While working at Look Japan, I discovered that my boss, editor-in-chief Nishimura-san, shared my love of baseball. During the year we worked together, we went to numerous baseball games.
Mostly we went to see the Yakult Swallows play. Japanese baseball teams are usually named for the corporation that owns them. In the Swallows' case, that was the Yakult yogurt company, which is famous for its miniature bottles of sweetened liquid yogurt drink, meant to be consumed as a health supplement, which are delivered by "Yakult Ladies" -- lime green moped-driving, uniform-clad women who bring your daily or weekly supply of yogurt directly to your house or office, just like the milkmen of yore. Like the Swallows, most Japanese baseball teams do not include their home city in their names, although the most popular team, the Yomiuri Giants (for the Yomiuri, a large circulation newspaper in Tokyo), do put Tokyo before their name, and the Yokohama Baystars don't have any corporate moniker cluttering up their uniforms. Perhaps the most confusing thing resulting from the use of corporate names is the Fighters, who are owned by Nippon Ham. Seeing the team's whole name in print -- Nippon Ham Fighters -- has led many a foreigner (including myself) to wonder what the hell a "Ham Fighter" is. I've never understood why Nippon Ham did not hyphenate its name.
Nishimura-san and I regularly saw the Swallows because they played at Meiji Jingu Stadium, right in central Tokyo, which was easy to get to, and because they were not as popular as the Giants, so tickets were easy to score. Jingu Stadium, unlike the Giants' home ground, the Tokyo Dome, is also an outdoor venue, with real grass, and as far as I am concerned, a much better place to watch baseball.
The atmosphere of a Japanese baseball game is very different from that of a Major League game. You are not harassed by security to see if you are bringing in outside food and drink, which means that there is a lively market for yakisoba (stir-friend noodles), yakitori (grilled chicken), various kinds of o-bento boxes, and beer outside the stadium, mostly sold by low-level yakuza. Once you get inside, rather than hot dogs and popcorn, the vendors bring around sushi and grilled squid. Rather than being restricted to whatever beer brand sponsors the team, you can wait for your favorite brand to come around. Or, you can get a whiskey-and-water, made in front of you by a vendor carrying a bottle of whiskey, a bucket of ice, and on her back a huge chrome tank of water with a small rubber hose and spigot.
The biggest difference, however, is how the fans follow the game. Just as at a college football game, the hometown fans sit on one side of the stadium and the away team's fans -- if any -- sit on the opposite side. The fans take turns cheering on their own team when it bats, while the other side stays silent, awaiting their team's turn at the plate. The cheering sections are led by professional cheerleaders, who stand atop their team's dugout, waving huge team flags and blowing whistles. They are often accompanied by a drummer and a trumpeter to help lead the cheers. Each player has his own special cheer made up by the cheerleaders, which all the fans chant in unison while clapping the designated rhythm that goes along with it. Often the fans use "cheer bats" -- hollow plastic miniature baseball bats -- to amplify their clapping sound. (The inflatable cheer sticks that you can now get at sporting events in the US were invented and marketed by an American baseball player who played in Japan and got the idea while playing there.) The cheering has nothing to do with what is going on during the game. It just continues relentlessly (although it is always done with a bit more enthusiasm when your team is winning). The purpose of cheering is different there -- it's not to express an opinion about what's happening in the game, it's to encourage your side with the knowledge that the fans are behind them, no matter how the game is going.
Each team's fans also have a special seventh-inning stretch ritual. Perhaps the most famous is that of the Hanshin Tigers' fans, who blow up 5-foot long balloons with a whistle attached, and then all release them simultaneously when the top of the inning ends, filling the stadium with flying, whistling balloons. Tigers fans are unrivaled for their passion and even conduct this ritual at away games. The Swallows' fans had a distinctive, if less amusing, ritual of waiving green vinyl umbrellas (of the kind that you buy for 100 yen at convenience stores) in the air during the seventh-inning break.
The actual baseball itself was a reflection of Japanese culture too -- extremely well-executed fundamental baseball on a very high level of play, but lacking a certain excitement and passion. Most Japanese teams play relentless "small ball" -- if there is a runner on base with less than two outs, the batter always, always, ALWAYS sacrifice bunts, regardless of whether it's the pitcher or the cleanup hitter batting, and without consideration for whether the score is tied or the team is behind by 10 runs. Nevertheless, I always enjoyed the whole experience at Japanese baseball games, and I have Nishimura-san to thank for being my baseball companion.
