Daikon Odori
Comments: 35
Here’s something that probably doesn’t happen at your child’s sports day — the Daikon Odori (大根踊り — the daikon dance). Performed by students from the nearby agricultural university, the dance is perhaps the only militaristic drill in the world centred upon a vegetable.
Before we get to the radishes though, let’s meet the squad.
You’ve got to be a big, beefy, buzz-cut boy to do this dance. We may just be celebrating a common vegetable, but it’s defintely not for wusses.
The dance takes place beneath a huge university flag which is held by one student in a special leather harness. The staff is just gigantic — see below.
The squad warms up with some sans-radish manoeuvres led in this case by the fellow in the white gloves. They bellow out songs to the accompaniment of a bass drum. I couldn’t catch any of the words, but it seems I’m not alone. No one I asked has any idea what they’re bellowing about.
Now we get to the radishes. After discreetly turning from the audience to put on white gloves, the performers pick up their daikon and, still bellowing at the top of their lungs, thrust the vegetables high in the air while doing leg kicks to the left and right.
I’m not making any of this up.
A couple of times during the proceedings, the flag is lowered so that the staff almost touches the ground. This, make no mistake, is an impressive feat of strength and control on the part of the standard bearer. The flag is pretty big:
Upon completion of the performance the daikon are given to members of the audience. The kids scramble like crazy to try to get one. We’ve never been lucky enough to get one of these blessed daikon, but there’s always next year. I hear they have magical healing powers.
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Posted to Oh, the Humanity • 2003.05.24 (Sat) • 17:59
Comments
Posted by mike g 2003.05.24, 20:09
Amazing. Bizarre. Surreal. And some of the best entertainment I’ve had this week. The ceremony itself must have been a riot. Jeremy, the photo of the guys marching with the radishes is classic beyond words.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens 2003.05.24, 23:44
Fantastic post. Life is so fun.
Posted by codemac 2003.05.25, 01:52
Wow…….
Posted by Johan Svensson 2003.05.25, 03:15
Ils sont fous, ces Japanese! <toc-toc-toc>
Posted by The Radish King 2003.05.25, 03:29
HOW DARE YOU RIDICULE MY FOLLOWERS! ON YOUR KNEES MEAT-PUPPET SCUM!
Posted by Averagebacon 2003.05.25, 05:03
I’ve gotta agree with mike - the performers taking giant steps, mouths agap, holding radishes high in the air looks like something Tim Burton might think up (thinking ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’)
Either that, or a Walt Disney (TM) rendition of what ‘non-white culture X’ might look like, singing and dancing to their pagan radish gods and generally being quite uncivilized.
Posted by Greg 2003.05.25, 05:15
I have got to get out of the United States.
Posted by Mary Beth 2003.05.25, 13:22
You said: “I’m not making any of this up.”
Are you sure?
This seems so monty python-esque somehow.
Japanese morris dancing? Theater of the absurd? I just can’t make up my mind.
Thanks for an interesting look at life where you are.
Oh wait - I have one more question. Is this done frequently? Only at a particular time of year? At only one event?
Posted by natalie 2003.05.26, 11:44
mmm radishes
I have a friend who’s nickname is radish.
He says its because he is a red hot root.
Posted by MacDara 2003.05.26, 19:38
To the Radish King:
The Meat Puppets are most certainly not scum. There are in fact one of the greatest rock bands that the United States has ever produced, up there with Husker Du, and the Minutemen.
They did have a song called ‘Scum’, however.
;o)
Posted by Wilder 2003.05.26, 22:24
Thank you for posting that. It’s all coming togetther: 1+1 =3. I recall being completely mystified seeing those boys with buzz cuts bellowing and dancing about in Yoyogi park sans flag and radishes. It all makes sense now.
Posted by natalie 2003.05.27, 11:38
Jeremy, not being au fait with the geography of Japan, were you affected by the earthquake? I hope all you love and hold dear are ok, and that there was not too much damage.
