WHAT A CULTURE

BY MARK HALPERN

        I have attended so many different sporting events in my life. No matter the event you attend there’s always a constant (outside of having fun). Every venue that I have gone to nobody ever heard of a garbage can. I won’t say I never left something but if I did, I am sorry. I had the pleasure of running a small minor league stadium that could hold just about 5,000 people back in 2019. The amount of trash a night that we cleaned up was mounds upon mounds. That’s nothing compared to newer stadiums, that seat almost 40 or 50,000 people.

     The World Cup is being held right now and one country has come prepared to show what it means for them to attend. A recent Match at AT&T stadium showed the Japanese cleaned after their team’s game. The Japanese are very prideful people and love to attend sporting events, (watch a Shohei Ohtani start.) The fans stayed and cleaned up all the garbage not from what they might have had but, went around and cleaned up after everyone else as well. The Japanese are brought up to respect the cleanliness of their country and want to show that respect to every country that host them for these events. 

   To me the WORLD should look at what has been transpired and this isn’t the first time. Since the World Baseball Classic every game that Japan played the fans cleaned. I humbly respect and raise my hat to such great respect.  TO THE JAPANESE DOMO ORIGATO