(By the way, Nishimura-san, I still have those cheer bats you bought me!)
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
My Brush with Sumo Greatness
Who remembers the great Saturday afternoon sports show, ABC's Wide World of Sports? In the days before cable TV, ESPN, and multiple 24 hour a day sports channels, WWS offered a rare glimpse at sports from around the world that Americans infrequently got to watch on TV, like skiing, rugby, rodeo, and swimming. In the 1970s, with the rise of the first American sumo wrestler, Takamiyama (Jesse James Wailani Kuhaulua, from Hawaii), WWS exposed Americans to sumo for the first time. While my friends made fun of the "fat guys pushing each other around," I was fascinated and watched sumo every time it was on WWS. Naturally, ABC's coverage focused on Takamiyama, with his trademark mutton-chop sideburns.
Watching sumo did not lead to an interest in Japan. After WWS stopped showing sumo, I forgot all about it and Takamiyama. And when I suffered an upset stomach after a school trip to a Japanese steakhouse in fourth grade, I decided that I hated Japanese food and all things Japanese.
I didn't see another sumo match until shortly after moving to Japan in 1991, when I watched sumo on TV with my dorm-mates at the First Canon Fujigaoka Dorm one Saturday afternoon. It was then that I remembered Wide World of Sports and Takamiyama, and recalled my childhood fascination with sumo. My interest deepened when I started hanging out regularly with my mother's former student from Wisconsin in the 1960s, David Benjamin ("Benjie"), and his wife Junko Yoshida, who were living in Tokyo at the time. As it turned out, Benjie and Junko were sumo aficionados, and Benjie was then writing a book on sumo, The Joy of Sumo (soon to be republished in an updated edition under a new title). Sumo tournaments (basho) take place in odd-numbered months, last for fifteen days, and culminate in a final day when the championship (yusho) is often decided (by total number of wins). Benjie, Junko and I developed a custom of having an early dinner together at their house while watching the final day of the tournament.
Benjie and Junko gave me an education in sumo as a sport, the kind of education you couldn't get from most sumo books at the time (other than Benjie's), because they focused on sumo as Shinto ritual and mostly avoided the fact that sumo is a sport. Benjie and Junko would explain things like how the quality of wrestlers was declining as Japan became wealthier and fewer young men viewed sumo as a ticket out of poverty, and we'd try to pick out which matches were being thrown -- which often happened on the last day with wrestlers who entered the day 7-7 and needed a win to avoid demotion in ranking and the accompanying reduction in salary. (Sumo wrestlers are paid according to rank, but only the wrestlers in the top two divisions receive salaries, and these wrestlers support their sumo stables and the lower-ranking non-salaried wrestlers.)
Between my watching the Wide World of Sports in the 1970s and arriving in Japan in 1991, Takamiyama retired from wrestling (in 1984 to be exact), obtained Japanese citizenship, and became an oyakata, a sumo stable owner and coach. In accordance with tradition in sumo and many other areas of Japanese life, upon changing status, he also changed his name -- to Azumazeki Daigoro, and became referred to by his title, Azumazeki-oyakata. He also recruited to his stable a young Hawaiian wrestler named Chad Rowan, or, as he came to be known in the sumo world, Akebono.
Shortly after arriving at Look Japan magazine in September 1992, I learned that my colleague Ann Safir had arranged an interview with Akebono and, although I did not learn until much later that Azumazeki-oyakata was Takamiyama, I asked if I could go along because I liked sumo. Ann, who wasn't that interested in sumo, told me I could do the interview if I wanted. It took place on a Saturday morning, at the Azumazeki stable in a working-class section of eastern Tokyo. Akebono was already the highest-ranking wrestler in the stable, having achieved the rank of sekiwake, the third-highest in sumo. Because his salary was the highest, and sumo stables live off the earnings of their wrestlers, what Akebono said, went. And what he said that morning was that they would hold an extra training session for our benefit.
