Sumo wrestling has been fighting an uphill battle in Japan recently as bad press and scandals have marred the image of the once-proud sport. Recently two Russian sumos got in trouble for both testing positive for marijuana, another Russian sumo, who wrestled under the name Wakanoho received a lifetime ban for being arrested for marijuana possession. Now Wakanoho is trying to exact his revenge on the sport that spurned him by releasing a public statement, against the advice of his attorney, accusing the sport of rigging matches and drug abuse.

“I was forced to accept money and made to fight in unfair matches from the very moment I entered the makuuchi [the top rank of sumo wresting].” Wakanoho proclaimed. As well, he warned that he will later reveal “other evil things that I know.” He also took time to strike out at his former manager saying, “my stable master and others knew about the match-fixing but nobody stepped in because they had also been fighting in rigged matches themselves.”

Wakanoho, whose real name is Soslan Gagloev, insists that when he finally is heard in court he will reveal that many of his former stable-mates were constant pot smokers. It only makes sense, these are giant men who are expected to maintain their girth and what better way than to get blazed and get the munchies. Besides, their whole sport is based on just pushing one another, no reason why pot would take away from that.

The upcoming trial, a libel suit between the magazine The Weekly Gendai on one side and the Japan Sumo Association on the other should become much more interesting with Wakanoho’s testimony for Gendai. Regardless, the national sport of Japan is being rocked by these scandals and the fans are starting to get disgusted. Can you imagine if our national sport had a drug problem? I mean, it’d be disastrous. Oh wait…

Some recent news items that have occurred around the world:

• As I mentioned in this post, the 相撲 (Sumo) wrestler 若ノ鵬 (Wakanohou) was banned for life from wrestling 相撲 (Sumo) because he was caught with marijuana.Well, he has just recently claimed that the 相撲 (Sumo) Association in Japan bribes wrestlers to lose matches.

  He said that if he is reinstated, he will help to clean up 相撲 (Sumo). I can’t help but wonder, if he knew about rigged matches, why didn’t he clean up 相撲 (Sumo) before he was caught with drugs!

• A forty-year old woman in 神奈川県横須賀市 (Yokosuka, Japan) was arrested for strangling her 11-year old son to death.
• A railroad signal in Japan malfunctioned on Sunday, 28 September 2008 forcing the Japan Railway Company (JR) to halt 新幹線 (Bullet train) services for about four hours, affecting thousands of passengers.
• The country of Austria has changed their age of suffrage (voting) to 16 years old. So now, any Austrian who is at least sixteen can vote in national elections.
• The legendary actor Paul Newman died on Friday, 26 September 2008 of cancer. He was 83 years old. He had acted in Hollywood for over sixty years (my personal favorite of his numerous movies is “Cool Hand Luke“).
• A woman in America found a bat in her coffee filter after she had drunk a cup of coffee. The health department couldn’t test the animal because it had been cooked by the hot water in the coffe machine…so the woman had to undergo rabies treatment.
• Four boys in Texas, America whose ages ranged from 11 to 15 often broke into the home of one their 63-year old neighbors to steal his junkfood.
  The homeowner finally caught them in the act recently and confronted them with a shotgun.
  The children were unarmed and never threatened or hurt the man, nor did they take anything except candies and cookies.
  But still, the man pointed his gun at them and ordered them to their knees. They began to beg for their lives. He hit them with the gun and kicked them…then he shot one of the boys, who was 13, in the back and killed him!

  The most shocking part of this story, to me, is that the man was acquitted in court of any wrong-doing!

Do you know 宮崎駿 (Hayao Miyazaki)?

The Japanese master animation artist who made classic アニメ (anime (cartoons)) such as 「となりのトトロ」 (My Neighbor Totoro), 「もののけ姫」 (Princess Mononoke), 「千と千尋の神隠し」 (Spirited Away), 「ハウルの動く城」 (Howl’s Moving Castle) and many others.

I’m not a anime fan…but his movies are excellent!

He just brought his new movie, 「崖の上のポニョ」 (Ponyo On The Cliff), to the Venice International Film Festival.

After the movie’s screening, he received a standing ovation and he was mobbed by international fans.
Movie critics are giving the movie four or five stars.

As I said, I’m not an anime fan. So I won’t be going to a 映画館 (movie theater) to watch this…but when it’s shown on cable TV, I’ll watch it.

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I mentioned in this post that the Russian sumo wrestler, Wakanohou, was arrested for drug possession (which isn’t taken lightly in Japan).

Because of that, all of the other sumo wrestlers had to summit to drug testing…and two more Russian Sumo wrestlers failed the test.

