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Grand Sumo
What's in a Voice? Listening to Glorious Rising Sun 10 March 1999
It would send shivers down any woman's spine. Former sumo dude Asahiyutaka's
voice, I mean.
On the sixth day of the sumo Haru Basho (Spring Tournament), Asahiyutaka ("Glorious Rising Sun") was
guest commentator, and what a commentator he was! Looking a bit weird in a
western-style suit while still wearing the sumo samurai hairstyle--his formal
retirement, or hair-cutting, ceremony will be on October, hence the still long
hair--he was nevertheles dashingly handsome, and that voice! Low yet clear, and
very, very sexy.
If you're a foreigner in Japan who has lived here for a length of time, one
of the things you'll notice is how the Japanese male, in keeping up with the
otokorashii (manly) tradition, tries to attain that low-pitched voice.
And not just that, a 'real' man, of course, is the strong, silent type, so what
you get is preferably a guy with a bass voice who rumbles only a few, profound
statements while stoically staring into outer space. Needless to say, this male
stereotype is strictly lived up to by the sumo guys themselves, who supposedly
represent the epitome of Japanese malehood, a living tradition personifying all
that is good and fine in the samurai warrior of centuries back.
It is not just the cult of the voice, of course. You also have, among others,
your dudes (no matter how young) retiring when can they no longer perform up to
par, the sumo version of seppuku (ritual disembowelment), that thing done
by your samurai who has unfortunately done something 'shameful', such as
betraying the samurai tradition, whatever that is. We can go deeply into all
this bushido ('the way of the warrior') stuff: a lot of it is alive and
well in the modern Japanese, so it is not exactly off the mark if one goes back
to the Tokugawa age to explain why excruciatingly embarassed Japanese men, from
lowly clerks in a tiny company to high-ranking officials in the Ministry of
Finance, seemingly do not hesitate to go hang themselves rather than live a
totally shamed existence. We can discuss this, of course, but then that would be
straying from my intended topic, which is Asahiyutaka's voice.
Going back to the Japanese men, one American writer said that they speak--or
at least try to speak-- in the manliest male argot this side of Texas. So
combine that with the cult of silence, and you get a sumo guy who's main purpose
off the dohyo (sumo ring) is to "anaunsa ga naku made", to shut up to the
point of making the interviewer cry. This makes most sumo interviews unusually
tedious, with the audience--not to mention the interviewer-- wanting it to end
as quickly as possible. We must not forget, of course, the fact that most of the
color man's questions are as stupid as they come, such as the usual "How did
you feel when he did this and did that to you?". Such questions are asked right
after the poor guy's match, when he is sweating like a horse and tired as can
be, so the most the dude can do is to restrain himself from sitting on the color
man. Here, we can go on further to discuss the contents of a typical sumo
post-match interview, but then that would be straying from my intended topic,
which is Asahiyutaka's voice.
Asahiyutaka, shortly after he retired. He's wearing the typical got-something-to-do-with-sumo navy blue sweater emblazoned with the Sumo Association's logo. I took this shot looking down from the second floor of the Aichi Sports Center.There were lots of fans pressed against the huge windows and I was on my knees sardined with other camera-clicking fans. The flashes were blinding. Too bad I was neither close enough nor had a strobe powerful enough to counter the two o'clock shadows.
In brief, a typical sumo guy would end up grunting a few phrases in his low,
manly voice, which, when heard just after a match, is equivalent to some
unintelligible rumble combined with lots of air blown into the microphone. The
winner of the match, of course, is the more cheerful dude, while the loser
painfully mumbles his answers. It is extremely difficult to describe just how
they tend to speak. Possibly the closest thing would be to say that they use
normal words but minus all the vowels. The listener, therefore, has to do a lot
of deciphering, but this gets easier as one watches more and more sumo and as
one improves in his or her Japanese (the former and the latter are not directly
related, of course).
