a&e@op.douglas.be.ca

A visit to Sumo

Students taken with thong wear

Jimmihanada added weight of the 450-pound sumo
wrestler coming from the other direc-
tion. You go the other way, back to

 

our step is unsteady on the

swinging suspension where you started, but another yukata-
bridge, which already feels clad behemoth blocks your way, and
perilous enough, doesn’t seem eager to let you by. Then

never mind the wind
blasting down from the mountains, the
15-storey drop to the water below or the

the bridge starts to sway even more
dramatically,

No, this is not a dream, you realize
after pinching yourself, nor are you
trapped in a surreal Fellini flick,
populated by anachronistic figures
dressed in bright yukata robes, carrying
antiquated trunks and other ornate gear
set against a backdrop of dour Douglas
fir.

No, this is actually happening. Sumo
wrestlers are running amok in North
Vancouver.

Actually, they aren’t really running.
Nor are they particularly amok. Not two
weeks after taking part in the pageantry
of the opening ceremony of the Nagano
Winter Olympics, they are standing for
-photo-ops, putting on oshidashi clinics,
and charming gifts out of high school
students.

Last week Vancouver was paid another
visit by a wrestlin’ entourage, when
Ozeki Takanonami, the lower ranked
Maegashira Aogiyama, two juryo rikishi
(wrestlers), Minami and Wakakaze, and
officials from the Sumo Association
went on the publicity rounds in another
pre-Vancouver basho inspection/
promotion. The wrestlers checked out a
Grizzlies game, malls, parks and the
Vancouver Public Library. Meanwhile
the Sumo Association officials inspected
the clay of the ring and the ring’s canopy
at the Colliseum, and checked out the
other facilities (wall-mounted toilets -
bad). Apparently, everything else seemed
to be ‘daijobu’ (OK).

A highlight of the week was a visit to
Handsworth Secondary School, in a tiny
North Shore neighbourhood just up the
road from the aforementioned Capilano
suspension bridge.

Led in by a bagpiper and escorted into

; ‘.
0 .douglas.bc.ca

lister Filled With Pus

here is part of me that grows like,

n abscessed blister filled with pus.

t grows bigger and bigger, . :

ith every day that passes without notice.
ike another page in a book,

urned without a glance. a

 

   
    
   
  
 
   
  
   
 
    
 
  
  
   
 
 
 

  

The ultimate wedgie. _jimmihanada phptos

 

f unattended it will continue to grow.
f treated it will die.
hich 1s worse cannot be foreseen.

leave it grow unattended until, .

am brave enough to lance its powerful size.
he pus filled sack explodes into emotion,
ike images on paper.

reely drip down my leg as it rests in salvation,
n the bottom of my shoe.

feel empty for a moment until,

notice that the obvious has begun.

nother blister bigger then the first one, __
eplacing its predecessor quicker and more alive.

t is in that instant that I realize,
hat_it will never end, : : ‘
will always carry this blister filled with pus.

y Richard Solbakken

can feel the milky white substance once contained,

High

the packed and thickly-decorated
gymnasium by two Mounties, the
entourage, with November's Kyushu
basho champion Takanonami in front,
received an ecstatic response from the
students, most of whom had never seen
a real rikishi up close. There was a
presentation of gifts on both sides, and
one surprise; Aogiyama was called
forward (though he sensed that
something was up) to be ambushed by
hundreds of students singing Happy
Birthday, commemorating the veteran's
28th. Aogiyama received a cake and,
without missing a beat, made a hammy
display of trying to eat it immediately, to
the delight of the students.

“We're very delighted. The kids are
well behaved... It’s not easy to pull off
an assembly like this. Two different
cultures,” said Bob O’Neill, a teacher at
the school. O’Neill adds, “But you do
know we had originally hoped for
Akebono,” he says of the oft-injured
Hawaiian champion.

Then the audience really showed their
appreciation when the members of
Handsworth’s modest wrestling team
sheepishly and tentatively pulled down
their sweats to show off their own
revealing mawashi to the student body.
There was going to be a rumble.

“You feel embarrassed at first,” said
Aaron, one member of the wrestling
club, on wearing the floss-like belt, “but
they're doing it, and everybody's doing
it. As long as you're not the only one
doing it you feel fine.”

The sumo itself was a whole other
matter for the wrestlers, most of whom
had only previously seen sumo on the
Rogers Multicultural Channel’s
broadcast of Sumo Digest. “It was very
intimidating,” said Dean Yamagata, one
of the local boys that went up against
the wrestlers. “There was one guy who
was 18, and I’m 18, but the size
difference was crazy.”

So, how did it come about that the
star wrestler, Ozeki Takanonami, one of

   
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

the most famous
faces in Japan,
came to visit a high
school tucked away
in the hills of the
Lower Mainland?
The school visit
was set up by Bob
Owada, a “lowly
travel agent” who
takes care of
Handsworth’s
exchange trips.
North Vancouver
happens to be a
sister city to
Chiba

City,

which

is in

the

prefecture next to Tokyo,
and*Handsworth has a strong
connection to the Land of the Rising
Sun. Their students have been travelling
there for nine years. “I asked school
officials that if there was an occasion to

before they

would even consider an
exhibition tournament on

Canadian soil.

But the red tape must have been
worth it. Students formed a mob tighter
than a rugby scrum around the wrestlers
after the display, straining to get
autographs and talk with the unilingual
wrestlers, All Takanonami could do was
shyly nod, smile, and just keep singing.
There was no escape, not even for an
Ozeki.

(Note: To accomodate the students, the
wrestlers had to skip the trip to.the
Suspension Bridge, so that never did
happen, but it does make for a good visual
beginning to a story. Forgive the dishon-
ourable indiscretion, dear reader.

display sumo here, to keep an eye out,
and just by chance, I met Mr. Bhatt in
Japan, and he was very agreeable to
arrange it,” said Mr. Owada.

Mr. Bhatt is Parmesh Bhatt, the
owner of a travel agency and the catalyst
behind the Vancouver basho. Bhatt
happens to be friends with the Wolf,
retired fighting legend Chiyonofiji,
(now known as Kokonoe Oyakata). It
was Bhatt that used his connections in
connection-heavy Japan to score the
Vancouver basho, says Heather
Chapman, spokesperson for the Japan-
Canada Association. Chapman, detailing
some of the bureaucratic barriers that
had to be overcome for the basho to take
place, said that Prime Minister Jean
Chretien himself had to personally invite
the Sumo Association over to Canada

Word Search:
Early Explorers Western
Hemisphere Through The Go-Go Booth
Pedestals on ebb-flow
KBYZW sandcastle design
empty footprints
on
eee historic ash
KIBQL reminders of oblivion
illuminate
IOFSH technological freeze-frames
figureheads
NBJOIIBX and new trend—elites
do their
necro-dance
DOQQBUBXZ in quiet company
J. Edgar—fixes all the channels
KBYOUBVODBKB wax museum—Eichmann grins
hands crossed
ESUUBQZ the attentive—story teller
buries his head in the sand
KBQWSOQ while—one universal child
watches from above
VOHZWZ sticky fingers
holding—the tobacco industry
: —NMichael D. Jones by the testicles
Answer Key: B=A, Y=B, K=C. V=D, Go-Go Boots in quicksand
O=E, J=G, S-I, L=K, I=L, N=M, novelty
X=N, Z-O, E=P Q-R, H-S, W=T, wears off
Dav F=-W, U=Z quickly.
by David Papa

 

 

The Other Press March 4, 1998 5