Re: [sumo] Re: Aki Basho Day 11

[Jen McGee <jmcgee@asu.aasa.ac.jp>]

> And younger people (in a sweeping generalisation) appear to have just 
> about wiped it from their list of interests in any form.   The day 
> after arriving in Japan recently, during Nagoya basho, I asked the 
> sports-conscious teenage son of one of my friends who was leading the 
> basho and he had no idea. His dad didn't either !! 

Indeed.  I work at a mostly women's college in Nagoya, so my sample is 
perhaps unrepresentative, but I've learned the quickest way to get 
labeled quite a bit odd is to admit to liking sumo (hysterical giggles 
being the most common response).  Part of that is the pervasive belief 
that foreigners are simply unable to "get" certain aspects of Japanese 
society like sumo, but part of it is also that it's seen as (I get the 
impression) an old man's sport.  The kids are all into soccer and 
baseball right now, it seems.

Jen McGee


[EndPost by Jen McGee <jmcgee@asu.aasa.ac.jp>]