Word: sumo
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...them, scattering like snowflakes, and the strangled cries of some costumed chanters. Innocent and esoteric by turn, the first Olympic opening ceremonies to have their very own 15th century landscape poster introduced the world to what might be seen as Japan's latest brand of high-tech traditionalism: a sumo wrestler and a schoolgirl walking hand in hand...
Just four days earlier, all over the island, faithful citizens had scattered roasted soybeans, in the annual Setsubun ceremony, crying, "Devils go out! Happiness come in!" Now a sumo wrestler whose Japanese name is an ancient word for dawn, attended by a sword-bearer and a dew sweeper, ritually purified the ground on a chilly silver morning. In something of the same spirit, International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch reminded the world (not least Baghdad and Washington) that the "Olympic truce" calls for an end to formal warfare during the competition...
...SATURDAY The opening ceremonies will have 2,450 athletes from 72 nations and much tradition. Sumo grand champion Akebono will perform an ancient purification ritual...
...figured the unexported stuff had to be educational, if only from a cultural standpoint. I've lived in Japan and can easily imagine the overly protective Sony-Japan marketers holding back all kinds of cool stuff, wrongly assuming that Americans just wouldn't understand it. Like games about sumo wrestling, which I happen to find charming...
...evening now, everyone's home, Sam's cold is better, the lights are coming on up and down the street. Lori's house is sheathed in olive-green steel siding; there's a Japanese maple squatting like a sumo wrestler out front, and a sweet gum tree, and a big red oak in the back shading the gas grill and the lawn chairs. The house is a home--a sweet, messy testament to the compromises of parenthood; the curtains are lace, the couches paisley, the walls papered in cream with pink roses and wreaths of dried flowers, all soft edges...