Now like any good Malaysian, I've had my fill of Japanese cuisine, read my manga and watched my Sailormoon anime (people under the age of 23, just ignore me). Heck I even took Japanese language classes at school briefly.
However, an actual formal (the formality is to debatable, with a few men turning up in cargo shorts) event with Japanese people is a different thing altogether. For one thing, we stuck out like sore thumbs, having turned up 3 minutes later than the stated starting time. Everyone else was de-shoed and neatly seated, as we scurried to the empty mats.
The Mistress of Ceremonies, had been a sumo sports commentator on NHK for 15 years, so her explanations of the formal traditions and Japanese sumo culture were largely lost on me. I surmise that:
a) Sumos are fat (I never said this was going to be enlightening)
b) They start at 15, and usually retire at 35 and it's hard to get in by 28
c) They bestow upon the odd non-Japanese wrestler Japanese names
d) Their habitats (for lack of a better word) are known as 'stables' (this is where KG and I started making jokes about cattle prods)
e) They wear aprons over their
f) One of the aprons was embroidered with a Samsung logo.
g) Wait a minute, isn't Samsung Korean?
h) I keep mistaking the Korean flag as Japanese
They had this group playing the ceremonial drums; the performance is usually pre-match. Very rousing stuff. I can totally see how their practice sessions would set the neighbourhood's canine population off (on a somewhat related note, I live with a man who displays his level of maturity by repeatedly rewinding to the annoying beeping bit in 2001: A Space Odyssey in a successful bid to annoy our neighbour's dog).
Appetisers. "Egguprantu", the nice lady sitting on my right offered by way of explanation, upon observing my skeptical expression whilst prodding the mystery blue stuff.
The chankonabe, which was explained to us, to be very nutritious and essential to the sumo's girth (read: fattening).
Japanese man: (animated Japanese speech, accompanied with lots of nose pinching)
Japanese woman: Soup! Soup!
Me: ... um, okay. Thank you.
KG: Did he say his nose is going to fall off?
The mochi at the end was unexpectedly unpalatable. KG and I frantically thought of ploys to avoid this delicacy without offending our affable Japanese neighbours. I succeeded by dumping it in a random bowl when unnoticed; KG bravely swallowed away.
I utilised my miniscule Japanese vocabulary to my best: itadakimasu, oishii, atsui, obaachan wa nihonjin (how does one say, Well, we're not sure, but she was adopted during the WWII and she doesn't really look Chinese plus my mother and I constantly get mistaken as Japanese, I mean, you first started speaking to me in Japanese too?).
The friendly couple graciously accepted my bastardised offerings and spent the entire time speaking to us fluently in Nihongo, whilst we nodded away cluelessly. What I did not say: gohan (because my rice was missing; I very nearly asked for goku, the spiky-haired main character of Dragonball) and kitsune (I wanted to compliment the lady on her dress, but I wasn't sure if it meant fox or beautiful).
Montblanc cake. Apparently topped with meronnu, but tasted suspiciously like azuki beans.
KG bought and distributed AUD20 of raffle tickets, which produced a sumo shopping bag (larger than the standard fare, of course) and a SUMO SAKE (14.5% alcohol, 35 standard drinks) for me. I really wanted the umeshu. Oh well.
Post event KG and I -totally overdressed, by the way- had tea on the balcony of Hard Rock Cafe, huddled under my skimpy blue ombre shawl, watching the Gold Coast lights.
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