gunch

I dread Gunch coming into the teacher's room nowadays. How can that be? He is my closest ally at school, a deep and funny man - charming and kind. He enjoys teaching me and he does it very well. He always remembers to ask where I am going on the weekends, brings me pictures and books about the place I am heading for and the following Monday he asks sincerely about my adventures. He is my teacher and he is my friend.

But ever since the night he told me that his health is not good I have started to notice how sickly he seems. I keep thinking back to the Gunch before he told me he wasnt well. Did he have the same black bubbling cough? Was his suit always so tatty looking? It has always been chalky and wrinkly, since I met him in the heat of summer, but did it hang so limply then? When I met him he was an eccentric and natty man, now he looks dirty and unkempt. Has he always mumbled to himself quite so much? I dont remember. I simultaneously attend to his every splutter and berate myself for doing so, invading his privacy by eavesdropping on his body.
It doesnt help that, because of the school renovations we go down and then up four flights of stairs every time need to get to class. When Gunch and I make the walk together we stop on the landings between every floor to look at the trees and the beautiful mountain. He needs those few minutes between floors and the least I can do is play into the distraction of the view. It also doesnt help that at the end of every class Gunch goes to the field next to the school and has a smoke. He smokes the strongest cigarettes available.

The students think Gunch is funny. Sometimes they laugh with him but sometimes they are laughing at him too: swooning once he turns his back to show their friends that yes, they can smell the sharp sourness of cigarettes on his suit. Laughing when he writes something incorrectly on the board. I can see them do this. They make no effort to hide it from me. It is heartbreaking. I want to shake them and try to explain to them - Dont you see! This silly old man is the most important teacher you will ever have.

I might be exaggerating Gunch's condition because I have become so acutely aware of it. I try to act as if the wracking cough and dripping nose do not bother me when he sits with me for our lessons but I know that there must be micro-expressions of disgust that flash across my face. If he sees them they must be so hurtful I hate myself for having them. I hate that I can't genuinely ignore his current condition.

It might just be a winter cold (I did ask and he said he often gets chesty in winter). Every day I silently appraise him - is he looking better than yesterday? Sounding better than yesterday? It is this new layer of our interaction, my constant and uncontrollable appraisal that makes me dread our time together. Gunch's frailty is making me see him differently and judge myself for seeing him differently. I hate it. I wish things could go back to the way they were when I never suspected he was sick. Then, Gunch was a constant whereas now I have confront the fact that I might not have him forever. It is a horrible thing to face.

sumo

Fukuoka, the biggest city on the island of Kyushu is ugly. The buildings are all prefab, there are malls of obscene proportions and mustard and tomato sauce coloured kombinis on every corner. Perhaps in summer the trees lining the street soften the man-made edges somewhat but when I went they were naked and scraggly, shivering in the drizzle. The Sumo stadium is a brown toad squatting across three city blocks looking up into the commercial sprawl. If the sprawl was grey liquid from some sci-fi volcano, full of urban debris running in rivulets towards the sea, the toads fat concrete arse would dam it up pretty effectively. Around the stadium are what feel like acres of concrete where people can gather and chat, take photos, buy stuff and sumo spot.

Inside the stadium was organised pandemonium. The foyer had a grid stalls that forced the the throngs to toddle between them, buying stuff. Omiyage is a Japanese custom I am particularly fond of - if ever you travel somewhere you are expected to bring back some small tsatske for everyone you work with. These tsatskes are called omiyage - a souvenier. They are often a foodstuff; a biscuit or jam or cracker and because its customary to buy like fifty of them, they are sold in big batches, individually wrapped then boxed beautifully. They are also cheap. A region or city will have omiyage that relates to its own sites or traditions or cuisine. The island of Miyajima has momiji manju, a maple leaf shaped cookie stuffed with custard; Setoda, an island not far from Mihara has mikan jelly pockets, little cups of delicious mikan segments suspended in clear bitter jelly. Dogo, where I went a few weeks ago has a kebab of three coloured mochi balls - brown, green and yellow. In Onomichi you can get a beautiful red box with four helpings of Onomichi speciality ramen noodles. Here, the omiyage were obviously Sumo themed. I bought sumo biscuits for my colleagues and little boiled sumo sweets for my language partner. As well as omiyage, stalls were selling official sumo memorabilia including the equivalent of a sumo wrestlers autograph: his handprint in red ink with his name calligrafied across it. Unlike other sports (I am specualting here, seeing as I think sumo was my first real live sporting event) the athletes do not sneak in through another entrance only to be seen in glorious play and then sneak out again with their omniscience intact. The sumos come in through the front doors just like everyone else. They mingle and get snapshots taken, they are among the crowds but in no danger of losing power and prestige because of this, their appearance and attitude make them utterly astonishing to behold, godlike. Tall and wide wearing traditional kimonos and wooden sandals. There hair is slicked into tight buns or, if they are top players their hair is glued into a bell shaped swoop with a small knot at the top. Maybe it is their diet, something makes their skin glow - they radiate health and strength. Their faces are smooth (the fat having ironed out any crease) they look like beautiful deities capable love and benevolence if you please them, horrible violence if you dont . After holding babies for about a hundred pictures taken with cell phones their trainers usher them to private rooms on either the left or right of the stadium. The sumo ring has an east and west side, wrestlers are assigned a side and are kept separate from those on the other side so as not to see their competitor until they are in the ring. They emerge from their room two bouts before their own and march down a red carpeted aisle, now only in the famous loin cloth and girder which is jewel coloured satin - brown, black, turqoise or purple. They sit on a small bench alongside the ring and watch the match before their own. The match build up and ceremony take far longer than the fighting itself. Competitors climb onto the raised mud ring and pick up a handful of salt which they throw dramatically across the ground. They then do those astonishing lef lifts bringing their thihgs up to their ears and down again - boom! They pace back and forth, go back into their corner to pow-wow with their trainers. They look at eachother and pace some more. A referee in a sumptuous robe shoos them onto their respective sides and calls for the bout to begin. They sqaut down, their legs shaking with readiness - they must leap up at exactly the same moment and engage, if one jumps before the other they restart, from the salt throwing all the way through. A successful start entails the two men leaping at and grabbing hold of one another in knotted locks that range in appearance from the amorous, to the deadly to the extremely awkward. Even a layman like myself could tell a good wrestler from a bad one. The bad ones writhe and jiggle while the strong ones keep as still as possible, waiting for their opponent to imbalance themselves. Once this happens the strong wrestler will move with lightning speed tipping the other man out of the ring or throwing him to the ground - the loser is the wrestler who first places any body part outside the ring or touches the ground with anything other than the soles of his feet. Sometimes the force of the final throw will send them both flying into the crowd (the closest seats are on the ground a treacherous meter or so away). The on-site ref then has to confer with four or five ringside refs as to who touched outside the ring first. The winner is declared - and the pair leave the ring, the loser first with his head hung low, the winner loiters arond for a bit, puts his shiny robe back on and saunters out to meet his fans clamouring in the lobby.

for sumo pics go here.