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Re: tickets tomorrow (and non-sumo kimono)

At 0:16 +0000 3/12/99, Da Kine Sumo E-zine & Web site from Kawika wrote:
> I would like to hear opinions on how crowded ticket sales will be tomorrow
> at Kokugikan?
>
> Doreen, did you walk by today and see people waiting already?  Do you think
> it will be one of those overnite affairs?

Was too busy tonight, but last September I asked the guards at the gate and
they said there had only been about thirty staying overnight. So all that
information about numbered tickets that was relayed earlier was just wishful
thinking.

> So I am wondering if it is really worth it or not?  I am planning on going,
> but more like early afternoon, when the line should have died down.

Me too. I've been doing this for the past year or two.

> Plus another question, this time regarding January Basho.  It seems to me
> that lots of women wear kimono on the first day of the first basho of the
> year.  Now I have seen bank workers do the same the first day they open for
> business.  It was explained to me that mostly single girls do this, maybe to
> singal to the male sex like, "yeah, I am single, look at me!"  Is it the
> same reasoning for wearing one to day one of the year's honbasho?  Or it is
> a New Year's traditional of sorts?

It's just a New Year's tradition. Women, especially young women, wear them
on the first day back at work. The reason for young women to be noticeable
is that when they're 20 they usually get Dad to spring for a very fancy
nagasode (long-sleeved) kimono, and after wearing it for their coming-of-age
celebration they're dying to get another chance to wear it. But for sumo,
the traditionalists tend to be older women -- except, of course, when a
20-year-old has a good seat AND a fancy kimono. There was even one day, many
years ago, when I arrived mid-afternoon myself in an elegant kimono - I
didn't have time to change after a hatsu-gama - first Tea Ceremony of the
New Year.




Doreen in sumoland

♪I'm not old -- just classic♪