Fushiki to Beijing - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 43

Traversing Russia by train from west to east took us a couple of weeks and a bottomless vat of per-
severance. Riding the rails from Japan's western shore to its eastern shore takes a few hours—mostly spent
napping in plush reclining chairs.
AFTER checking in to our sparkling clean Tokyo hotel room, we drop our packs, flop onto the crisp white
sheets of the bed, and flip on the flat-screen TV. Again, we're reminded that we've arrived in a very dif-
ferent country. Back in Russia, where they're still getting acclimated to the whole capitalism thing, most
TV advertising took a straightforward approach to persuasion. Thus, even though I don't speak Russian, I
had no trouble understanding Russian ads. They were all along the lines of: “Oh, no, there's a stain on the
tablecloth! What will Mom do? Thank goodness for this effective detergent!”
Not so in Japan, where sophisticated consumers have grown bored with simple persuasion, forcing ad-
vertisers to get wildly inventive. Japanese TV ads have at this point evolved into an abstract mishmash
of symbols and sounds. Your average thirty-second Japanese commercial is something like: Here's a man
holding a giraffe. Now the giraffe morphs into a rainbow. The rainbow is friends with a talking pencil, and
they live together on a spaceship. A few seconds of laughter! A snippet of loud reggae music! Fade out. At
least half the time, I have no idea what the product being advertised is or what it does. And yet I very much
enjoy the ads. They're like short-acting hallucinogens.
Amid this psychosis-inducing television content, we manage to learn that there's a major sumo wrestling
tournament going on this week. I've always wanted to experience sumo live. We figure out where the sta-
dium is and take the subway there the next morning.
Like New York, Tokyo has a plate-of-spaghetti subway map. But Tokyo's straphangers are a far quieter
bunch, and its subway cars have floors so clean you could lick the spaghetti sauce off them. It's contrasts
like this that make Tokyo a bizarro-world Manhattan. It has at least as much bustle, glamour, and skyscrap-
ing density, but it has very little of New York's foul odors, rampant litter, and casually rude behavior. Even
the cabdrivers here are loath to honk their horns in anger.
After a short subway jaunt in a crowded but silent car, Rebecca and I arrive at Kokugikan arena. At the
gate, we buy a pair of cheap tickets up in the nosebleed seats. Rebecca rents a tiny handheld radio from a
kiosk out front so she can listen to the English-language simulcast from the commentators' booth.
Reflecting Japan's near-religious reverence for sumo, Kokugikan is more a temple than a sports facility.
A decorative, peaked wooden roof dangles thirty feet above the ring, where the JumboTron might hang
if this were a basketball court. It's as though the wrestlers are competing within a sacred shrine. There's
also no advertising anywhere inside the main hall—unlike the rest of ad-plastered Tokyo—and there's no
music blaring over the sound system in between bouts. The seats are a plush, velvety burgundy. There are
pantalooned servants who float through the aisles with tea and snacks. The crowd is enthused, but always
attentive and respectful. In general, it's pretty much the opposite of the atmosphere at your average NFL
game (which is often like a cross between a death metal concert, a bikini contest, and a public hanging).
Sumo's rules are simple. You must either knock your opponent down or force him out of the fifteen-
foot-diameter ring. There are eighty-two officially recognized winning techniques. Among them are the
“twisting backward trip,” the “thigh-grabbing pushdown,” the “frontal crush-out,” and—I imagine this one
being lovingly administered—the “hug and shove.” Rebecca's listening to the announcers on her radio and
happily calling out the takedowns as they happen (“Yes! Frontal crush-out!”), while also munching on the
bag of fried octopus balls she bought from one of the food vendors.
Sumo matches typically last less than a minute and can sometimes be over in the blink of an eye. Elab-
orate ceremony pads out the time between bouts. Before any wrestling begins, all the combatants march
out together and form a circle around the ring. They wear handmade, jewel-encrusted, million-dollar ap-