大坂直美失利引发争议，日本是更多元还是更“排外”？
Critics Pounce on Naomi Osaka After Loss, Denting Japan’s Claim to Diversity
MOTOKO RICH
2021年7月29日
TOKYO — Just four days after Naomi Osaka mounted the stairs to light the Olympic cauldron, presented as a symbol of a new, more inclusive Japan, that image was undermined on Tuesday by a backlash that followed her surprise defeat in Tokyo.
东京——就在大坂直美(Naomi Osaka)踏上台阶，点燃象征着一个更具包容性的新日本的奥运主火炬仅仅四天后，这一形象就因她周二在东京的意外失利而被破坏。
Many Japanese were stunned by Ms. Osaka’s third-round loss to Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic after she had been favored to take the women’s tennis gold medal on home soil.
大坂直美曾被看好在本土夺得女子网球金牌，但她在第三轮输给捷克选手马尔凯塔·万卓索娃(Marketa Vondrousova)，让许多日本人感到震惊。
But as the face of a Summer Games riddled with scandal and anxiety over an unstinting pandemic — Tokyo posted a record number of new coronavirus cases on Tuesday — Ms. Osaka took a drubbing on Japanese social media, with some questioning her identity or right to represent the country at all.
这届夏季奥运会充斥着丑闻和对无休止疫情的焦虑（东京周二公布了创纪录的新冠感染人数），作为它的形象大使，大坂直美在日本社交媒体上遭到了抨击，一些人质疑她的身份，或是她到底有没有资格代表这个国家。
“I still can’t understand why she was the final torchbearer,” one commenter wrote on a Yahoo News story about her loss. “Although she says she is Japanese, she cannot speak Japanese very much.” Several comments like that one that were harshly critical of Ms. Osaka were given “thumbs up” by 10,000 or more other Yahoo users.
“我仍然无法理解为什么她是最后的火炬手，”有人在雅虎新闻(Yahoo News)关于她失利的报道下面留言。“虽然她说她是日本人，但她都不太会说日语。”许多像这样严厉批评大坂直美的评论，都获得了上万雅虎用户的“点赞”。
As the Japanese-born daughter of a Haitian American father and a Japanese mother, Ms. Osaka has helped to challenge Japan’s longstanding sense of racial and cultural identity.
大坂直美出生于日本，父亲是海地裔美国人，母亲是日本人，她帮助挑战了日本长期存在的种族和文化身份认同。
She has been enormously popular in Japan, and some online commenters voiced support for her on Tuesday. The news media covers her victories extensively, and her face appears on advertisements for Japanese products ranging from Citizen watches to Shiseido makeup to Nissin Cup Noodles.
她在日本人气极高，一些网友周二也表达了对她的支持。新闻媒体铺天盖地报道她的胜利，从西铁城(Citizen)手表到资生堂(Shiseido)化妆品再到日清(Nissin)杯面，她的面孔出现在诸多日本产品的广告中。
Her selection as the final torchbearer at the opening ceremony on Friday demonstrated how eager the Olympic organizers were to promote Japan as a diverse culture. The Washington Wizards star Rui Hachimura, who is of Japanese and Beninese descent, also featured prominently as a flag-bearer for the Japanese Olympic team. But in some corners of society, people remain xenophobic and refuse to accept those who don’t conform to a very narrow definition of what it means to be Japanese.
她被选为上周五开幕式最后的火炬手，也表明了奥运会主办方对于宣传日本多元文化的渴望。拥有日本和贝宁血统的华盛顿奇才队(Washington Wizards)球星八村塁(Rui Hachimura)作为日本奥运代表团旗手，同样备受瞩目。但在日本社会的某些角落，排外情绪依然存在，人们拒绝接受那些不符合极度狭隘的日本人定义的人。
“I was a little concerned that that might be a little too much too soon and that there might be some kind of pushback,” said Baye McNeil, a Black man who has lived in Japan for 17 years and writes a column for The Japan Times, an English-language newspaper.
“我有点担心这或许进展太快太过头了，可能就会遇到一些阻力，”在日本生活了17年，并为英语报纸《日本时报》(The Japan Times)撰写专栏的黑人贝·麦克尼尔(Baye McNeil)表示。
Those who felt uncomfortable might have thought “if we had to swallow this Black Lives Matters thing and the representation of the country, the least you could do is win” the gold medal, Mr. McNeil said of Ms. Osaka. “So when she didn’t do that, now some people are unleashing their ugliness.”
麦克尼尔在谈到大坂直美时表示，那些感到不适的人可能会想，“如果我们不得不接受‘黑人的命也是命’（Black Lives Matters，简称BLM），接受这样的国家代表，那至少你得赢”金牌。“因此，当她没能做到这点的时候，现在有些人就开始展示他们的丑陋。”
Mixed-race residents, or “hafu” as they are known in Japan, still struggle to be accepted as authentically Japanese, even if they were born and raised in the country.
在日本被称为“hafu”的混血居民即便在这里出生和长大，仍然很难被接受为真正的日本人。
Melanie Brock, a white Australian who runs a consulting firm for foreign companies looking to do business in Japan and raised two sons whose father is Japanese, said that even though they went through the Japanese school system, they were often viewed as different. Other mothers, she said, often ascribed behavior they deemed problematic to the fact that the boys were mixed race.
澳大利亚白人梅兰妮·布鲁克(Melanie Brock)经营着一家公司，为寻求在日本做生意的外国企业提供咨询，她有两个儿子，他们的父亲是日本人。布鲁克说，尽管孩子都在日本上学，但他们总被视为异类。她说，其他的妈妈经常把她们认为有问题的行为归因于她的儿子是混血。
“I think Japan is very hard on hafus,” Ms. Brock said.
