Asahi beer asked me to be the kampai taicho (toastmaster) for the traditional third inning toast at Friday’s Orix Buffaloes game against the Soft Bank Hawks at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka. It is a tradition/marketing ploy to get people at the stadium to buy more beer. My daughter Ocean was part of a delegation from the school taking part in a pre-game ceremony. The Osaka Tourism Board was promoting international tourism. There is a push in Japan to be more open to other cultures, especially with the Olympics coming in 2020. They wanted a foreigner to do the toast for this game. Usually it is a fan chosen at random. I got a free beer from Asahi and got to wear the taicho sash! It was funny to be asked to drink beer in front of the students I was chaperoning, but in Japan, drinking publicly is acceptable.
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