RE: [sumo] Asashouryuu AWOL

[Doreen Simmons <jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp>]

At 5:46 -0400 05.6.25, Barbara Ann wrote:
> Sounds like a lot more than "skimming" with all the detail, thank you very
> much.

Thank you. The hard-boiled eggs were well-received too, though I still 
haven't got the knack of cutting them zigsaw so the yolks come out fluted 
too. :-}

> As one who probably has the "close-up" point of view, I'll say first that
> who knows if Asashoryu really didn't tell Takasago Oyakata. Takasago hasn't
> ever been very supportive of the yokozuna when it suited him (or the
> Kyokai).


I agree absolutely, and have commented, I think in a paid article (though I 
don't have time to hunt it up) that the oyakata  very noticeably seems to 
pay no attention at all to what is happening right under his eyes, at a 
time when a little intervention could have averted a raft of trouble.

> Moreover, Asashoryu will not put
> himself in a position where he would be exposed to physical risk.


These days anybody who gets on a plane to anywhere is at some degree of 
physical risk.

> If a star or other purportedly important person goes to
> Nepal, or South America - or Mongolia, who is to judge what is out of reach?
> There are telephones in and flights to and from most places.


Well again, I have spent quality time in Mongolia, twice, and am currently 
planning another working visit, and I imagine it's much like your own 
impressive hands-on financial experience of --where was it? Bhutan? Nepal? 
Whenever I got into a town, from a Habitat building site, I did indeed keep 
in touch with Internet connections -- but at times the computer was so old 
that the keys were illegible. I've never been a touch-typist so everything 
was a little dicey. (But connection times, even though they took several 
times as long, were incredibly cheap when expressed in yen or dollars.)

Of  course inside Mongolia they now have cell-phones, and undoubtedly the 
yokozuna, as (presumably) the richest man in the country, would have the 
best. I was amused by the comment of a first-time visitor at how "backward" 
they are, to have only just got cell-phones -- the guy didn't notice that 
before cell-phones could be introduced to Mongolia they had to get a 
satellite system in place _and_ make it cheap enough for it to be used in a 
country where the internal money is one-tenth of what our money outside is 
worth.

> Ah, the lower ranks - yes, they do travel, as I think I mentioned in my
> initial email on this subject.


Sorry, I must have missed that. The only reference I saw was that it was 
VERY rare.

> As for having drivers - that may be the case for so-called "important"
> people in Japan, a practice with which I have no argument, but many
> politicians, diplomats, movie stars and others outside of Japan drive either
> occasionally or regularly.

The Kyokai specifically forbids at least ozeki and yokozuna (and if memory 
serves me, at least some lower sekitori too) from driving themselves. We 
are talking about sumo here, not Japan in general.

Doreen @ still trying to finish organizing the customary Nagoya trip (28 
years and counting). I've had the hotel from way back; train booking next 
Monday; but today I tried and failed to book my final two days of tickets 
through Lawsons. I thought it could be done through their instore computer 
-- but was told that I could only  use it to phone through. How come? I can 
pick up a phone anywhere, don't need to go to a not-so-well-placed conbini 
to do it. Does anyone inside Japan have any better info?

Doreen Simmons
<jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp>
[EndPost by Doreen Simmons <jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp>]