Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
The May 1st photo of the annual “Baby-cry sumo” event at Tokyo’s Sensoji Temple is what I had been fearing to see since the New Year started: culturally sanctioned child abuse splashed on the front page like a celebration. The photo shows young sumo acolytes abusing babies - and being encouraged to abuse them by a priest - in the mistaken belief that it is all in good fun to deliberately shake babies until they cry. The first to cry, or the loudest cry is deemed fortuitous for that infant’s future. It is somewhat like watching Michael Jackson dangle his infant outside a hotel window (in Berlin, 2002). Shocking!
On April 28th we learned that the Japanese government is considering signing the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“Plan to join Hague pact on custody due in May”) which will be a great advance in this country regarding the rights of children and (divorced) parents. But with social customs like Baby-cry sumo, or the terrorism of Setsubun’s“mamemaki” bean throwing ritual so embedded in the culture one sees the struggle faced by children’s rights in this culture. The parents’ willingness to negligently relinquish their babies for this kind of endangerment also has to be overcome. I worry that critical thinking alone won’t do it. What we need is someone to challenge customs like these in the courts. I would very much like to see Mr. Debito Arudou tackle these abominations with the zeal that he does his other causes.
Published on Thursday, May 5, 2011 as “Abomination by any other name.”
This letter complements one on the same topic that appeared in the Wednesday, June 3, 2009 Daily Yomiuri newspaper, “‘Baby sumo’ competition is a crying shame.” I sent a similar letter to The Japan Timeson Monday, April 27, 2009 which was not
printed.
Monday, April 27, 2009.
Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
Am I the only one in Japan who takes a rather dim view of the annual “Baby-cry sumo” competition (front page photo, April
27th)? Every year I see a photograph of the event in the paper. Sumo wrestlers hold babies aloft and the youngster who cries the loudest is deemed the most genki, boding well for its future life I suppose. This is blatant, in-your-face child abuse celebrated not only as a cultural tradition but as a harmless bit of fun as well. But I disagree. I don’t think it’s funny or cute at all. It’s child abuse plain and simple. Clearly, Japan has a problem recognizing child abuse, which explains the too-often tragedies involving children that we read about. When I see photographs of the Baby-cry event I cannot tell you how long my list is of people who deserve prompt arrest and prosecution for child abuse, incitement to child abuse, conspiracy to abuse children, accessory to child abuse, etc. the wrestlers, the priests, the parents, the journalists, the spectators, and many more, probably.
But I could be wrong.
The sight of deliberately shaking babies shocks me, and I certainly think of it in terms of criminal behavior. Today, May 5th, is the annual Children’s Day holiday, part of the spring Golden Week, so the timing, which I did not think about at all when I sent the letter on May 1st, is really good. Maybe the timing contributed to the paper’s decision to print the letter - a child abuse theme on Children’s Day.
One more letter on the topic of child abuse was printed today, directly below mine: “Potential to waste viable organs,” by Nathan Vandemark of Kai, Yamanashi Prefecture. He wrote about the law on child organ donation which prohibits harvesting for transplant the organs of deceased children suspected to have been victims of child abuse. He sees this prohibition as an unnecessary waste of perfectly good organs because “if these children are already determined to be victims, then there is no further need to determine abuse, and the organs could save lies.”
Maybe today’s holiday also influenced the paper’s decision to print his letter.