In 2024, to celebrate the 60th anniversary since the completion of Ogata Village, the people of the City Hall arranged a sumo wrestling event and training camp for the villagers and surrounding people to enjoy. The event was a huge success with more than 1400 people attending the event, and it was decided to hold a similar event the following year.
This coincided with the time I was lucky enough to get my job as a CIR (Coordinator for International Relations) here at Ogata Village, and I will in this column explain a bit about my experience in regards to the event.
2024年、大潟村の完成60周年を記念して、市役所の方々が村民や周辺地域の人々が楽しめるように、相撲のイベントと合宿を企画しました。イベントには1400人以上が参加し、大成功を収めたため、翌年も同様のイベントを開催することが決定されました。
このイベントは、私が幸運にも大潟村で国際交流員（CIR）として採用された時期と重なっており、このコラムではその体験について少しご紹介したいと思います。
August 13th
The event itself started with the sumo wrestlers coming to the village on Wednesday, August 13th after which they were shown to the place they would be staying for the majority of their stay – the dining hall.
After the introductions were over we started the dinner – this was an amazing experience and I got to learn a few sumo traditions I didn’t know about prior the joining the event. For one, the newest people in the team have to do all of the “grunt work”. That is, they have to serve all the other people joining in on the dinner – it was a strange but interesting experience to be sat and served.
イベントは、8月13日（水）に力士たちが村に到着するところから始まりました。彼らは滞在中の宿泊場所である食堂へ案内されました。
自己紹介の後、夕食が始まりました。これは非常に貴重な体験で、これまで知らなかった相撲の伝統をいくつか学ぶことができました。例えば、チームの中で一番新しい人がすべての「雑用」を担当するという習慣があり、夕食の間は他の人に料理を配膳する役割を担っていました。座って料理を運ばれるのは不思議な感覚でしたが、興味深い体験でした。
The highlight of the dinner for me was the famous Chanko Nabe that sumo wrestlers are famous for eating every day. This was extremely delicious and I can understand how and why people would want to eat that every day. During the dinner they told me that in order to not get tired of eating the same food day in and day out, they would change the base of the soup to make it more exciting to eat.
夕食のハイライトは、力士たちが毎日食べることで有名な「ちゃんこ鍋」でした。とても美味しく、毎日食べたくなる理由がよく分かりました。彼らによると、毎日同じ味に飽きないように、スープのベースを変えて工夫しているそうです。
When I asked how many calories they had to eat everyday to upkeep their physique, they responded that they aimed to about 8000 calories a day but that they ideally would eat 10000 if possible.
また、彼らの体格を維持するために必要なカロリーについて尋ねたところ、1日約8000キロカロリーを目標にしており、理想的には10000キロカロリーを摂取したいとのことでした。
August 14th
The training began at 9 the next morning, which meant that we had to start early to get everything ready for the wrestlers and the incoming guests. As we had prepared the day before, this didn’t take long and soon after both the guests and the sumo wrestlers (as well as several different TV crews) started pouring in.
The training itself started with a lot of warming up for the sumo wrestlers – this process took about 45 minutes to an hour, after which the training matches began. This was the main attraction and you could really feel the energy as the attending people started cheering.
The training stopped with the wrestlers doing some stretches to cool off after which it was lunch time.
8月14日（木）
翌朝9時からトレーニングが始まるため、力士や来場者の準備のために早朝から動き始めました。前日に準備していたこともあり、スムーズに進行し、すぐに来場者や力士、そして複数のテレビクルーが到着しました。
トレーニングは、約45分から1時間のウォームアップから始まり、その後に取組が行われました。これがメインの見どころで、観客の応援の熱気が会場に広がっていました。
トレーニングの最後にはストレッチでクールダウンを行い、昼食の時間となりました。
From 3 pm two of the sumo wrestlers did a small training event for young children to try and experience sumo wrestling. This training consisted more or less the same as the “real” training held earlier, and the children got to do everything from the warm up, to matches, to the cooling down exercises – just in a more kid friendly way.
午後3時からは、2人の力士による子ども向けの相撲体験イベントが行われました。内容は本格的なトレーニングとほぼ同じで、ウォームアップから取組、クールダウンまで、子ども向けにアレンジされた形で実施されました。
In the evening, I was again lucky enough to be invited to dine with the sumo wrestlers and this time we had many different side dishes in addition to the Chanko Nabe. The highlight of the dinner this time for me was the takikomi gohan – this was extremely delicious and I had myself three servings.
This time the dinner lasted for quite a while and towards the end, I was sitting with a few of the sumo wrestlers chatting about what they liked to do in their (very limited) free time. Some of them liked to sneak out to watch movies in the movie theater, some of them were whiskey enjoyers, and the Boss of the group told me that whenever people asked him about his hobbies the only thing that came to mind was sumo wrestling – I guess that is why he is the Boss.