Posted by Mr. X 2003.05.27, 16:09
can you post pix #4 bigger somewhere? I wanna see it better. It’s so… I can’t even find the word!
Posted by Rudolf Ammann 2003.05.27, 16:56
I got drafted into the army back in my own country and was forced to do military monkey dances. It is beyond me how anyone would ever subject himself to that sort of thing of his own free will.
And these guys drive me nuts.
See: I spend a lot of time here at the office even after five, after everyone else has left the campus. That’s when they creep out of their holes and start practising.
In the evening, they wear blue tracksuits rather than their black parade uniforms. They jog in formation and they howl while they’re jogging: they rehearse howling. It goes like this: Bwuaaaaaaaaaaaahh! The Visigoths sounded like that at the gates of Rome.
When they’ve finished their jogging howling practice, they start howling practice without the jogging: with feet wide apart, crotch pointing forth, head thrown back, eyes glazed over and blue in the face, the Drill Sergeant howls at the Troglodytes: Bwuaaaaaaaaaaaahh! With feet wide apart, crotch pointing forth, head thrown back, eyes glazed over and blue in the face, the Troglodytes howl back, in unison, at the Drill Sergeant: Bwuaaaaaaaaaaaahh!
And then there’s the dancing. Directed by the Drill Sergeant and steadied by a Troglodyte who’s frantically pounding a bass drum mounted on wheels, they perform their spastic aerobics. They howl while they’re performing their spastic aerobics, rhythmically, Bwuah! Bwuah! Bwuaaaaaaaaaaaahh!
They do a small assortment of battle cries. Then there’s something that sounds like a Mie Daigaku theme song: Mie Dai gets repeated a lot in the lyrics. Let’s go! also gets repeated a lot in the lyrics.
Sometimes, in the evening, they rehearse the howling, the battle cries, the theme song and the spastic aerobics together with the other two sections of the Cheerleading Party, the Marching Band and the Pom-Pom Girls.
Sometimes, together with the Marching Band and the Pom-Pom Girls, they perform the howling, the battle cries, the theme song and the spastic aerobics in broad daylight, as one of those lunchtime alfresco matinees that, weather permitting, are held on the square in front of the library.
They bother me.
I wish they’d go away.
Some time ago when Naomi-san was a shy freshman (she’s a shy senior now), I expressed my extreme irritation with the Cheerleading Party in class. I learned only later that Naomi-san was (still is) a member of the Cheerleading Marching Band, where she plays the clarinet. My complaint probably traumatised the poor girl for life, for which alone I deserve to roast in hell.
And once I’m roasting, I’m sure there’ll be a Cheerleading Party in full martial dress and they’ll go Bwuaaaaaaaaaaaahh!
Thanks for bringing up the subject.
Posted by frazer 2003.05.27, 19:41
hey cheak out this-in picture “daikonOdori_02.jpg”, lets play spot the radish :))))))) sorry but my friend here pointed it out and we just stopped laughing!…….. frazer
Posted by Gunnar 2003.05.27, 19:42
In Sweden there’s obligatory (more or less) military sevice when you’ve turned 18 and I can say that the standard bearer’s really doing a fab job — I’ve trained as a stardard bearer for the “A8 Day” (8th Artillery regiment’s day) when the folks get to visit and to see how we have it - with the obligatory show-off.
I almost nutured my self a couple of times when I got kind of my grip on the pole…
The only thing that I think is positive in the army is that when the Swedish drill sargeants give orders, you can actually hear what they’re shouting -not as fun when you’re the one getting shouted at for being awol though (awol = absent without leave).
Cheers
Posted by Fung Lin Hall 2003.05.28, 09:30
Daikon Banzai! My eggplant is up with arms on this. Byte my eggplant (nasu).
Posted by riccard0 2003.05.29, 05:11
I don’t know why, but it seems a lot Kaurismäki to me.
Posted by Berklee 2003.05.29, 09:57
Look at the size of those radishes, that explains Super Mario Bros 2 perfectly!