The training area in the Azumazeki stable consisted of a dirt floor, lined on two sides by a wall with poles against which the wrestlers would push for upper-body strengthening, and on two sides by an elevated viewing platform from which the coaches could watch. The wrestlers all wore beige training belts (mawashi), rather than the colorful mawashi they wore in tournaments, and their hair was tied up in bundles on their heads, rather than in the elaborate tournament hairstyles. Because sumo wrestlers are heavy, they look short on TV, but from a few feet away, it was clear that all of these men were tall, too. (Akebono, of course, was famous for being unusually tall for a sumo wrestler, at 6'8".) They were huge, and under the fat is bulging muscle. And when they crashed into each other to practice the sumo face-off, the sound was tremendous. Anyone who thinks that sumo is just a couple of fat guys pushing each other around should see sumo up close. The face-off is like an offensive linesman crashing into a defensive linesman in football -- except that the sumo wrestlers do it without pads, helmets, or any protection whatsoever. These guys are seriously strong athletes.
After the practice, the wrestlers cleaned up, and Akebono invited us to a lunch being held for him and a few other wrestlers at a nearby restaurant. It was there we conducted the interview. Akebono seemed more interested in talking to a couple of fawning young women that someone had brought along to meet him, and it was hard to get him to focus on the interview, but we were eventually able to get enough from him for our article. Sumo also has a well-known connection with both organized crime and the revanchist extreme right wing of Japanese politics (which are pretty much one and the same), and there were a few dubious people at the lunch with us (who I think brought the fawning young women for Akebono). When Ann and I wrapped up the interview, and Ann took off, Akebono invited me to hang out with them, but feeling a little uncomfortable hanging around with people I was pretty sure were gangsters, I told him I had to get going, thanked him, and left. Of course, now I regret passing up the chance to become buddies with Akebono and see more of sumo's seamy underside, but at the time beating it seemed like the best thing to do.
I followed sumo religiously through the rest of my time in Japan, and rooted Akebono on from afar as he climbed the ranks to become the first-ever foreign-born yokozuna (Grand Champion, the highest rank in sumo) in the face of great nationalist and xenophobic opposition, but I lost touch with sumo when I returned to the US and had no way to watch the matches. However, in the last three years, since marrying Kaori and subscribing to Japan TV on cable, I get to watch most basho and have turned Kaori into a sumo fan. Benjie calls me a wimp for watching the tape-delayed matches in the afternoons, rather than getting up at 3:00 am to watch the matches live, but I think I'm doing okay. I drink Japanese beer and pretend I am back in Tokyo, watching on a weekend afternoon, as the goddess Amaterasu intended.
Watching sumo did not lead to an interest in Japan. After WWS stopped showing sumo, I forgot all about it and Takamiyama. And when I suffered an upset stomach after a school trip to a Japanese steakhouse in fourth grade, I decided that I hated Japanese food and all things Japanese.
I didn't see another sumo match until shortly after moving to Japan in 1991, when I watched sumo on TV with my dorm-mates at the First Canon Fujigaoka Dorm one Saturday afternoon. It was then that I remembered Wide World of Sports and Takamiyama, and recalled my childhood fascination with sumo. My interest deepened when I started hanging out regularly with my mother's former student from Wisconsin in the 1960s, David Benjamin ("Benjie"), and his wife Junko Yoshida, who were living in Tokyo at the time. As it turned out, Benjie and Junko were sumo aficionados, and Benjie was then writing a book on sumo, The Joy of Sumo (soon to be republished in an updated edition under a new title). Sumo tournaments (basho) take place in odd-numbered months, last for fifteen days, and culminate in a final day when the championship (yusho) is often decided (by total number of wins). Benjie, Junko and I developed a custom of having an early dinner together at their house while watching the final day of the tournament.
Benjie and Junko gave me an education in sumo as a sport, the kind of education you couldn't get from most sumo books at the time (other than Benjie's), because they focused on sumo as Shinto ritual and mostly avoided the fact that sumo is a sport. Benjie and Junko would explain things like how the quality of wrestlers was declining as Japan became wealthier and fewer young men viewed sumo as a ticket out of poverty, and we'd try to pick out which matches were being thrown -- which often happened on the last day with wrestlers who entered the day 7-7 and needed a win to avoid demotion in ranking and the accompanying reduction in salary. (Sumo wrestlers are paid according to rank, but only the wrestlers in the top two divisions receive salaries, and these wrestlers support their sumo stables and the lower-ranking non-salaried wrestlers.)
