Naha Tug of War 2010

          

     

As you can see we attended the Naha Tug of War this past Saturday, and boy was it amazing! Seeing pictures of it is nothing like being there and being a part of the fun. We got there after the martial arts demonstrations and parade along the rope so I don’t have that experience to share. Whenever we arrived I believe they were announcing the districts of Naha and displaying the corresponding hatagashira. The hatagashira are the tall poles with the decorative top, each of course, represents a district of Naha. The tug of war is between the east and west sides of Naha, but people from all over the island come to join in. While the introductions are going on, sporadic firecrackers are popping. It’s a very festive event. After everyone is introduced everyone must first pull the rope forward so that the two sides can be connected by a large wooden peg in the middle. Both the east and west sides take turns pulling their ropes closer to the center to be fastened. Once they have been pegged together a battle commences(no not a real battle). The two “kings” are brought to the center on carried platforms above the rope and commence in a swordfight type play. Naha used to be divided by east and west with different rulers. After their battle, and the hatagashira retreat, the ball unleashes confetti and a banner to mark the start of the tug of war. Or so we thought, but it was actually about 5-10 minutes after that we began pulling. It’s an all out frenzy for everyone to get on a piece of rope to pull! As you can see from one of our pictures we were on a very crowded rope at first, for some reason that one got taken from us. All the better though, we ended up finding other ropes where we each ended up with about 2 feet to ourselves to tug away!! The actual ropes that everyone pulls are smaller ropes tied onto the gigantic one. It takes a lot of effort to pull that rope anywhere! Weighing in at over 40 tons, I’m sure you can understand the challenge. People of all ages are close tugging away, we had kids around us, teenagers, middle aged people, and of course people who had to have been 85+. Okinawa is also famous for its prolonged lifespan, if you hadn’t already heard. The rope pulling commences and you have 30 minutes to pull the rope 15 meters. We only pulled for 5-10 minutes, we think, and then the other side was declared the winner. Bummer!! Although we could barely feel the rope move in either direction(I thought we were doing pretty good actually).  Immediately the pocket knives, scissors, and machetes come out to get that lucky piece of rope! Yes, the older woman in front of me brought her machete! hah! We got our piece and a piece for our friend who decided not to tug and got out of there as soon as we could. That lucky rope is a big deal, and everyone wants a piece! After that we were done. We don’t live that close to Naha so we didn’t take part in a lot of the festivities. They last all weekend long: dance performances, music performances, parades, they do it all! Afterwards we went over to Torii Station for the second night of Rocktoberfest. Which was also pretty fun, mostly because of the weather. It has been beautiful here!! Hope you enjoyed the fun! Now for a post on Hiji Falls.