Stackin' Heaps on the Slopes, Globalization and Sport

Please excuse the quality of this post's photo, I only had my cell phone during my trip to Nagano...

Globalization has too many aspects to look at all of them. From this, one shouldn't have to rely on the tired old example of McDonald's. Sports are great for explaining a shrinking planet. For my spring break I went to Happo One, in Nagano. In 1998, it was the site of the Winter Olympics. The entire length of the "Happo Run", which took the Olympic competitors a few minutes to ski down, took me about 75 minutes to get down...

Because I didn't want break a bone from falling so much, I spent a lot of time in the restaruants and shokudos on the mountain. I met aussies, French, Scots, Canadians, and a lot of Japanese. I might have seen another American on the hills, but I met none!

I had a rough time learning how to snow board. So did a lot of other people. Nazumi and Mami are two Japanese I met, and we were at the same skill level. Their skills in English amazed me! Mami lived in the states until she was seven, but she speaks English with a California accent. Namuzi live in America for four years, and she also spoke perfect English.

I met a ski instructor named Charlie that was part of the English speaking ski school on Happo One. During the peak of the season, he saw people from all over the planet and showed them how to ski. His school is separate from the Japanese speaking school, but they use the same slopes. Charlie is a rather globalized individual himself. He started ski instructing seven years ago, and has simply followed the seasons around the world since then. He was set to return to his home in Chamany, France after his time in Happo.

Along with sports, food is rich source of globalization material. On the gondola ride, the local vendors had promotional flyers posted. This one is for "The strongest crape in Hakuba", and it was the first photo I took during the trip. Momo-chan's "crape"s were very tasty, but were definitely not the French version. There was also an obligatory McDonald's at top of the gondola. While still on the slopes, others noticed my obvious novice status and offered advice. It was given in either French or Japanese, though. It was easy to forget that I was in Japan.