Episode 81: Sumo and Gender

Living Japan

The hosts discuss a recent controversy in Kyoto where women were ordered off a sumo ring during a medical emergency involving a collapsing m

Key takeaways

• Nurses attempting CPR on a collapsed mayor were told to leave the dohyo due to ritual purity rules.
• Sumo has faced significant scandals involving match-fixing, bribery, and connections to the Yakuza.

Main topics

• Sumo controversy in Kyoto
• Gender equality in Japan

Notable quotes

Once you're staring in the face where you have that choice of a tradition or a life.

Conclusion

The episode emphasizes that for culture to remain vibrant and respecte

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:33) First episode we've recorded in a while. I think you'll probably get another episode a little bit before this. But it feels like we've had a huge hiatus. We're very sorry, but, you know. We're very Speaker 1 (0:43) sorry, but, you know, life happens. Yeah. Life finds a way. Speaker 3 (0:49) And it brought us back. So, I mean, for those of y'all who don't know, basically the end of year, fiscal year in Japan, is very strongly March. And that kind of means, I know, for me... um and i think y'all as well everything just kind of exploded yeah march is Speaker 1 (1:05) the the amount in which you have to do a lot of stuff from Speaker 4 (1:08) paying Speaker 1 (1:10) taxes to you know starting new jobs but no Speaker 2 (1:14) excuse really sorry yeah yeah so we're Speaker 3 (1:17) we're here and i'm still gonna we're still trying for 25 episodes which means this is the third one we've recorded and released 2022 left in about, you know, nine months. So Speaker 1 (1:31) we'll Speaker 3 (1:31) have to throw in some bonus episodes. We'll Speaker 1 (1:34) do a marathon of like 20 episodes in a row. The last ones are only going to be like five minutes. Hey, how you doing? Things Speaker 2 (1:41) are happening in Japan. Things are happening. There's so much to catch. Speaker 3 (1:46) But yeah, who we are, we are Living Japan. We are your best place when we actually produce content for information on modern Japanese culture, living in Japan, and issues. Japan. We're your hosts. I'm Brent. Speaker 2 (2:00) I'm Atoy. And Speaker 1 (2:01) I am Edgar. Speaker 3 (2:02) And you know, we try to take a look at the news and talk about it. One thing, let's just get out of the way here as well. Some of y'all might notice our sound Speaker 4 (2:11) quality is a little Speaker 3 (2:13) different today. Speaker 1 (2:14) It's because we are on the mobile studio again. Yes. Unfortunately, because of our... schedules of March we haven't actually been able to book the actual studio where we normally recorded. They are remodeling the Living Japan studios and we have to use the mobile device. We're Speaker 3 (2:39) basically squatting. right now i i tried to think of like could i make it a joke of like oh we have to use our ninja skills to break in but Speaker 4 (2:48) you know it's a little too Speaker 3 (2:50) orientalistic is that is that the phrase we don't want we don't want too much Speaker 1 (2:55) too much japanese in the living japan being too Speaker 2 (3:00) japanese you know as women is a pain in the ass Speaker 1 (3:12) That's that's an issue. That's an issue. So what happened? Speaker 2 (3:16) Anybody? Speaker 1 (3:17) Okay, so um on Speaker 3 (3:20) you know I first first saw this when one of one of our friends another another Japanese woman, you know on Facebook was like I can't believe And you could just like feel the anger coming. Yeah, you know what Speaker 1 (3:36) that F-words were, F-bombs were dropped everywhere. Oh, my goodness. And we have Speaker 3 (3:40) to remind ourselves this is a clean podcast. We're family friendly. We've got to roll those in. But, so, and the first time I heard of this, like, it was just, they didn't have, they hadn't released the videos yet. So, it was just the text. We're like, wow, Speaker 4 (3:54) that sounds pretty bad, man. Speaker 1 (3:55) Because what happened is, in Sumo. In Sumo on Wednesday 4th. April 4th, if I'm not wrong. Speaker 2 (4:05) There Speaker 1 (4:05) was an incident in a local sumo tournament in Kyoto. Speaker 2 (4:11) And Speaker 1 (4:11) well, just summarizing, it was the... The Speaker 2 (4:15) mayor, the mayor collapsed because of the brain stroke. Yeah, I think it was brain stroke. And anyway, he collapsed. And immediately, like three seconds later or so, two women... came up on the ring, the stage, not the stage, the ring? The Speaker 3 (4:35) sumo ring? The daisho? Dohyo. Speaker 2 (4:39) Yes, it's called dohyo. The platform where they fight. And, you know, start doing