夜には再び力士たちとの夕食に招待され、今回はちゃんこ鍋に加えて様々な副菜が並びました。特に「炊き込みご飯」が絶品で、私は3杯もおかわりしてしまいました。
夕食の終盤には、数人の力士と自由時間の過ごし方について話す機会がありました。映画館にこっそり行く人、ウイスキー好きな人、そしてグループの「ボス」は、趣味を聞かれると「相撲しか思い浮かばない」と話していました。さすがボスですね。
August 15th
The next day began much like the day before with the people tasked with setting up the event starting at 7:30 to prepare for the arriving guests and the sumo wrestlers. The event itself ran smooth as the previous day, but this time there were a huge influx of audience members coming to see the event. I asked some of the audience members, and most said that they had seen the event on TV the day before and had decided to join in on the fun. While the training itself was pretty much an exact copy of the previous day there were a special event after the training.
The main event this day was a “baby lifting event”. As the name suggests, the sumo wrestlers would receive babies from their parents and lift them up in inside of the ring. While the event was, on paper, quite solemn, in practice it was rather amusing to watch as the babies one after another started to cry out the second, they landed in the sumo wrestlers’ hands.
8月15日（金）
この日も前日と同様に、朝7時半から準備が始まりました。イベントは順調に進行しましたが、今回は前日よりも多くの観客が訪れました。観客の多くは、前日のテレビ放送を見て興味を持ち、来場したとのことでした。
トレーニング内容は前日とほぼ同じでしたが、終了後に特別イベントが行われました。
この日のメインイベントは「赤ちゃん土俵入り」でした。力士が保護者から赤ちゃんを受け取り、土俵の中で抱き上げるという内容です。書面上では厳かな印象ですが、実際には赤ちゃんたちが次々と泣き出す様子がとても微笑ましく、会場は笑いに包まれました。
August 16th
This was the last day of the event, and it started up in the morning just as the previous days – the staff arrived at 7:30 to prepare, the sumo wrestlers and audience gathered, and the training began. One noteworthy event that happened was that a few of the children that joined the sumo class on the 14th, was allowed to go on stage and perform with the sumo wrestlers as a sort of finale. This gave the whole event a cheerful ending as the audience got to have a small laugh at the antics of the children.
8月16日（土）
イベント最終日もこれまでと同様に朝から準備が始まり、力士と観客が集まり、トレーニングが行われました。
この日特筆すべき出来事は、14日に相撲体験に参加した子どもたちのうち数名が、力士と一緒にステージでパフォーマンスを披露したことです。観客も子どもたちの可愛らしい動きに笑顔を見せ、イベントは和やかに締めくくられました。
I as well and the ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) Matthew, who started at the same time as me was invited to a reception held that evening to celebrate the ending of the event and training camp. This happened to coincide with the Ogata Village Obon festival which some of the sumo wrestlers managed to find some time before the reception to participate in. Just before the start of the festival, a few of the sumo wrestlers sat on a bench which gave people opportunities to take photos with them, which I also was lucky enough to get to do myself.
We also just managed to squeeze time in to participate in the Obon dance before heading to the reception.
その夜、私と同時期に着任したALT（外国語指導助手）のマシューと共に、イベントと合宿の終了を祝うレセプションに招待されました。
この日はちょうど大潟村の盆祭りとも重なっており、力士の何人かはレセプション前に祭りに参加する時間を見つけていました。祭りの開始前には、力士がベンチに座って写真撮影に応じており、私も幸運にも一緒に写真を撮ることができました。
盆踊りにも少しだけ参加し、その後レセプション会場へ向かいました。
The reception itself was held at the Ogata Sun Rural reception hall – a beautiful hall which was set up with round tables spaced out in the room. Each table had one sumo wrestler sitting at it, and people took turns pouring alcohol to each other. The dinner itself was fine dining, with lots of different courses – unfortunately, I didn’t manage to sneak photos of the food, but it was quite the course. During the dinner, the sumo wrestlers then took turns singing karaoke in front of the audience.
レセプション
レセプションは「ホテルサンルーラル大潟」のホールで開催され、美しい円卓が広々とした会場に配置されていました。各テーブルには力士が1人ずつ座り、参加者同士でお酒を注ぎ合う場面も見られました。
夕食はコース料理のような豪華な内容で、写真は撮れませんでしたが、非常に充実した食事でした。
食事の途中には、力士たちが順番にカラオケを披露し、観客を楽しませてくれました。
After we had the final dish people started to mingle for a bit after which the reception came to a close. When we got out of the hotel, we just managed to catch the ending of the Obon festival which concluded with some beautiful fireworks.
最後の料理が終わると、参加者はしばらく歓談し、レセプションは幕を閉じました。ホテルを出ると、ちょうど盆祭りのフィナーレである美しい花火を見ることができました。