil.
As was stated in this Time Magazine article, Hoover knew his Presidency was in trouble and that in an election year, he needed to stay close to power in Washington DC. “’For him to be away from Washington for three weeks would be a national disaster,’ White House aide Lawrence Richey said, according to Bill Watterson’s The Games Presidents Play.”
Ironically, perhaps, it was during the Olympic Games in Tokyo when President Herbert Hoover drew his last breath. He was nearly 90 years old, and like the Los Angeles Games in 1932, the 1964 Games was nary a thought.
Roy, sometime between the Tokyo and Mexico City Olympic Games.
On this, the last day of 2015, I’d like to thank everyone for their support of my blog – The Olympians. I have posted at least once every day since I started the blog on May 1. Out of about 300 posts, I’ve selected 25 that I personally like, in good part because I’ve had the great fortune to talk with the people mentioned in these stories.
Thomas Tomizawa with the NBC News team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Rafer Johnson seated.
My father was a member of the NBC News Team that covered the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He’s far left, and that’s Rafer Johnson, Rome decathlete champion, seated, also a member of the news crew. The crew are wearing protective masks, being cheeky. They probably saw a lot of Japanese wearing these masks in and around town.
In modern-day Tokyo, men and women routinely wear masks during hay fever season to avoid the pollen, or during the fall and winter months to avoid giving others their colds. But I now realize that in 1964, the reason for wearing the masks was different – the air back then was filthy. Routinely in these crisp winter days, we have perfect views of Mt Fuji. Back then you couldn’t see it for the pollution. In the 1960s, Tokyo was a year-round cloud of dust. Here’s how writer, Robert Whiting described it in the Japan Times: “Tokyoites dwelled under a constant cloud of noise, dust and pollution as the city struggled to rebuild itself from the wreckage of the American B-29 Superfortress bombings.”
The dust, the noise, the smells, the ever-changing skyline and the disorientation with unprecedented change – for many, the transformation of Tokyo was overwhelming. What took the West a couple of generations to do – moving from agriculture to manufacturing – Japan was trying to do much faster. While the pace of change was exciting to many, giving them hope after post-war desperation, the 1960s was also a period of confusion and alienation for those coping with life in the most crowded city in the world.
Screenshot from NHK documentary, Tokyo.
I took an EdX MOOC course called Visualizing Postwar Tokyo under Professor Shunya Yoshimi of The University of Tokyo in which he highlighted the stress people in Tokyo were under due to this change. He shared the opening minutes of this NHK documentary called “Tokyo”, by director Naoya Yoshida, which shows the crowds, the noise, the traffic and the construction through the eyes of a woman whose father was killed in the Tokyo firebombings and mother who ran away from home.
As the woman says in the documentary, “Tokyo, unplanned and full of constructions sites, is no place for a human being to live. Only a robot with no sense could live in this rough, coarse, harsh and dusty city that doesn’t have any blue skies. Many people complain like this. But I disagree. I think this city is just desperately hanging along, just like me.”
As Professor Yoshimi said, “the woman in this film is a symbol of the isolation in the big cities.”
But again, rest assured. Tokyo is one of the biggest cities in the world, and today, is arguably, the cleanest.
We’re only 8 months away from the launch of Olympiad XXXI. Olympic infrastructure plans are generally on time. Brazilians are generally excited. But the economy is taking a distinct dive.
Unemployment at nearly 10%, despite all of the Olympic-related construction, is the highest it has been in six years, when Rio was awarded the Olympics. Inflation is around 10%. The real has devalued by a third. Brazil’s credit rating dropped to “junk” status in September. And while international athletes will be flowing into Brazil next year, international investment has been flowing out of Brazil. This, as well as the plummeting price of oil in this petro-economy, have contributed heavily to the shrinking of the Brazilian economy again this quarter, the ninth quarter in a row.
