Dykehouse Sensei: Sumo and Baseball: Two Japanese Passions

Sumo is the most perfect of sports. It has elegance, ceremony, danger, art, speed and most important of all two fat bastards smacking the shit out of each other. It is immaculate, which is why it has remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years. It remains the only thing in the world that I want to see static. The only thing I love that loves me back.

-Warren Ellis

I thought the above quote (stolen from our friend James's site) would be an appropriate way to begin today's update. The Friday before last, Chad and I went with two of our friends to see our very first sumo match in Nagoya. After studying a bit about the globalization of sumo a couple years ago, I was excited to see the sport with my own eyes (not to mention I wanted a good look at these colossal warriors up close!).

The tournament started quite early, but we arrived around 2:00. As the wrestlers compete according to rank, the earlier you come in the day, the less crowded the stadium is. The later you come, the better matches you will see--including matches with the yokozuna, or grand champions. There are several divisions between the rankings in sumo, and between the competitions for each division, the next group of wrestlers walk around the ring wearing large apron-like uniforms advertising the wrestlers' sponsers. One of the wrestlers was sponsored by Hello Kitty, or Sanrio. It was not only strange to see a stoic, tough sumo wrestler wearing a Hello Kitty apron, but to think of how even a traditional and respected sport like sumo is not out of the reach of cuteness and modernity in Japan.

After the wrestlers exit the ring again, another group of men walk around holding the sponsors flags. One of the sponsors supporting a high ranking wrestler was none other than McDonald's (unfortunately, I couldn't get pictures). Once again, I was struck by the way something modern like McDonald's was paraded across the sumo ring. It makes one consider the true extent to which East meets West--to how globalized Japan has become. Japan has accepted McDonald's from the West (changing several aspects of the chain to suit Japan's cultural liking), and has gone a step further and brought it even into the ancient martial art of sumo.

Sponsor flags

Above and below: one of the yokozuna

Just when I thought I was done with sumo surprises, I got to talking with our friend Masayo. I was telling her how I couldn't believe how many foreign wrestlers compete in sumo these days. We were talking about how the restrictions against foreign competetors have been changing, and how I thought Japan was giving into other countries' desires to compete. And then she said something that really got me: "Japan isn't just letting foreigners wrestle--the sport of sumo depends on foreigners to survive. Nobody in Japan wants to do it anymore." Yeah, sumo's a strict, religious, difficult lifestyle, but it's an important tradition, isn't it? I've been realizing more and more how much tradition Japan is losing--how much its younger generations don't know anymore. And it's really a bummer, to say the least.

Pictured above is a wrestler performing the closing ceremony.

The subway was super crowded on the way home!

On the way to eat dinner...

Rainy season's not over yet!

The next part of our weekend brought us from the ancient practice of sumo to a relatively new sport in Japan: baseball. We went to see one of Japan's most famous teams, the Hanshin Tigers, and unfortunately they lost against the Swallows. More interesting than the game was people watching, anyway (but we couldn't help but feel a little disappointed--we came all the way from Mie!).

The stadium was packed!

Most people in Japan are quite serious about baseball. Despite it coming from the West, I once read that Japanese feel they put “…the spirit of Japan into it… Yakyu, (baseball), is a way to express the samurai spirit…” (Whiting 275). Pretty intense, but even more intense is the constant cheering that lasts throughout the entire game. Listen for an example in the video below, taken primarily to show the obsene-looking balloon release just after the 7th inning:

edit: Having video troubles--will try again later.

Overall, it was a pretty interesting weekend. Below are some pictures from our day in Kobe before the baseball game. We'll post on our kids camp adventures soon!