Monday, December 10, 2007

Sumoo!

Zack was gone over Thanksgiving Weekend, so I went to see Sumoo wrestling in Fukuoka. It was one of those things that I figured I should do if I had the chance since we are, after all, in Japan. I learned that there are exactly six Sumoo tournaments held each year, each one lasting 15 days. The trip I took was on day 15 of the only tournament held in Fukuoka each year, so it was a good time to go, apparently.

The trip turned out to be not only entertaining, but also informative, at least to some extent. While I did not learn exactly why everything is done in the tournament the way it is, I did learn a little bit about the many traditions that make Sumoo what it is. For example, the roof you see over the wrestlers here is representative of the roof of a shrine where sumoo would have originally taken place.



The wrestlers you see there are one of the professional teams at this tournament. I learned that there are five classes of sumoo wrestlers, and they wrestle during tournaments starting with the lowest class (the amateurs) and going up to the highest. There are always two teams: east and west. I have no idea how the teams are determined. What I do know is that every wrestler on the east team will wrestle everyone on the west over the course of a fifteen day tournament. Wins and losses are then totalled and the guy with the most wins gets a super big trophy (and a lot of money).

I also learned that there are no weight restrictions in sumoo. Everyone wrestles everyone else regardless of size. We saw a few cases where a (relatively) little guy was pitted against a much bigger guy. The neat thing was, the bigger guy did not always win.

See, every wrestling match starts out with two guys facing off like the ones above. The guy in the kimono is the judge. There are two ways to win, though: either you can push your opponent out of the circle you see on the floor in the picture above, or you can cause your opponent to touch the ground with any part of their body other than their feet. The nifty rule summary we got said that anything from a pinky finger to a top knot touching the ground will cause a wrestler to lose. When the wrestlers try to knock each other out of the ring, and they're fairly well matched, the result looks something like this:

When someone is knocked over, it usually happens too fast for pictures. The above picture is of the best match we saw. The guy on the left is Russian, by the way. The two pushed each other and tried to throw each other off balance for a solid three minutes (if it had gone four, it would have been declared a tie and there would have been a rematch). It was really captivating to watch. (The Russian finally knocked the other guy out of the circle.) I was amazed at how flexible these guys are despite the fact that they are enormous.

So most matches don't last very long, usually just a few seconds, may be a minute, but they are really very exciting. And after the last match, the people in the expensive seats throw the cushions they've been siting on:



Then the trophies are awarded. We didn't stay for the whole trophy ceremony, but the wrestling itself was very exciting. I'm told it's much better in real life than on TV (like most things), and I can understand why people would follow it now. I hope I get a chance to bring Zack along next year...

Sunday, December 2, 2007

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Okay, so I'm really late about posting these, but November was a busy month. Sorry. Over Halloween this year, I went to three costume parties: two at the junior college and one that OSC hosted for the International Ladies Club. Here are some pictures from each.

Party 1: the English Department Party

The part of this party most worth seeing was the mummy wrapping contest. Here are the results:
Not a lot of kids dressed up, but we did get a few witches...

And the teachers showed the kids how to REALLY dress up...

... As did this student:

Party 2: Childcare English
I decided that, to ensure that I was not the only person in costume, I would bribe my students. I told them there would be trick-or-treating at the party, BUT no costume, no candy. All 18 of my girls dressed up, the boys decided their pride was worth more than candy. As a back up plan, I had them all make paper plate masks. Here's one guy's brand new "costume": And here are a few of the girls...



And there's all of us:

Party 3: International Lady's Club
The adults got to have some fun on this one. The idea was to show the Japanese women what Halloween was all about. The buffet lunch was a haunted house, and EVERYONE dressed up. Here's what it looked like:
Sponge Bob is secretly a Japanese woman...
More Japanese costumes...
A bunch of the American Ladies went with a Wizard of Oz theme. Here are some munchkins:


These ladies made everything they're wearing by hand:

And even Little Bo Peep had fun...

So it turns out if you really want to celebrate an American Holiday right, you just have to leave the country!
For Thanksgiving, the families from Zack's ship got together at the Harbor View, since the ship was still out at that point. I also did a day-after dinner at a friends house, so I got all the traditional food. Zack said there was turkey and pumpkin pie on the ship, too.
Posts to look forward to: Sumo wrestling!!! I actually saw it, and it's really fun to watch. Now that November is over and I'm taking a break from grad school, those should be up fairly soon. Also, Zack is putting together some pictures from this last deployment.