Between my watching the Wide World of Sports in the 1970s and arriving in Japan in 1991, Takamiyama retired from wrestling (in 1984 to be exact), obtained Japanese citizenship, and became an oyakata, a sumo stable owner and coach. In accordance with tradition in sumo and many other areas of Japanese life, upon changing status, he also changed his name -- to Azumazeki Daigoro, and became referred to by his title, Azumazeki-oyakata. He also recruited to his stable a young Hawaiian wrestler named Chad Rowan, or, as he came to be known in the sumo world, Akebono.
Shortly after arriving at Look Japan magazine in September 1992, I learned that my colleague Ann Safir had arranged an interview with Akebono and, although I did not learn until much later that Azumazeki-oyakata was Takamiyama, I asked if I could go along because I liked sumo. Ann, who wasn't that interested in sumo, told me I could do the interview if I wanted. It took place on a Saturday morning, at the Azumazeki stable in a working-class section of eastern Tokyo. Akebono was already the highest-ranking wrestler in the stable, having achieved the rank of sekiwake, the third-highest in sumo. Because his salary was the highest, and sumo stables live off the earnings of their wrestlers, what Akebono said, went. And what he said that morning was that they would hold an extra training session for our benefit.
The training area in the Azumazeki stable consisted of a dirt floor, lined on two sides by a wall with poles against which the wrestlers would push for upper-body strengthening, and on two sides by an elevated viewing platform from which the coaches could watch. The wrestlers all wore beige training belts (mawashi), rather than the colorful mawashi they wore in tournaments, and their hair was tied up in bundles on their heads, rather than in the elaborate tournament hairstyles. Because sumo wrestlers are heavy, they look short on TV, but from a few feet away, it was clear that all of these men were tall, too. (Akebono, of course, was famous for being unusually tall for a sumo wrestler, at 6'8".) They were huge, and under the fat is bulging muscle. And when they crashed into each other to practice the sumo face-off, the sound was tremendous. Anyone who thinks that sumo is just a couple of fat guys pushing each other around should see sumo up close. The face-off is like an offensive linesman crashing into a defensive linesman in football -- except that the sumo wrestlers do it without pads, helmets, or any protection whatsoever. These guys are seriously strong athletes.
After the practice, the wrestlers cleaned up, and Akebono invited us to a lunch being held for him and a few other wrestlers at a nearby restaurant. It was there we conducted the interview. Akebono seemed more interested in talking to a couple of fawning young women that someone had brought along to meet him, and it was hard to get him to focus on the interview, but we were eventually able to get enough from him for our article. Sumo also has a well-known connection with both organized crime and the revanchist extreme right wing of Japanese politics (which are pretty much one and the same), and there were a few dubious people at the lunch with us (who I think brought the fawning young women for Akebono). When Ann and I wrapped up the interview, and Ann took off, Akebono invited me to hang out with them, but feeling a little uncomfortable hanging around with people I was pretty sure were gangsters, I told him I had to get going, thanked him, and left. Of course, now I regret passing up the chance to become buddies with Akebono and see more of sumo's seamy underside, but at the time beating it seemed like the best thing to do.
I followed sumo religiously through the rest of my time in Japan, and rooted Akebono on from afar as he climbed the ranks to become the first-ever foreign-born yokozuna (Grand Champion, the highest rank in sumo) in the face of great nationalist and xenophobic opposition, but I lost touch with sumo when I returned to the US and had no way to watch the matches. However, in the last three years, since marrying Kaori and subscribing to Japan TV on cable, I get to watch most basho and have turned Kaori into a sumo fan. Benjie calls me a wimp for watching the tape-delayed matches in the afternoons, rather than getting up at 3:00 am to watch the matches live, but I think I'm doing okay. I drink Japanese beer and pretend I am back in Tokyo, watching on a weekend afternoon, as the goddess Amaterasu intended.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
My First Hatsumode
Hatsumode translates literally as "first visit" but means the first visit to a Shino shrine of the new year. New Year's is the most important holiday of the Japanese calendar. (Before westernization, it was celebrated on the lunar new year, like Chinese New Year, but at some point, it was switched to January 1.) It's customary to perform hatsumode during the first ten days of January.