Posted by Miguel Arboleda 2003.05.29, 16:20
You know, it might be even funnier to read the reactions of the readers. There is this unquestioned assumption that the daikon cheerleaders are being serious. Hasn’t anyone heard of “tongue-in-cheek”? One interpretation of what is happening is posted and everyone around the world assumes the explanation is right. I was going to withold any comment, but after 21 reactions and not a single one interpreting from the Japanese point of view (very few Japanese are ever going to read this site, simply because it’s in English), I have to at least say something…
This military-style cheerleading has been around in Japan for a long time. Originally it was associated with the pro-military supporters during the war. Today, however, it is simply a part of high-school and university sports support in the same way that American pom-pom brandishing girls prance about (also militarily, I might add… the bright colors and rictus-like smiles can’t hide the uniforms, the synchronized movements, and the brass bands) egging their team on.
A good Japanese cheerleading group, with their huge taiko drums can be awesome in the effect they can produce to fan the ferver.
But they have a sense of humor, too. The daikon (daikon radish) is a traditional icon of humor in Japan (daikon-ashi: “radish legs” for girls with fat calves; daikon-atama: “radish head” for someone who is a bit thick; daikon-yakusha: “radish-actor” for someone who is a ham actor) and this has most probably not been lost on the cheerleaders. While it is possible that they are being dead serious about some radish worship festival, most likely they are simply using the contrast between their stark military movements and costumes with the absurdity of holding up a radish. It is classic Japanese humor, and every Japanese who looks on will understand this. Look at the humorous anime. You’ll see the same humor applied.
As for this ceremony seeming so bizarre to the readers, I beg to differ. I assume that most of those who reacted are North Americans and are perhaps blind to their own idiosyncracies; imagine my shock and wonder when I saw, on my first night in Oregon, about 100 nude men and women dashing through the university courtyard, screaming like banshees; or the time I saw a sanctioned gathering of mature, overweight men jumping up and down and shouting at a line of bullfrogs; or the total weirdness of about 3000 young men and women tripping out on pot at a Deadhead concert. Using the readers’ standards of misinterpretation, how should I, an outsider, have interpreted what I saw, and didn’t quite understand, at the time?
Bizarre is in the mind of the beholder. I maintain that until one comprehends the humor in another culture, one should assume that one knows very little about that culture.
Posted by jh 2003.05.29, 19:02
I’m from Australia, where middle-aged men wear short pants, knee-length socks and sandals. I have a sneaking suspicion that everything is bizarre.
Sit by the ocean for a moment listening to the sound of the waves and it’s not hard to start wondering why, out of all possible permutations of matter in the universe, did we end up with what we have.
Add the layers of human culture and there’s some serious mind-bending to be had.
Posted by gkkk4 2003.05.29, 22:12
Yes, jh - I’m in your corner! (“I have a sneaking suspicion that everything is bizarre.”)
Something can be totally done for humor in someone else’s culture, and still be bizarre - even to them! That’s part of the humor, no?
Posted by jh 2003.05.30, 00:02
Miguel —- I feel like I ought to address your points more specifically because one thing I don’t want to do is to give the impression of derisive laughter —- that I post things like this because they’re about ‘those crazy Japanese.’
While the Daikon Odori is undeniably humourous, I don’t think we can say it’s done tongue-in-cheek. Watching the guys prepare and watching them afterwards you can see that it’s a serious thing. Serious because they’re carrying out a tradition —- these boys are one link in a long chain of men that began to be forged in the late Meiji era (Nodai was established in 1898, I believe). Part of what makes it so impressive —- and it’s spectacular in the true sense of the word —- is that when you watch these boys wave the radishes, you’re watching a hundred years of men waving radishes, that salt-of-the-earth vegetable, symbol of Nodai.
It might have started off as a joke, however it’s anything but now. Watching the audience during the performance, I tried to gauge how people were reading it. There’s humour to be enjoyed, but my impression was it’s definitely not a primarily humourous thing. As my wife said, it’s for smiling, not laughing.