So going back to Asahiyutaka's--well, technically, at this point in time he
is no longer Asahiyutaka (his ring name) but is now the current
Tatsunami-oyakata (coach of Tatsunami-beya, a training stable), but then also at
this point in time he is still Asahiyutaka in everyone's minds-- going back to
Asahi's voice, it was, not surprisingly, quite low, but surprisingly,
beautifully clear, so the result was: very, very pleasant. His vowels are where
they were supposed to be, and this, combined with his impressive analyses, made
up one lovely guest commentator. How would I compare that voice? Ever heard of
The Doors' Jim Morrison sing or speak? I would say that Asahi's voice comes very
close to Jim's. Of course, Asahi was still suffering from the cult of silence,
so he was not chatting up to commentating perfection. But it was his first time
to sit at ringside and dish out insights, so we can all assume that after a
period of time he'll get used to it, which will get rid of his initial
nervousness. How nice the thought of having him up in the main box is! For an
hour or so we, the audience, will be treated to his keen analyses, and because he
is newly retired, he has actually fought against most of the guys out there in
the ring, so --unlike the other much older coaches/commentators-- he can really
talk about how it is like to fight the guy, the guy's strategies and strengths
and weaknesses, etc. For that duration, we will also hear that gorgeous voice,
and I bet that that would be distracting to a lot of women! (or maybe it's just me.)
The gyoji or referee, watches over the sumo guys. He makes sure that the sumo guy's hands touch the ring before he rises up for the clash. Click to enlarge photo.
Your typical NHK (Japan Broadcast Station covering the sumo tourneys) 'civilian' (that is, not a former sumo dude) commentator and color man, of
course, all talk in a high-pitched, fast-paced voice, the result of constantly
having to smile while speaking. This provides perfect contrast to the former
sumo guy who serves as the other main commentator as well as to the ringside
commentator, also usually a former sumo guy. This is one of the beauties of
sumo, of course. Startling contrasts and contradictions. You have, for instance,
a small, shimmering, resplendantly bedecked, sexagenarian of a gyoji
(referee) hopping and screaming all over the ring, giving perfect contrast to
the almost- naked behemoths who never scream but emit only the most primal of
grunts while they try to beat each other without collapsing all over the
referee. Then you have the sumo guys' wives themselves, who are all tiny
and dainty, with a waistline about the size of a sumo guy's neck. Then comes
your typical NHK commentator and your typical ex-sumo guy commentator. Then you
have the sumo dudes themselves and the typical sumo fan, who are usually
individuals a quarter the size of the sumo guy but twice--or thrice--as old and
noisy. Not to mention the very contradiction inherent in the sumo guy
himself--that of being so large and heavy and yet relatively quick and nimble.
I have discussed voices, of course, because I have to
report--shamefully--that today I was not able to concentrate on much of the game
itself, no thanks to (1) my new hairdo; (2) Asahiyutaka at ringside; and (3)
some great torikumi (match-up) that sent me into many a screaming
frenzy. Tomonohana vs. Mainoumi, Mitoizumi vs. Wakanosato, Kyokushuzan vs.
Takanohana, Terao vs. Wakanohana, among others. I am forever trying to
concentrate enough to be able to do a detailed, blow-by-blow, second-per-second
reporting and analysis of the game, but then in order to do this, I
gotta (1) get my video recorder fixed, because the matches happen so fast and
replay is needed for a blow-by-blow; and (2) for the love of sanity, stop
screaming so hard while the guys are trying their darn best to rip each other's
necks. Obstacle #2, of course, gets in the way a whole lot, especially when one
starts shrieking even before the shikiri (pre-match toeing the mark).
This can't go on forever, of course, otherwise I'd never be able to write the
way I want to, in addition to the possiblity of my neighbors having me evicted
for disturbing the peace and harmony of a fine afternoon for fifteen days, six
times a year.
Henceforth, I promise that I shall try to see what I can do with my video
player, and try not to yell so much, and maybe one of these days I shall finally
succeed in my ambition to do a blow-by-blow analyses of a whole day's
match-ups, and maybe do one for a whole basho (tournament) as well. I
will try, of course, although for now I can pretty much guarantee that when it
is Asahiyutaka in the commentator's box, my concentration unwittingly goes
sayonara.
Related Link Nihon Sumo Kyokai - Japan Sumo Association's official website.
