[sumo] Ryogoku news (mostly not sumo)

[Doreen Simmons]

Hi all,

It's quiet these days. Are we offline or are we just quiet?

This morning was the Norikomi -- that is, everybody packed up and went 
to the shukusha (temporary quarters, for the next five weeks) around 
Osaka. It's lonesome here.

Today (Sun 24) we had the 24th annual Kokugikan non-sumo event: the 
choir of 5,000 singing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony; actually 5008 this 
year, but who's counting?  Traditionally choirs all over Japan sing it 
in December (some choirs exist for no other purpose, it's one of those 
Japanese things) but here we do it in February because it started, back 
in 1985, as the final event to celebrate the opening of the new 
Kokugikan. (If  you've been counting on your fingers and find that it's 
only 23 years since 1985, that's because the first time we did it was 
Year Zero.)

The changes in the venue are remarkable. The hanging roof is raised  as 
high as it will go, right under the roof, together with the Japanese 
flag at the front and the four 'House full' banners furled. All the 
tamari-seki have been taken up -- actually they are only marked on 
boards which are folded and carried bodily into storage; at the push of 
a button in a hand-set, at the front (shomen)  all the front several 
rows of masu-seki are recessed into the hollow space under the 
remaining, immovable masuseki, closed with a sort of wall, and the 
staircase left out on its lonesome is wheeled back flush with the wall.

The dohyo is lowered into the depth below it, a large square sheet of 
floor to the rear (muko-jomen) moves over to replace it, and another, 
spare sheet, comes up from below to  take its place. (Again, 
push-button, once all the extraneous stuff has been manually moved.) 
Where the front tamari-seki and masu-seki were, there is a flat space 
for VIP seating. Where the dohyo and the tamari-seki behind it were, 
there is now a space for a large orchestra. The choir fits into the 
rear half of the Kokugikan, upstairs and down.

The only thing they can't hide are the giant portraits of yusho 
winners. My chair was between Musashimaru's last and Asahoryu's first. 
They'll be the next to go, next May. Will Shoryu be replacing himself?


Doreen Simmons
  jz8d-smmn at asahi-net.or.jp