CPR. And without AED, while guys were running to get AED, these two women were doing CPR to this mayor. And then later on, after another 10 seconds or 15 seconds or so, another two ladies came up on the stage. And four of them, they were all nurses. Unfortunately, like this is such a fortunate thing that, you know, four nurses are in the place. Speaker 2 (5:26) immediately they had this announcement saying women are supposed to get off from this platform or the ring or from the hyo And people around were saying, what? What's going on? Who is this guy? What kind of crazy thing? This guy is about to die. And yes, this was such a big issue. And apparently, apparently, none of the women are allowed to be on this ring. has been a ritual thing or a traditional thing or maybe a cultural thing in Japan, apparently. But, you know, this guy was about to die. And can you take a responsibility? Speaker 3 (6:15) I mean, and watching the video, it's amazing. Like, I really think you should Google it, you should YouTube it, you should look on it. until actually seeing it like i mean it sounds it sounds bad um but but watching the video because you see um the the mayor is the the version i saw that the mayor's in the center of the ring and he just drops just drops um and then you've got the crowd of of people um standing in the ring and they're kind of looking, but they... Guys, right? It's the guys, and you can just tell they... They have no Speaker 1 (6:55) clue what to do or what's happening. Speaker 3 (6:57) And then from the crowd, you have, especially the first woman, just running, charging on the ring, and basically gets in there, and you can tell from the... This isn't like an HD close-up super video. It looks like someone's camera video from it. But you can tell from right there, she is hardcore doing the necessary chest compressions. Speaker 1 (7:25) It looks like she knows, even if you didn't know. Now, after the news has come out, we know that she was a nurse, and we know that she has training. But even if she, in that moment, when you didn't know this, you can notice that she knows what she's doing. Speaker 2 (7:40) Yeah, like Speaker 1 (7:41) we were talking before we started recording, like, you know, when I was a kid, I was a Boy Scout. I used to be certified by this thing, CPR. Even if I remember my training, which I don't, but even if I had, I wouldn't dare to do something in those situations because I'm not a doctor. I don't have medical training. I don't know. like what to do i don't know if you want to do is going to actually save the person or or not on another issue and this is it's going to be kind of personal my mom passed away from a brain stroke Those what the what that lady did Save that major's life. Yeah, period and I can tell you that from my personal experience If you don't help someone when they're having a brain stroke on the first minutes the first second they are having the attack when they are when they are starting the bleeding It's they're done. Yeah, you need to be there So if the mayor is still alive is because of this lady that ran that was a nurse and they knew what to do and not To the other guys that were there that didn't have any clue to do and not to the guy who was asking women To get get get get up to drink. Speaker 4 (9:06) Yeah Speaker 3 (9:09) It's really... So when we look at Sumo, I know they have the rules of ritual purity. And let's, you know, let's... I don't want to say even give Sumo the benefit of the doubt, but I think anyone who's really looked into Sumo or even kind of is aware of it probably knows these rules about women not being allowed on the platform, about the idea of purity. I think everyone... Yeah. Speaker 2 (9:46) Oh, I didn't. Oh, Speaker 3 (9:47) you didn't know? I Speaker 2 (9:48) didn't. Speaker 3 (9:48) No, I mean, that's... I mean, that's... Sorry. I mean, I Speaker 2 (9:52) know, I know, because recently, I didn't know because recently it's getting popular about women sumo. Yeah. We have this tournament called women sumo, right? So I assumed that this kind of tradition was already, you know, hot. I mean, because we have this thing about women sumo, you can be in the ring. But the thing was... But the thing was about this particular kokuhikan. I think it was... Anyway, but this was in Kyoto. Speaker 3 (10:25) Well, yeah, but even I think with most of the women's sumo, I think one of the... Speaker 3 (10:32) One of the things I've often heard, and okay, so a little background on me. Basically, my master's thesis when we all met had to deal with kind of women in sport in Japan. So at one point, I had a much better, clearer idea of this, but then this was