Japanese babies enter the sumo ring
Tamana District in Kumamoto prefecture held a sumo event for babies over the weekend:
The event takes place every year when Futeno Izumi, a professional sumo wrestler from the region, returns home. Unlike the naki zumo events mentioned before on this blog, the object of the event was not to make the babies cry. Futeno merely held each baby as he did some ritual movements within the sumo ring. Some cried, some didn’t.
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Categories: General Japan
Crying Sumo Babies – 2008
Another year, another nakizumo competition:
An annual “crying sumo” contest for babies, in which pairs of infants are brought together to see who can cry the first or the loudest, was held at Tokyo’s Sensoji Temple on Sunday.
In crying sumo the babies are held up by amateur sumo wrestlers in a ring, and the baby who cries first is the winner. If both babies cry, then the one that cries loudest wins. A total of 84 babies born last year participated in the contest at the temple.
If you haven’t seen it already, check out our April 2007 post of pictures from last year’s “crying sumo baby” competition and our June 2007 post about a similar competition in Shizuoka Prefecture!
Harmless fun, or traumatic experience?
Categories: Odd / Strange