Tokyo
How
can the word Tokyo drive away readers?
My
readership has dropped nearly in half since I came to Tokyo. There
are many possible explanations. One is that my readers are just as
prejudiced against Japanese as are most Americans. Another is that
many readers are interested in material about San Francisco, in spite
of my clearly stated view that San Francisco is in a death spiral
heading toward oblivion as a romantic outpost of Disneyland. The
least probable explanation is that many people read my blog before
they phone or visit me. That would account for dozens not thousands
of readers. There could also be many other explanations, like the
season. I had a drastic drop in readership in December, the greatest
drop was around Christmas when few people are at work reading blogs.
Intrepid and foolish, that’s me; so I will continue on the Japan track.
The
name at the top is the birth name of the top sumo, who is obviously
Mongolian. I have watched sumo on tv for several decades. I went to
my first live basho (fight) on Saturday, the second to last day of
the current third-out-of-six annual tournaments. Saturday was when
Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj wrapped up his 14-0 win over all the other
sumo. Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj is called Asashoryu in sumo and he is
one of the most powerful and beautiful of all the sumo I have seen.
I find sumo elegant because it is so simple. It is also ancient. Two fighters are in a ring 15 feet in diameter, nearly naked. The looser is either pushed out of the ring or touches the clay ground with some body part other than the bottom of his feet. The only rules are no closed fists, no choking and no kicking in the groin.
What attracts me to Asashoryu is not his size, he is smaller and lighter than most of the sumo he fights, it is his style. He is so low to the ground, so stable and so much in control of his mind and his body that he just marches forward pushing every other sumo out of his way. A Caterpillar tractor pushing over a five story building.