■Nathan Shiga: May 5

You know Sumo – Japan’s traditional ritual wrestling that offers six regular tournaments throughout the year. Here’s a cute parody of Sumo in the style a baby festival popularly known as “Baby-Crying
Sumo” held annually at Gokokuji Shrine in Hiroshima right on the Boys’ Day on May 5.

May 5th is traditionally observed as the Boys’ Day with a variety of festivities wishing boys good luck – carp streaming, doll festivals, etc.

Baby-Crying Sumo invites babies of ages six months to 1.5-year to participate in Sumo tournament in pairs with Gyoji to referee the contests. Babies are called onto the rink, a tatami mat, and sit on zabuton or seat cushion. As in the real Sumo Gyoji will scream “nokotta nokotta” by way of spurring the baby wrestlers. Whichever breaks into crying first wins the contest.

Some babies start crying at the initial scream of nokotta while others keep staring at Gyoji and refuse to cry. The mother of a 1-year-old baby boy thought her baby would be “hard to cry” but he luckily cried out loud in response to Gyoji’s first note of scream to win his contest.

The ritual lasted till 17:00 or thereabouts and a total of 900 babies took part in the crying contests.

—Sponsered Link—