“我认为日本对混血儿非常苛刻，”布鲁克说。
When she saw Ms. Osaka light the cauldron at the opening ceremony, “I thought it was a brave decision” by the Tokyo organizers, she said. “But I was angry at myself for thinking that it was brave. It’s not brave at all. It’s right. She’s a remarkable athlete. She’s a terrific representative, and she deserves to be heralded as that.”
她说，当看到大坂直美在开幕式点燃主火炬，“我认为这是（东京主办方）一个非常勇敢的决定。”“但对于自己有这种想法，我也感到生气。这根本不是勇敢。而是本应如此。她是个了不起的运动员。她是一个杰出的代表，她理应得到这样的荣誉。”
Ms. Osaka may have also touched some nerves when she pulled out of the French Open in May after a dispute with tennis officials over her decision not to appear at a news conference. She then revealed on Instagram that she had struggled with depression and anxiety.
今年5月，大坂直美因拒绝出席新闻发布会与赛事官员发生争执，随后退出法国网球公开赛(French Open)的决定可能也触碰了一些人的神经。后来她在Instagram上透露，她一直在与抑郁和焦虑作斗争。
Many of the online comments in Japan following her loss on Tuesday referred disparagingly to her mental health.
在她周二失利后，日本网上的许多评论都轻蔑地提到了她的心理健康状况。
“She conveniently became ‘depressed,’ conveniently healed, and was given the honor of being the final torchbearer,” wrote one commenter on Twitter. “And then she loses an important game just like that. I can only say that she is making light of sports.”
“她恰好变得‘抑郁’，又恰好康复，并有幸成了最后的火炬手，”一位评论者在Twitter上写道。“然后她就这样输掉了一场重要的比赛。我只能说她并不在乎体育。”
Mental health is still something of a taboo subject in Japan. Naoko Imoto, an education specialist at UNICEF who is an adviser on gender equality to the Tokyo organizing committee and a former Olympian who swam for Japan, said in a news briefing on Monday that mental health was not yet well understood in Japan.
在日本，心理健康仍然是一个禁忌话题。曾是日本奥运游泳选手的联合国儿童基金会(UNICEF)教育专家井本直步子(Naoko Imoto)在东京奥组委担任性别平权督导，她在周一的新闻发布会上表示，心理健康问题在日本还没有得到很好的理解。
“In Japan, we still don’t talk about mental health,” Ms. Imoto said. “When Naomi Osaka came out with the issue, there were a lot of negative comments on her, and that was also exaggerated because of the gender issue, her being a woman.”
“在日本，我们依然不会谈论心理健康，”井本直步子说。“当大坂直美对这个问题开诚布公，有很多对她的负面评论出现，由于涉及到性别议题，而她是名女性，问题也更加严重了。”
“I think there a lot of athletes coming out now, and it’s actually common, and almost every athlete experiences it,” Ms. Imoto said.
“我想现在有很多运动员都站了出来，这实际上很普遍，几乎每个运动员都经历过，”井本直步子说。
Some of the comments about Ms. Osaka seemed to echo conservative criticism in the United States of the movement for racial justice, which the tennis star has vocally supported.
关于大坂直美的一些评论似乎呼应了美国保守派对种族公正运动的批评，这位网球明星曾经公开支持该运动。
“Her selection as the final torchbearer was wrong,” wrote another commenter on the Yahoo News story about Ms Osaka’s loss. “Was the theme of the Tokyo Games human rights issues? Is it to show Japan’s recovery and show appreciation to the many countries which supported Japan? BLM is not the theme. I don’t think she was able to concentrate on the match, and she deserved her defeat.”
“她作为最后一位火炬手的选择是错误的，”雅虎新闻关于大坂直美失利的报道下的另一位评论者写道。“东京奥运会的主题是人权吗？不是为了展示日本的复苏和对支持过日本的许多国家表示感谢吗？BLM不是主题。我不认为她能专注比赛，输掉是理所当然的事。”
Nathaniel M. Smith, an anthropologist at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto who studies right-wing movements in Japan, said that online critics could now copy from a global pool of commentary.
在京都的立命馆大学(Ritsumeikan University)研究日本右翼运动的人类学家纳撒尼尔·M·史密斯(Nathaniel M. Smith)表示，网上的批评者现在可以从全球的评论库中复制言论了。
“A Japanese online right-winger is aware from being in the Twitter environment of both Black Lives Matter but also how white people critique Black Lives on Twitter,” Mr. Smith said. “So there is this shared digital repertoire of how to attack.”
“一个日本网络右翼人士在Twitter的环境中既能看到‘黑人的命也是命’，也能看到到白人是如何批评‘黑命’的，”史密斯说。“因此，这就形成了如何发起攻击的共享数字库。”
But, he added, “I do think it’s pretty far afield from the sensibility or awareness of the average TV viewer, much less the average person.”
但他也表示，“我确实认为这与普通电视受众的情感或认知相去甚远，更不用说普通人了。”
Indeed, some comments on social media were more supportive of Ms. Osaka. One post from someone who claimed not to be a fan showed gratitude for her appearance at the Olympics.
的确，社交媒体上的一些评论更倾向支持大坂直美。一个自称不是她的粉丝的人发了一条帖子，感谢她参与了奥运会。
“I personally don’t like Naomi Osaka very much, but let me say one thing,” the poster wrote on Twitter. “Thanks for playing as a representative of Japan. Thank you for your hard work!”
“我个人并不是太喜欢大坂直美，但让我说明一点，”此人在Twitter上写道。“感谢你代表日本出征。感谢你的努力！”
