That's one giant rope!!!

Something every Okinawa resident must experience at least once in their life is the Naha Tug of War. I am totally cutting and pasting from Wikipedia just to save time and energy, but here's a quick synopsis of what it's all about:

The Naha Tug of war (那覇大綱挽^?) is an event at the annual festival held in Naha, Okinawa, Japan. Its roots may be traced back to the 17th century. Held on Route 58, it is a battle between the East and West teams. This correlates with the competition between two rulers in the Naha area in days of old ^[1]

The event draws some 25,000 attendees annually, and is preceded on the prior day with a parade celebration on Kokusai Street (also in Naha). In 1997 the event was first logged in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the largest tug-of-war event in the world.^[1] The rope weighs some 40 metric tons.

The festival begins with men dressed in traditional Okinawan garb standing on the rope facing in opposite directions to symbolize the battle between East and West. A myriad of performances take place along the rope's length, from martial artists of varying ages, to older women performing a sort of fan-dance. It is a international event with Japanese nationals, American military, and tourists in attendance. Just before the start of the match a man dressed in the garb of the Ryūkyūan kings stands on a wooden platform hoisted in the air on the shoulders of men standing on opposite sides of the rope. The "king" is carried on this platform down the length of the rope, before the festival starts, and the two kings perform a ritual sword contest.

The main rope, over one metre in diameter, has many smaller diameter, but very long ropes extending from it, and the participants pull these during the contest. The contest lasts 30 minutes and the challenge is to pull the other team a total of 15 metres. If neither side pulls the other the 15 metres, whichever side has pulled the other the furthest wins.

After the 30 minute time limit expires, one side is declared the victors, and they are allowed to climb on top of their rope to celebrate. It is customary for participants to cut apart the rope, and take a length of it as a token, and so throngs of people using tools ranging from their pocket knives, scissors and hacksaws set on the rope cutting lengths of it to commemorate the festival.

Chris and I decided that this was something we should participate in at least once, but I'll be the first to say I really don't ever need to do it again. There are others, however, who seemed to love the squishing, sweating, yelling, trampling, squeezing, rope burns, more than us.  Like the 75+ year old Japanese ladies who were right in the middle of things, or the Japanese parents who would bring their babies into the madness just so they could touch the rope, or those who were too intoxicated to really care. There were also those who enjoyed from the sidelines. Looking back, I really am glad I did it just to say that I was there once. But it was kind of crazy...well really crazy. And I am SO happy we didn't have the kiddos with us (although there were plenty of children there).  There was one 12 year oldish boy who was pulling right next to me and a man kept (unknowingly) pushing him down and stepping on him. I had to shove the guy off the boy so he could get out, and it really wasn't until I notified the man of what he was doing that he even realized there was a CHILD pretty much under his feet. Now that's kind of scary, right? Anyhow, we got our piece of rope and have it in a jar displayed in our house for good luck. Here are some pictures from our experience there:

The middle part of the east section of the rope, coming together at the intersection on Hwy. 58 to meet the west side of the rope.

Welcome to Kokusai Street, Chris!

We had time to do some browsing on Kokusai Street in this cool salt shop before the war started.

This picture was in honor of Claire with the "Hi" Kitty balloons.

I mean, Chris and I are tall here, but that guy is a giant!

Everyone anxiously awaiting it all to start...

East riding in to meet West.

We all chanted "pull" in Japanese together to move the rope forward.

In comes one king...

Not sure if this was supposed to happen right when it did, but still cool.

Pulling some more.

I couldn't really take any pictures during the actual tug of war, but here is Chris with our tiny piece of rope. Other people got HUGE 10 feet long, 2 feet in diameter portions...to do who knows what with. We tugged for 30 minutes and it ended in a tie.

This shot was in honor of Ben.

Another interesting find on Kokusai.

After we cooled off a bit, Chris took me out to eat at a really nice teppenyaki restaurant, Heki, to celebrate our anniversary in June, and my birthday and our move in August.

It was very yummy!  Interestingly, all of the chefs were female at Heki. 

Just another day in Okinawa. :-) We will be putting a check mark by this traditional Okinawan festival in our book!