My first hatsumode was with (girlfriend, not wife) Kaori on New Year's Eve 1991-92. Kaori and I had gone out for dinner together in the Harajuku area of Tokyo on New Year's Eve, and finished eating around 10:00 pm. We did not know of any parties and were sure that every hotel room in Hoteru Gai was already full by that time. We were not quite sure what to do with ourselves, when I suggested that we go to Meiji Jingu Shrine, the shrine to Emperor Meiji, who oversaw the modernization of Japan, which is located near Harajuku, next to Yoyogi Park. I had heard that Japanese people visit a shrine to mark the New Year, and since Meiji Jingu was nearby, it seemed like a fun thing to do. Kaori agreed.
It was a pleasant evening for December. A bit chilly, not freezing, a nice night for a quick trip to the shrine while we figured out what else to do that night. We walked up the fashionable, tree-lined Omote-Sando Street towards the Shrine. (Sando literally means "[humble] pilgrimage route" and omote means "front," so Omote-Sando street is literally the "front approach for making a humble pilgrimage" to the Meiji Shrine.) Near Harajuku station, we crossed over to the wide gravel path leading through the giant stone torii gate marking the entrance to the shrine. From there, we walked for five minutes along the gravel road as giant cypress trees towered above us on either side, blocking out the sky except for a little sliver directly over the very middle of the gravel road.
"No one here," we said to each other, smiling at our good fortune, as we made a left turn under another giant torii gate onto the road approaching the actual shrine entrance. Off to the right, through the cypress trees, we could see bright floodlights that lit up the Shrine for New Years visitors. We continued down the approach route, gravel crunching under our feet, and turned right to the actual shrine entrance.
There, in front of us, was a crowd of thousands of visitors, who had turned out at the single most popular hatsumode location in Tokyo, if not all of Japan. The crowd did not appear to be moving. We thought about leaving and turned around to find that we were already sandwiched by thousands more who had quietly come up behind us while we were enjoying our walk in the night air. We had no choice but to stay.
Every few minutes, the crowd moved up ten feet or so. We realized that the shrine officials were letting only a few hundred people through the main gate at a time to control the crowds. The progress was slow. The air was getting colder, and before long, we were freezing. Neither one of us was dressed for the cold, and we stomped our feet, clapped our hands, and clung to each other to keep warm. I wished I had a flask of whiskey or a One Cup sake to generate some heat from within.
We inched our way forward, until after an hour or so, we got close enough to see the roof of the shrine. And here, we saw one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen. In Japan, it's customary to deposit money into a collection box when saying a prayer at a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple. Although the really devout and desperate give bills, most throw a coin or two into the box. (My wife always says I am giving too much when I throw a 100-yen ($1) coin into the box. The going rate, apparently, is 10 yen.) Because of the size of the crowds that night, it was not possible to get to the actual shrine and throw money in the box. Instead, officials had roped off the area in front of the shrine and spread out tarps onto which people could throw their offerings. And, as each successive group of several hundred was let through the gate, a hail of coins, many of them handfuls of silver one-yen coins saved for the occasion, flew into the air, were illuminated by the flood lights, and fell like glistening snow.
Every few minutes, as each group entered, we watched thousands of coins twinkle as they sailed through the cold night air. Finally we were let in, and we, too, threw our coins into the night sky. A group came in behind us and launched their handfuls of coins into the air, many of which fell on us and around us. I later found a one-yen coin in the collar of my jacket.
Having paid our respects to the dead emperor, we were directed to exit to the right, by a path that led back to the main approach and Harajuku Station. The last trains had already left, and so we found a taxi back to Oshikawa-san's dormitory. Since my room was very close to the never-locked back door, and everyone seemed to be asleep, I was able to sneak Kaori into my room and sneak her back out the next morning before anyone was the wiser.
Had we known better, we never would have gone to Meiji Jingu on New Year's Eve. It's the Japanese equivalent of going to Times Square to freeze you ass off amongst the drunks on New Year's Eve -- the kind of thing that only kids and wide-eyed out-of-towners do -- only better organized and more respectful. I will never do it again. But I am really glad I did it once.