The once booming member of the so-called BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China) is experiencing one of its worst economic crises in a while. How is this impacting the upcoming Olympics? There was a brief social media uproar when Rio Olympic officials announced the need to cut 30% of their budget, including air conditioning in the rooms of the Olympic Village, a decision that was quickly reversed after athletes balked.
It’s unclear what those cuts will impact, but big issues continue to concern…issues that will cost the country not only in expense but also in emotional well-being.
In addition to security in the areas of the Olympic activities, security along Brazil’s massive borders is a “big concern”, as a government auditor revealed “flaws” in the plans to control the 17,000 kilometer border that runs through remotes part of the Amazon and touches 10 other countries in Latin America.
The Associated Press has continued to test the waters planned for Olympic events and have found that “high viral and in some cases bacterial counts are found not just along shorelines where raw sewage runs in, but far offshore where athletes will compete in sailing, rowing and canoeing.” According to this AP article, Rio won the Olympic bid with a promise to clean up the city’s waterways, but “Brazilian officials now acknowledge that won’t happen.”
Guanabara Bay
On top of that, unprecedented levels of corruption in the government-
His request was straightforward. Mohammed Al-Khatib of the State of Palestine needed funds to train in the United States so that he could represent his homeland in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The yoga and fitness instructor from Hebron has a dream – to win an Olympic medal in the 100 meters or 200 meters competition “on behalf of every Palestinian.”
As he explains in the request video below, understandably, Palestine lacks the facilities and the professional coaches all athletes need to advance to a world-class level.
But despite that, Al-Khatib has nurtured this dream of representing Palestine in Rio for the past three years, training hard after being encouraged by a US track and field coach, Crystal Dunlap, who saw him run a 10.4 second 100 meters without spikes or starting blocks. Coaches and role models are so important. In fact, Al-Khatib was inspired by two people, as he explains here: a 15-year-old Lithuanian swimmer named Ruta Meilutyte who won gold in London in 2012, as well as a Palestinian named Mohammad Assaf who won a singing contest in Arab Idol. Learn more in this great profile of Al-Khatib here
Palestinian yoga and fitness instructor Mohamed al-Khatib trains for track and field events in the hopes of attending the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, Nov. 18, 2015 | Ash Gallagher
Al-Khatib wanted to raise $7,850 so that he could participate in a 3-month training camp in Texas from January. In only 4 days, he reached $12,160! So yes, Al-Khatib is on his way to Texas!
The Olympic Games – pomp and circumstance, tense competition, tears of sadness and joy on display globally – after years of build up, come to an end after two weeks of sound and fury. Then often comes the praise from all corners of the world, the follow-up stories, the speech circuit, the documentaries, and finally, one realizes that one hasn’t uttered the word “Olympics” for quite a while. Until, the grumbling begins.
Almost inevitably, there is a backlash of some sort, people criticizing the expense of the Olympic Games, the lack of promised economic impact on local commerce, and the use of tax money for expensive athletic facilities that very quickly begin to rot from lack of use and maintenance. See this blog post for images of Olympic boondoggles.
A few weeks ago, a German broadcaster released this documentary called “Die andere Seite von Olympia”, or “The Other Side of the Olympics”. This piece by Marlene Wynants is a series of interviews of Londoners who feel the London Games did not deliver on its promises. Here are some of the opening quotes from the documentary:
The expectations of restaurants, bars, theaters, that we would have a bumper summer.
Why should we stand aside for the elite sportsmen when we were the grassroots of the national game.
In the beginning, when they were trying to get everyone behind them, they promised the earth.
They created the hype, and they are the ones making the money, not the ordinary people.
Ultimately the costs are borne by the host city, the host national government, and the IOC isn’t liable for any of them.
There are a lot of people getting fed up with the Olympics, the impact that it has, and the lies that are told. And London is a prime example of lying from beginning to end.
And as explained in this article from The Guardian, government funding for sports will no longer be prioritized. Only a few years after the London Games in 2012, the budget for grassroot sports will be cut as much as 40% over the next five years.
I love the Olympic Games. But there is little doubt that the financial burden on country and city governments, as well as on the citizens and
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