2009年11月17日火曜日

A unique baseball game

A unique baseball game was held in Sekigahara Can you guess how the rules were extraordinary? You would definitely be surprised at the length of the game. It had 400 innings and took 104 hours to complete the game. It was more than 40 times longer than an ordinary baseball game. Of course, one team did not play a whole game. Nearly a hundred teams participated from everywhere in Japan. The game was sponsored by a Japanese beer company,” Sapporo beer”. Originally baseball games sponsored by the company were held in Nagano, but the location was moved to Sekigahara. Sekighara was chosen for several reasons. One is the fact of the battle of Sekigahara where east and west Japan battled to unify the country. An image of Sekigahara which people have is fighting. Second is the good location. Participants can get to the stadium easily.

Besides the game, there was a baseball lecture for some children who were in a local baseball club. Retired professional baseball players taught them. In Japan professionals cannot teach amateurs by law. Only retired players come to teach us.

You can see how Japanese people like baseball and how much Sekigahara is known widely. Baseball has become a Japanese national sport. People enjoy not only playing it, but also communicating through it.

2009年11月13日金曜日

A sumo competition

There was a sumo wrestling competition for primary school and kinder garden children in Sekigahara. Sumo is a Japanese traditional sport which a wrestler tries to push an opponent out from a ring. The competition was held outside. It was a clear blue sky and a nice day for doing sumo. The classes were divided into seven including one to six year primary school children and kinder garden children.

In total 97 children participated for this competition. I was a little bit surprised at the number of participants. There are still a lot of children in this depopulated town. The sumo ring was built outside and the children were wearing a Japanese loincloth like real sumo wrestlers. It is very interesting to know that two girls have won the competition in kinder garden and first year elementary school classes. In infancy, generally girls grow faster than boys so it is not unusual that some girls are physically stronger than boys. The same thing happened to me. I also took part of the competition when I was in the first year of elementary school. I lost a game with a girl. This competition reminds me of my childhood. The sumo competition has been a good opportunity for children to try their physical strength and to learn a Japanese cultural sport.