The brothers, Roho and Hakurozan, submitted the tests that tested positive for marijuana…just like their Russian counterpart Wakanohou. They face the possibility of deportation…as well as a life ban from Sumo.

The 2008 Summer Olympics in 北京 (Beijing) have ended.
Did you watch the closing ceremony?

The top ten countries for medals:

1. 中華人民共和国 (China) – 51 gold (100 total)
2. アメリカ合衆国 (USA) – 36 gold (110 total)
3. ロシア連邦 (Russia) – 23 gold (72 total)
4. グレート・ブリテンおよび北アイルランド連合王国 (Great Britain) – 19 gold (47 total)
5. ドイツ連邦共和国 (Germany) – 16 gold (41 total)
6. オーストラリア (Australia) – 14 gold (46 total)
7. 大韓民国 (South Korea) – 13 gold (31 total)
8. 日本国 (Japan) – 9 gold (25 total)
9. イタリア共和国 (Italy) – 8 gold (28 total)
10. フランス共和国 (France) – 7 gold (40 total)

Speaking of sports, a Russian 相撲 (Sumo) wrestler in Japan named 若ノ鵬 (Wakanohou) was recently arrested for possession of marijuana and dismissed from the Sumo Federation.

Japan has very strict drug laws. If he is convicted, he could face up to five years in prison and / or deportation.

What a stupid mistake.

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Last Saturday (2008/8/23), lightning struck the 醍醐寺 (Daigoji Temple) in 京都 (Kyoto, Japan), which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, causing a fire which destroyed part of the centuries old cultural asset.

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Also on Saturday we took our oldest daughter to an exhibition of Tokyo high schools and colleges to help us decide which one should attend next school year which begins in April in Japan.
She’ll be starting high school (10th grade).

Here’s a picture I took of the event. It was pretty crowded:

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From there, we went to the 米国空軍有効祭 (U.S. Air Force Friendship Festival) at the U.S. Air Force base in western Tokyo.

This is the only time that the U.S. military bases are open to the public. Actually, going on the U.S. bases is almost like going to America. The food, clothes, and the way everyone speaks loudly (and in English) are all very American. It’s kinda a culture shock for me (and of course, my family)…I guess I’m not used to America anymore.

It was a little bit rainy the day of this year’s festival, so it wasn’t so fun (but it wasn’t hot, so that was nice). We went to this festival three years ago…it was nice sunny weather on that day (although quite hot).

I couldn’t get any nice pictures from this weekend’s festival at the U.S. Air Force base because of the weather…but here are a couple pictures from the event when we went in 2005. They had a sky-diving show and let the public look inside the aircraft:

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And yesterday (Sunday), I volunteered to help set up and run a booth at a local summer festival near our house.

It was still raining (and it’s still raining today ) but a fairly large number of people still turned up. I helped run the drinks and かき氷 (flavored shaved ice) booth.

The weather was pretty cool, so not many people wanted shaved ice…but we sold alot of drinks. Especially beer!

It was a 盆踊り (Bon dancing) festival…but I was surprised that so many people still did the dancing despite the weather.

I was busy helping out so I didn’t bring my camera. But I took a picture with the cell-phone. It didn’t turn out so good because it was rainy and evening.

It was fun.

]]> http://withmalice.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/dope-smokin-sumo-booted/ Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:01:41 +0000 withmalice http://withmalice.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/dope-smokin-sumo-booted/

In recent years, Sumo’s become quite the multi-cultural sport with many foreign-born rikishi coming to Japan with hopes of making a name for themselves in this most traditional of sports.  Success stories such as the two Mongolian Yokozuna Asashoryu and Hakuho encourage others with dreams of having their names go down in the history books.

20-year-old Russian wrestler, Wakanoho did just that – tho’ no doubt not in a way that he’d wished.  Wakanoho, born Gagloev Soslan Aleksandrovich, has his name go down in the annals of Sumo as the first ever active wrestler to be fired.

Wakanoho, a top-level Makuuchi rikishi (wrestler) who had attained the rank of maegashira, was arrested earlier this week for possession of 0.3 grams of marijuana in a cigarette.  In an interview with police, Wakanoho admitted to being a user, and smoking paraphenalia was found at both his apartment and at the Magaki stable where he trains.

This may seem to many foreigners as an amazing exaggeration of what’s a decriminalized drug in most western nations, but in Japan, there’s no delineation between ‘hard’ and ’soft’ drugs.

His lack of control was something that has plagued him since he joined the Sumo ranks in Japan, often showing a serious lack of judgment.

Sumo Assoc. director Isenoumi stated,

“Wrestlers need to be educated about returning to the origins of sumo – beginning and ending with respect.”

Stablemaster Magaki has offered to resign to take responsibility for Wakanoho’s lack of respect for the ancient sport.