Naha Tug of War

Yesterday we were able to take part is a long held Okinawan tradition. The Naha Tug of war is always held on the Sunday closest to October 10th. They chose this day as it is the anniversary of the American's decimating this tiny island with air raid attacks. Fortunately most Okinawans are not aware of the reason behind the dates... Yikes! The Tug of War is held between East Naha and West Naha. Whoever wins the competition has good luck the following year. Up until a couple of years ago, Okinawa boasted the biggest tug of war in the world. We were recently beat out by Korea. The Okinawans have not yet built a longer rope. We were excited to be able to cut pieces of the rope after the "war" to keep as a memento. Here are some great picture of our day...
Before the tug of war was a HUGE parade down Kokasai Street. Each "suburb" of Naha had a pole that they carried. It was a GIANT, elaborately decorated pole that men would take turns balancing. It was really quite something. There were also young children beating drums and karate dojo's having their best karate students preform. Each district was headed by the town's elders. So cool...















Marcia... This Chu Hi is for you!!!

Lucky Cat!!!

Part of the rope... It it joined together just before the match begins.






If you look really hard, you can see Scott with his Yankees visor on pulling the rope withthe MASSIVE crowd. We still do not know what side Scott and Andrew pulled for, but our side unfortunately lost...

Rope Clean up...

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