No Regrets!

Too many drinks last night. We woke up rough, with Samurai Dave feering particurarly rousy. We took it easy this morning, skipping a bit of sightseeing to recover in bed. With the time, I researched the sumo tournament to prepare myself for some of the matches we were going to see. In true nerd fashion, I even built a spreadsheet which calculated odds for specific Makuuchi (top division) matches for Dave and I to bet on as we watched.

Eventually, we motivated and headed out to the local 7-Eleven. After burning the rest of the money on my digital Suica card, I had five sandwiches and shared some unspectacular KFC-flavored potato chips with Dave for breakfast. Then off to the nearby Kokusai Center, site of the sumo tournament. It was a bit of a rush to beat the dark rainclouds rolling in. A good day to be inside.

Walking through Fukuoka and again inside the arena, I noticed once more that we were the only white people around. I was right that Fukuoka is far enough off the beaten tourist path, but wrong in thinking that we would get attention for it. No one gives a shit.

Once inside, the all-Japanese signage made it tough for us to find our seats, but a sweet lady working as an usher helped us to them. Our ringside seats weren’t exactly that. Our seats were in the sixth row of the square, pillow-style mats surrounding the ring. Still technically in the ringside section, but not quite close enough to smell the wrestlers as we had hoped.

Matches were already underway, but each day starts with the very low divisions that don’t draw crowds, and the arena was indeed mostly empty and quiet. Each match ended with a smattering of applause. Still, for Dave and I, it was exciting. My betting plans were foiled by the fact that there is no scoreboard showing results or who was in the ring. All the wrestlers are similarly Japanese and large, so it was impossible for me and Dave to know who was who.

But the sumo was fascinating for me to watch. The match begins with both wrestlers crouched behind white lines in the ring, low and ready to spring forward. There’s no bell or signal. They launch when one makes the first move. From there, it’s a collision of fat, muscle, and balance. Success requires a mix of power, balance, and reading your opponent. Pushes, slaps, open-hand jabs to the neck and face, and plenty of grunting are all part of the show. The trick, to my eye, is staying low but balanced and stable. The match ends when one wrestler is either pushed out of the ring or brought to the ground. Each wrestler only fights once per day, and many matches are over in just a few seconds. In the end, there is no celebration, no showing up your opponent. The wrestlers show no emotion, except for an occasional hint of disappointment from loser.

Annoyingly, many of the matches would start with wrestlers getting into position and then withdrawing to stretch or wipe their face with a towel, only to get into position and withdraw again and again. This became extremely annoying. Dave remarked it was the equivalent of a baseball pitcher repeatedly stepping off the rubber before making a pitch, only in sumo, doing this seemed to elicit cheers from the crowd. I don’t get it.

The whole event is really big on ceremony and tradition, with ceremonial chanting between matches and a ritualistic presentation of wrestlers with each division change. The ceremonial entrances of the yokozunas, one from the East and another from the West, are particularly impressive. No scoreboard, no music. Just the gentle murmur of the crowd, occasional announcements in Japanese, some light clapping, and the slapping of fat.

Crowd size increased as matches from the higher divisions approached. Applause grew louder, especially when matches lasted longer than 15 seconds. I started to make some distinctions between the wresters. Fat, is seems, can be distributed differently around the body and have different levels of jiggliness. A few of the wrestlers stood out further with noticeable body hair. One of them was a white guy, who I affectionately called Jerry Cowlings from Indianapolis, with an adopted Japanese ring name.

Dave and I sat on those thin pillow mats for about six hours. We tried adjusting into several different positions to stay comfortable, but it was tough. The personal space was tiny, and with a woman in front of me and another beside me, it was difficult to maneuver at all. How can Japanese people sit like this all day? Our western legs and backs were not happy with us.

I snapped photos like crazy until I was told by a guy sitting behind me that I was not allowed to take photos when sitting in the ringside section. ChatGPT confirmed that this section is not only “sacred ground” at a sumo tournament, but cameras and screens can be distracting to the crowd. Of course, this didn’t apply to the dozen media photographers who were sitting even closer and snapping photos with flashes. I got up for a few minutes to take some photos from other vantage points around the arena.

During the tournament, Dave got a notification that one of his flights home had been delayed so much that he’d miss a connection. This triggered a travel anxiety spiral that hung over the rest of the afternoon. We eventually got back to the hotel got back to the hotel and sorted it out with the airline over the phone. At one point, I had mentioned to Dave that I didn’t realize how close Fukuoka was to South Korea. This would prove to be foreshadowing, as Dave’s new flights home would route him through Seoul.

For dinner, we walked over to the original Ichiran ramen location. The chain started in Fukuoka in 1960, and this location is both famous and famously busy, with an hour-long line out front to get in. While waiting, I pplayfully stuck my tongue out at the little boy in front of me who had been staring, only to have his Asian mother sternly say “No!” to me while wagging her finger. I suppose my clearly playful attempt to engage with the child was considered offensive in her culture? That made the next 45 minutes of waiting in line with them a little awkward. While we waited, we were treated to a cheesy show with lights, music, and dancers in the restaurant’s second-floor windows. Tourists gathered to watch and take photos, but it was pretty lame.

We eventually got in and had a strangely isolated meal without any visual contact with our servers. Weird as it was, having dinner at this revered restaurant location seemed like a fitting end to the trip.

Tomorrow, it’s all over. Dave and I head to the airport and fly home.