Sumo wrestling up close

http://www.myanmar.gov.mm/myanmartimes/no203/MyanmarTimes11-203/027.htm

IT has always seemed strange to me that people could enjoy watching a sport in which contenders physically harm one another, but last month I somehow found myself at a thrilling sumo wrestling tournament in Tokyo.
The entrance to Kokugikan Stadium was lined with colourful banners bearing the names of the wrestlers and referees. Thousands of spectators collected in the spacious stadium to watch the 13th day of the nearly completed sumo tournament.
I had come with Mr Sasaki, an assistant sports editor at JiJi News Agency in Tokyo, and a knowledgeable sumo fan.
He explained that the spectators, most of them over 40, had come from nearby Tokyo, Yokohama, Chiba and Saitama. Younger Japanese, he said, tend to prefer baseball to sumo wrestling, but foreign interest in the sport is increasing. Some famous sumo wrestlers in Japan are actually from Russia and Mongolia.
Our press seats offered a great view of the dohyo, a two foot high, 18-square-foot clay ring. The bout is confined to an inner circle a little over 15 feet in diameter.
Over the ring, a roof resembling a shrine is suspended from the ceiling by cables.
As the match began, sumo wrestlers in ceremonial aprons came onto the stage and stood in a circle. This is the first time I have seen sumo wrestlers up close, and many are at least twice as big as I am.
Sumo wrestlers wear nothing except a band around their waists, which merely covers the major organ of a man and made me feel a bit funny. Their attire reminded me of our ethnic Naga tribes, who usually wear nothing except a gong that covers the major sexual organs.

Mr Sasaki asked me whether I felt embarrassed to watch them.
“Some foreigners said they feel embarrassed to watch such kinds of matches,” he said. But I love it. It looks unique.
According to Japanese literature, sumo is an ancient sport dating back some 1500 years. Sumo grand tournaments are held in Japan six times in a year, three times in Tokyo and once each in Osaka, Nagoya and Kyushu. Each tournament lasts for 15 days.
During the match, wrestlers are not allowed to punch each other, pull hair or kick the stomachs or chests of their opponents. A sumo wrestler who touches the ground with any part of his body, his knee or even the tip of his finger, loses the match.
Whenever a match ended, a man in traditional costume appeared and announced the names of wrestlers for the next match in a very unique classical voice. People were shouting for the competitors and offering words of encouragement. The sumo wrestlers rinsed their mouths with water and wiped their faces with paper towels.
“It is to purify their mind and body,” said Mr Sasaki.
The wrestlers also scattered salt on their feet in order to purify themselves. TheJapanese believe that salt has a special power for driving away evil.
After rinsing with water, they squatted and faced each other in the centre of the ring, crouching forward and touching their fists to the ground. They proceeded to glare fiercely at one another with their small eyes. It seemed to me as if they were about to pounce on each other like crouching chubby tigers.
The match lasted no more than 30 or 40 seconds. It was so exciting that I could not keep myself from shouting.
It is really hard to see some of the wrestlers being thrown out of the ring, in pain and injured. Dragging their feet, they had to approach again to the stage to bow to the referee. They seemed to leave with mixed feelings of shamefulness and pain.
The final match between the current grand champion Asashoryu, a Mongolian, and a Japanese champion, Kaiyo, is the most exciting. The spectators gave a big hand to Kaiyo rather than Asashoryu, who eventually won the tournament without a single defeat in 15 matches.
People yelled out when the champion raised his foot and stamped the floor to make a sound for the farewell bow dance.
But for me, each short moment was packed with thrills.

Memories of forgetfulness

ALTHOUGH I am in my twenties, I am sometimes so forgetful I could be in my seventies. I feel I must share these stories with you… before I forget them. One day after a class at the University of Foreign Language, where I was specialising in English, I walked to the bus stop to catch a bus back home. While I was waiting, I found that my umbrella was not in the basket, which I took each day with my lunchbox and books in. Supposing that I might have left the umbrella in the classroom, I returned to the school. No sooner had I reached the school gate than I realised that I was holding my umbrella. Whenever I read a book or an English newspaper I like to keep a pen or pencil handy to note down new words and new usages. As I cannot read or study for hours in a sitting position, I usually walk around intermittently to unwind. One Sunday, I was reading Myanmar Times as my mum was busily cooking. She asked me to go and buy an onion at the near-by grocery store, which I reluctantly did. When I sat down again to go on with my reading, I could not find my pencil. So I took another one and then continued reading. A few minutes later, my eldest sister in the bathroom called me to help her with lining some clothes, and then I went back to the living room, picked up another pen, and continued reading. Hardly an hour had passed when my neighbour called me to the phone. I had to run down to the ground floor, and then slowly march back up to my flat on the fifth. Then I, again, threw myself into the chair and snatched the paper, tired and a little disgruntled with the interruptions.
It was then that I realised my third pen had also gone missing. Feeling angry and confused, I shouted at my family to give back the essential, but disappearing, items. My mum came out off the kitchen, looked at me carefully and said, "I have seen animals with two horns, but this is the first time I’ve seen an animal with three."