Sports Festival

~In an ongoing effort to expand my cultural horizons, I participated in a sports festival today organized by the Nagaoka International Center. The festival included traditional Japanese sports and activities, and was conveniently placed at an elementary school only a few minutes from my apartment.

^ Upon arrival, I was issued with my nametag (participants had to sign up for the festival in advance). Astute readers may notice a slight "error" in the name, but I assure you it was intentional.

^ I was then issued a yellow vest and headband (yes, that's yours truly in the picture above). There were about a hundred participants, divided into "Team Aoi" (Blue team) and "Team Kiiro" (Yellow Team). At first, I thought we were being segregated again, but such was not the case, as both foreigners and Japanese were on both teams.

The teams were further subdivided by jersey color: yellow, red, orange, and pink (for children). So, I was on the yellow team, in the yellow group. Easy to remember.

^ There were people from many different countries at the festival. Aside from the usual gaggle of Brazilians, I met Germans, Chinese, Indians, and even one guy from Venezuela.

I was surprised that the festival included more than just sports. When I arrived, I was also given a small booklet on earthquake preparedness, which was laboriously explained by one of the staff members while everyone listened. The events included a lot more talking and speeches than an American sporting event; everyone standing and listening seemed to be as important as actually starting the games. I must admit that it was a bit tedious.

The activities we did were not "sports" per se (no Sumo wrestling or Judo, to my vague disappointment!), but rather were activities Japanese students play at school sport days. Here's a video of the first event:


^ There was a Japanese name for this activity, but I didn't quite catch it! It consisted of two teams throwing small beanbags into baskets high off the ground for about 20 seconds (the blue team had their own basket to the right). When time was up, the number of bags was counted one-by-one...which took far longer than the game itself!

Some important words for Japanese sports are "ganbatte!" (good luck!) and "hiyaku!" (hurry up!). As you may hear in the videos, the crowd yelled these words incessantly when the activities were going on.


^ Next was an unusual relay race. It involved placing a ping-pong ball in a soup ladle and running to the next person on your team...without losing the ball! Hilarity ensued as the balls flew all over the place, prompting mad scrambles by desperate teammates! It was a lot of fun.


^ The next activity was one of the most bizarre: runners had to grab a dangling cookie with their teeth, then run to the end of the line with the cookie in their mouth. Afterwards, said cookie was promptly devoured. Here's an action shot that's probably the best picture I took today:

^ Looks fun, doesn't it? But this was no laughing matter--those Japanese are hard-core about these games! In particular, the child participants were shocking in their intensity to grab the cookie with their teeth. On the other hand, maybe they were just hungry.

The next event was a classic tug of war:

^ The funny part about this event was that team captains fussed so much about where people should stand along the rope line to optimize our leverage. But when the first tug-of-war began, the event coordinator unwisely fired the cap gun to start the game while standing on the rope. As the Blue and Yellow teams grabbed the rope, the coordinator was flung into the air and on his back. Fortunately no damage was done and we all got a good laugh out of it.

The final sport took some big balls to play:


^ To summarize, two people grab the giant, air-filled ball and throw it to their teammates, who roll/push it down the line to the end. The people at the end take the ball and run back to the front, placing it back on its stand. The first team to get the ball back on the stand wins!

Once the physical sports were finished, everyone walked over to a nearby building for the final event:

^ An all-out, no-holds-bared pachinco deathmatch!

Ok, so I made that last one up.

^In the end, my yellow team emerged victorious! To be honest, I didn't even know they were keeping score. The end of the sporting events involved excessively long speeches by each member of the staff while the participants squatted in the sun. It was like watching the Academy Awards, without the jokes.

After the sports festival, everyone left the school for a nearby park, where the staff had set up a barbecue for our enjoyment. Aside from hot dogs, there were some Japanese foods, such as this:

^ Yaki-soba, which are fried noodles with meat. It was oiishi (delicious!). As you can see, it went fast.

~So ends another Cultural Event(tm) in the chronicles of David Does Japan! Remember, the Japanglish contest is still open. Oyasumi!