My first hatsumode was with (girlfriend, not wife) Kaori on New Year's Eve 1991-92. Kaori and I had gone out for dinner together in the Harajuku area of Tokyo on New Year's Eve, and finished eating around 10:00 pm. We did not know of any parties and were sure that every hotel room in Hoteru Gai was already full by that time. We were not quite sure what to do with ourselves, when I suggested that we go to Meiji Jingu Shrine, the shrine to Emperor Meiji, who oversaw the modernization of Japan, which is located near Harajuku, next to Yoyogi Park. I had heard that Japanese people visit a shrine to mark the New Year, and since Meiji Jingu was nearby, it seemed like a fun thing to do. Kaori agreed.
It was a pleasant evening for December. A bit chilly, not freezing, a nice night for a quick trip to the shrine while we figured out what else to do that night. We walked up the fashionable, tree-lined Omote-Sando Street towards the Shrine. (Sando literally means "[humble] pilgrimage route" and omote means "front," so Omote-Sando street is literally the "front approach for making a humble pilgrimage" to the Meiji Shrine.) Near Harajuku station, we crossed over to the wide gravel path leading through the giant stone torii gate marking the entrance to the shrine. From there, we walked for five minutes along the gravel road as giant cypress trees towered above us on either side, blocking out the sky except for a little sliver directly over the very middle of the gravel road.
"No one here," we said to each other, smiling at our good fortune, as we made a left turn under another giant torii gate onto the road approaching the actual shrine entrance. Off to the right, through the cypress trees, we could see bright floodlights that lit up the Shrine for New Years visitors. We continued down the approach route, gravel crunching under our feet, and turned right to the actual shrine entrance.
There, in front of us, was a crowd of thousands of visitors, who had turned out at the single most popular hatsumode location in Tokyo, if not all of Japan. The crowd did not appear to be moving. We thought about leaving and turned around to find that we were already sandwiched by thousands more who had quietly come up behind us while we were enjoying our walk in the night air. We had no choice but to stay.
Every few minutes, the crowd moved up ten feet or so. We realized that the shrine officials were letting only a few hundred people through the main gate at a time to control the crowds. The progress was slow. The air was getting colder, and before long, we were freezing. Neither one of us was dressed for the cold, and we stomped our feet, clapped our hands, and clung to each other to keep warm. I wished I had a flask of whiskey or a One Cup sake to generate some heat from within.
We inched our way forward, until after an hour or so, we got close enough to see the roof of the shrine. And here, we saw one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen. In Japan, it's customary to deposit money into a collection box when saying a prayer at a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple. Although the really devout and desperate give bills, most throw a coin or two into the box. (My wife always says I am giving too much when I throw a 100-yen ($1) coin into the box. The going rate, apparently, is 10 yen.) Because of the size of the crowds that night, it was not possible to get to the actual shrine and throw money in the box. Instead, officials had roped off the area in front of the shrine and spread out tarps onto which people could throw their offerings. And, as each successive group of several hundred was let through the gate, a hail of coins, many of them handfuls of silver one-yen coins saved for the occasion, flew into the air, were illuminated by the flood lights, and fell like glistening snow.
Every few minutes, as each group entered, we watched thousands of coins twinkle as they sailed through the cold night air. Finally we were let in, and we, too, threw our coins into the night sky. A group came in behind us and launched their handfuls of coins into the air, many of which fell on us and around us. I later found a one-yen coin in the collar of my jacket.
Having paid our respects to the dead emperor, we were directed to exit to the right, by a path that led back to the main approach and Harajuku Station. The last trains had already left, and so we found a taxi back to Oshikawa-san's dormitory. Since my room was very close to the never-locked back door, and everyone seemed to be asleep, I was able to sneak Kaori into my room and sneak her back out the next morning before anyone was the wiser.
Had we known better, we never would have gone to Meiji Jingu on New Year's Eve. It's the Japanese equivalent of going to Times Square to freeze you ass off amongst the drunks on New Year's Eve -- the kind of thing that only kids and wide-eyed out-of-towners do -- only better organized and more respectful. I will never do it again. But I am really glad I did it once.
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