Mellow Monk's blog today featured a very interesting, albeit peculiar, Japanese tradition known as konakizumo or "crying-baby sumo". I'm dying to know what you're picturing right now.
As the tradition goes, two sumo wrestlers enter a wrestling ring and duke it out man to man... holding babies... trying to make them cry. What? You're confused?? Allow me to explain.
There is an ancient saying in Japanese which translated says, "A child who cries will thrive." The origins of this came from back in the day when infant mortality was much more common. Parents were proud to hear their babies cry since it conveyed to them the baby was strong and healthy. Conversely, a quiet baby could mean malnourishment or some detrimental disease.
Soooooo, konakizumo emerged from that belief. In a match, the first baby to cry, wins! Pretty simple but seemingly entertaining as well. Just the thought of two gigantic men, each holding a baby probably 1/100th the size them, just trying to get the little fella to bawl. Priceless.
CNN has some awesome pictures of the whole ordeal, this one by far my favorite.
Those are some hardcore rug rats.
1 comment:
this is TOO precious - weird, but precious
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