mytest

Hi Blog. Not a matter of fingerprinting for a change, but another article to show that topics we bring up do make some ripples in the press.

And I’m still waiting for the “coach” (rather, the owner of a sumo stable) to actually be ARRESTED for assault and criminal negligence (if not manslaughter)–even after publicly admitting he used a beer bottle on his apprentice (who died soon afterwards), he’s still out there free. If only he were a foreigner–he could be arrested despite no evidence at all…

Previous article on Asashoryu here. Wonder if he’ll ever return–he said in a little over a month more than two months ago. Arudou Debito in Sapporo

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Memo From Tokyo
Japan Wrings Its Hands Over Sumo’s Latest Woes
By NORIMITSU ONISHI New York Times: October 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/world/asia/19sumo.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

TOKYO, Oct. 18 — The problems swirling through Japan’s ancient sport of sumo recently would seem to be random, unconnected events.

A coach was expelled from the sumo association this month for inflicting fatal injuries on a 17-year-old apprentice in a hazing incident and may face criminal charges. One of the two grand champions, Asashoryu, has been suspended for claiming an injury and then being filmed playing soccer in his native Mongolia. He is also suspected of fixing matches with other wrestlers, including the other grand champion, also Mongolian.

When things seemingly could not get any worse, a woman tried to climb up into the elevated sumo ring last month during a match, a no-go place for women, who are considered impure in sumo tradition. She broke free from a female security guard in the audience but was pulled down by a sumo wrestler who prevented her from entering the sacred ring and, in the eyes of traditionalists, defiling it.

While the problems may have looked disparate, however, they were rooted in a quintessentially Japanese conflict between tradition and modernity. Should sumo, whose popularity has long been declining, change? The debate in Japan has taken on a heated, though predictable, course. Traditionalists have said any change would mean the death of sumo, while others have said that sumo will die if it fails to change.

In fact sumo has undergone continual change during its long history, which inevitably raises other questions. What, really, are its traditions?

The 17-year-old, Takashi Saito, died after being hit on the head with a bottle by his master and struck with a metal bat by wrestlers during practice. He had tried to escape twice from the stable because of the hazing, the second time on the day before the beating.

Hazing, including corporal punishment, has long been considered a fact of life in sumo stables, feudal-like camps where wrestlers are expected to live and train. In a practice called kawaigari, older wrestlers repeatedly throw a novice down on the ring, ostensibly to toughen him up but also to mete out punishment.

Critics said that this practice, and the culture of violence that led to the fatal beating, was symbolic of sumo’s failure to keep up with the times.

Traditionally, brawny teenagers from poor rural families came to the capital and were entrusted to a stable master and his wife. To this day, wrestlers lead regimented lives in the stables, doing chores and performing services for older colleagues.

As Japan has grown richer and as rural areas have emptied out of young people, fewer Japanese teenagers have been willing to lead this kind of life. Last year only 84 Japanese trainees joined stables, less than half the numbers in the early 1990s. The sumo association has allowed foreigners in, though only one per stable. But even though only 61 out of 723 sumo wrestlers are foreigners, they have risen to the top. No Japanese is on course to join the two Mongolians as grand champions anytime soon.

Asashoryu, in particular, has incurred the wrath of traditionalists. Though a formidable wrestler, he gives the strong impression that Japan is his workplace and that his heart lies in Mongolia. He has shown flashes of anger in the ring and other behavior that his critics say lack a grand champion’s “dignity,” a vague quality that sometimes seems to mean simply that he is not Japanese enough.

And then he faked his injury.

“If he were a Japanese grand champion, I think he would have submitted his resignation by now,” said Kunihiro Sugiyama, who was a sumo announcer for four decades.

Mr. Sugiyama said that sumo was less a sport than a cultural heritage that needed to be protected from, among others, “hungry” foreigners from countries with lower standards of living.

“If you go to Africa or India or South America and look around, you’ll find large people,” Mr. Sugiyama said. “We’re in an age of overindulgence in Japan, so if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile right away.”

Sumo is often said to be as old as Japan itself, but scholars trace the birth of a professional sport recognizable today to three centuries ago. The central aspects of today’s sumo — the tournaments and the rank of grand champion as the embodiment of sumo’s ideals — were established in the late 19th century, just as a new sport called baseball was becoming popular in Japan.

Sumo officials made other changes to emphasize the traditional aspects of sumo and to solidify its place as Japan’s “national sport,” said Lee A. Thompson, an American expert on sumo and a professor of sports sociology at Waseda University’s School of Sport Sciences here.

In the 1930s sumo authorities tried to stress ties to the Shinto religion by rebuilding the roof over the main sumo ring in Tokyo in the shape of a Shinto shrine. In the 1950s they formed the Yokozuna Review Board, a committee to consider candidates for the rank of grand champion.

“Sumo has latched on to a certain image of what Japan is — that Japan has this long tradition as a country and those things that are 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000 years old are still alive today,” Mr. Thompson said. “That’s why this appeal to tradition trumps a lot of other issues, in this case what might even turn out to be manslaughter,” he added.

So if sumo has always changed to fit the needs of the times, how can it do so now? Some have proposed raising the age of recruits or picking the best from college sumo clubs. Noriki Miyashita, a retired wrestler, favors turning sumo into an international professional league with Japan serving as “the major league.”

“When it comes to tradition, there invariably comes a time to re-examine things,” he said. “And I think the time has now come for the world of sumo.”
ENDS