In a park tucked among the factories and warehouses of a waterfront industrial district, 32 contestants confident in their strength had gathered.
The call of encouragement came in the island tongue.
“Minasan, chibariyo!”—Give it everything you’ve got, everyone.
“Chibariyo” is the Okinawan counterpart of “ganbare” in standard Japanese: an exhortation to stand firm, persevere and give one’s all.
On a makeshift ring marked out on a bed of sand, the wrestlers grappled and traded throws as spectators crowded close around them, erupting in cheers.
This was a tournament of Okinawan sumo, a traditional form of wrestling from the Ryukyu Islands, held on July 5 in Yokohama’s Tsurumi Ward.
It shares a name with mainland Japanese sumo, but little of its appearance or rhythm. Rather than a mawashi belt alone, Okinawan wrestlers wear jackets resembling judo uniforms, secured with broad belts.
Nor do they begin apart and launch themselves at each other in an explosive charge. From the outset, they stand locked together, each gripping the other’s belt, traditionally in a fixed right-handed hold known as “migi-yotsu.”
The referee begins the bout only after the grip has been established.
The open-handed slaps and repeated thrusts familiar from Japanese sumo—“harite” and “tsuppari”—have no place here.
A hand or knee touching the ground does not necessarily end the contest. The object is to throw or turn the opponent onto his back, bringing both shoulders to the ground.
The Tsurumi tournament traces its history to the prewar years. This year marked its 80th edition, and the program included a children’s division as well.
“Tsurumi is the only place outside Okinawa Prefecture where a tournament has continued for this long,” an official of the local Okinawan prefectural association told me, with unmistakable pride.
There is a word for communities such as this: diaspora. It describes people who leave their native land and build new communities far from home, carrying with them memories, customs and a shared sense of belonging.
The Uchinanchu—Okinawans and their descendants scattered across mainland Japan and overseas—may fairly be counted among them.
Beginning around the 1920s, large numbers of Okinawans came to Tsurumi in search of work. Drawing together in an unfamiliar area, they endured wartime devastation and prejudice.
From the 1990s onward, they were joined by descendants of Okinawans who had earlier emigrated to South America.
Over time, a cluster of streets lined with Okinawan restaurants and shops came to be known as “Okinawa Town.” Its presence is now so firmly established that the ward office publishes a tourist map devoted to the area.
The ring, however, is not reserved for local Okinawans.
Wrestlers are invited from Kumejima, one of the sport’s strongholds in Okinawa Prefecture, and from elsewhere. Judo black belts from the Kanagawa prefectural police step forward to compete. Foreign residents enter as well.
And in the sight of people of different origins standing chest to chest, each holding fast to the other’s belt, one glimpses something larger than a contest of strength: the openness, endurance and quiet resilience of a community that has spent a century putting down roots far from home.
—The Asahi Shimbun, July 10
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.