Naha Tug of War 2009

This past Sunday, October 11, Joey and I participated in the Naha Tug of War. It's the largest tug of war event in the world that occurs annually, and it was crazy!

The event is to symbolize the battle between the East and West. I also read somewhere that the winning side symbolizes who would have the best luck in fishing for the year. Not sure if that's true or not, I'd have to recheck that.

Joey and I arrived down in Naha by 3pm, just in time for the main festivities to start. The rope is enormous!


That is just the front part of the rope, for one side! There's an identical one across the intersection, which is later joined together.

The total length of the main rope is 656 feet in length and weighs 44 tons!

The main rope has mini ropes that extend out for the people to pull on. Above is Joey's hand compared to the mini rope.

In the beginning of the tug of war main event, there's a parade with Eisa dancers and people marching and carrying large decorated poles like the one seen in the front of the picture shown above.

There were literally thousands of people! This pictures just captures one side of one half of the people ready to participate in the tug of war, not including the people just watching.

Here, the mini ropes are being handed out to the crowd.

The bald guy holding the umbrella, pretending to help out, was hilarious!

As I mentioned before, the main rope is split in the intersection of the road, therefore we had to pull the two ropes together, which was easy because they were hoisted on wheels. Once the two ropes were joined to form one large rope, these men used the sticks to hold the rope in place while other people pulled the wheels out from underneath.

Then, men dressed up as the Ryukyuan Kings of the East and West meet in the middle of the joined ropes and perform a ritual sword contest.

Once the Ryukyuan Kings are done, they leave, the gold ball in the sky opens up and releases confetti and balloons, and then the tug of war begins!

There were a few of these guys standing on the ropes, directing the pulling. They yelled "Ah-ee-yah" while we echoed and pulled.

The first side to pull 15 meters wins, otherwise, the pulling lasts for 30 minutes. 30 LONG MINUTES of pulling this enormous rope! It was not fun, not fun at all.

I should add that Joey and I were somehow pushed into the crowd and ended up near the front of the rope. Basically, we were forced into participating. We didn't mind, but we wish we were better prepared because we were wearing slippers. Think about it. Thousands of people + pulling + pushing + swaying = stepped on toes and a ruined pedicure.

At the end of the 30 minutes, a draw was declared and Joey walked away with two hand blisters! In the end, everyone cuts up a piece of the winning side to bring home for good fortune and luck for a year. Since it was a draw, Joey and I got a couple of pieces from the rope we were pulling on, and quickly left. We were tired, sweaty, hungry, and just wanted to get out of there!

I'm glad we got the experience. But next year, I think I'll stick to just watching the event!