like three or four years ago and before a child was born. And once you have a child, like all of... the information in your head, it just goes away. But, because I remember reading stuff about the women's sumo and kind of gaining popularity, and one of the issues with it was that in local areas, they're able to kind of have matches and stuff like that because they're not considered sacred. It's more like, you know, training stuff. But in the bigger areas, when they get to the taikai, they've been wanting to use... gyms and things and a lot of places won't let them use the more traditional ones because well they're women and even though they're doing the wrestling but so so anyway anyway but these rules have have existed there so it does kind of you know I don't I think one of the surprising points is Speaker 3 (11:46) When you have an announcer basically taking the rules over someone's life. That's I really think what's making people stand up and pay attention because you have rules and tradition which every country, you could argue especially Japan, maybe, maybe not, but you could make that argument. But every country loves their traditions and likes to hold on to them. But once you're staring in the face where you have that choice of a tradition or a life. Speaker 1 (12:21) But that's the issue, like tradition, tradition, a life, gender equality, and, you know, all those kind of things. Speaker 1 (12:34) Dude, like you can you can try to you know, hold to your cultural traditions But that doesn't mean that those cultural traditions should not evolve with the society as it's evolving, you know, if we were gonna you know hold to this these traditions then you know Speaker 1 (12:54) way, way beforehand, like, you know, women and children weren't considered citizens in many countries. And that's like, and on those times people were saying, oh, you know, because the political tradition of this country is this, you know, there's all these kinds of things. So you can always use tradition to try to have those, those discrimination and bigotry to, to, to justify discrimination and bigotry. But the reality is that traditions should evolve as the society evolves. Speaker 1 (13:26) We cannot keep accepting this type of behavior and discrimination just for the sake of traditions. That doesn't make any sense to me. Speaker 2 (13:41) I think this tradition part... I've kind of touched this thing that I was watching the other day. We had this TV show. And there were three types of people within it, right? Talking and arguing about this topic. A guy was from, was the past sumo wrestler. Another guy was kabuki, a wife of kabuki actor. And another guy was a lawyer. So they had like totally different perspective about this incident. Sumo guy was saying, okay, like you said, this was a tradition. This was a tradition and doesn't have to change even though the... society has been changing about this what um equality gender equality and so forth and the lawyer was okay but you guys are npo people you know you're not you're you have to follow the law in japan and according to our law in japan gender discrimination is against the law so what you guys been doing and following this rule thing the rule is incorrect And the lawyer was very straightforward. And this wife of Kabuki Akshay was saying, okay, society's changing. I'm a wife, I'm a woman, I'm a Kabuki actor, and I know that there's a gender inequality thing going on about this stage. Because even though they have this history in the past, actors used to be female in Kabuki, but nowadays they have this belief that actors have to be... guy and and okami-san or the wife wife they already they respect about this tradition even though society has been changing but at the same time the guys are not thinking women as in sacred or something guys are respecting women as well and guys are and that therefore their staff are um or most of the staffs are women for example, like makeup, stylist, and the whole stage is supported by women, and they all know, they all know and support each other. And that's why in Kabuki, she thinks that this kind of thing won't happen in Kabuki, because they respect each other. So maybe it's tradition for a sumo wrestler that you want to keep with the guy thing, but... most of the audiences look around, it's female. Who's supporting you financially? It's women. And so if you have this kind of incident going on, you lose whole respect from women who's been supporting you for 100 years, right? And she was totally straightforward. And I really liked this whole show. And the fun thing, the last thing, the fun thing about it was, The story goes like, I'm very sorry for the