I certainly hope I don’t present it in a way that suggests I’m laughing at it, as if I’m any less bizarre. As I said, everything is strange when you think about it (as the examples you gave demonstrate). Things like the Daikon Odori are one of the reasons I love Japan. There’s a real culture here which Australia lacks (I’m still trying to figure out what “culture” means exactly, I but I know it when I see it!). If I still lived in Australia, I’d probably be posting about men and their garden sheds, or the rituals of families at the beach. But I’m in Japan, and the Daikon Odori is a local event, and our localities are always worth paying wide-eyed attention to.
Posted by Miguel Arboleda 2003.05.30, 03:30
I guess it’s also my turn to clarify what I wrote, too. I’m sorry if my words came across as being critical of everyone. I honestly didn’t mean it that way. As I wrote in my starting sentence, “You know, it might be even funnier to read the reactions of the readers.” I honestly meant that. For me, it was pretty funny to read the reactions, because they in themselves were so bizarre.
I’m in the weird position of having grown up in Japan and lived here long enough for it to have become as big a part of my make-up as, say, Australia is for you Jeremy, but at the same time, being a non-Japanese, also perpetually being an outsider. I’m sort of stuck between being somewhat detached and watching the world of the Japanese around me, and then turning around and watching the world of the “foreigners”. I constantly hear discussions on both sides about the incomprehensiblity of the other side. Sometimes it’s really difficult for me to explain to one side why the people on the other side are laughing at something. I will sit with a mixed group of both Americans and Japanese and laugh hilariously at the jokes both sides are making, but receive blank looks from those who don’t comprehend.
I once watched a television program with an American friend here, of some Japanese comedians painting Chinese characters on each others’ naked bodies and trying to interpret the wet marks they had written by pressing their bodies against the others. One guy pressed his face into between the buttocks of another guy and I laughed so hard tears were streaming down my face. My American friend stared at the television, incredulous. He kept repeating, “You could never show this on TV in America! You could never show this on TV in America!”
In reverse, I was sitting with a group of American friends and a Japanese friend in the States. The Americans were ribbing one of the other Americans about how he wasn’t a real man because he had made a soufflé for dinner. Some of the others even flung bits of the soufflé across the table at him with their forks. All of us were laughing, except my Japanese friend, who afterwards whispered to me in horror, “Why were they being so mean to him? It was a good soufflé! And he worked so hard to make it!” He was horror-struck when I almost choked on my beer and burst out laughing.
It took me two years to understand what Americans were laughing about, even though English is my native tongue. I still cannot fathom Australian or Irish humor, though I grew up with English humor.
Jeremy, forgive me if I seemed to imply that you were being derisive. Not at all! One reason I keep returning to your site is the interesting and humorous way you look at Japan and the insider’s view you give of the country. I don’t like reading the accounts by expatriots who do nothing but complain about Japan, while at the same time doing nothing to learn more about the people, not even attempting to learn any Japanese. I tend to stay away from the cliquish crowds these people make. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think Japan is weird and nutty. Even after a total of 34 years living in or being in contact with the country, I still cannot make head or tail of the logic at times. But then, like you said, “I have a sneaking suspicion that everything is bizarre.” No matter how long I live here, for example, I still cannot get used to men pissing along the neighborhood streets or openly groping at a woman on the train, in full view of everyone else.
But, also, as your wife said about the Daikon event, “It’s for smiling, not laughing.” That’s what I was trying to convey. Isn’t that just like the way Japanese see and do things? On the one hand they seem so serious and regimented (certainly that’s the image that they have abroad), but at the same time they can carry the most light-hearted and unfettered humor. Japanese do everything seriously, as you must have noticed, even their humor. But perhaps I would say it’s more of an earnestness, a desire to do everything as best they can. It’s what I love about Japan and the Japanese, and what, at times, I feel people in the West have sorely lost. It’s one of the things that has made it so difficult for me to decide which I love more and which I should choose: what I love about Europe and America (where I’ve lived) or Japan and Asia (where I also live).
I didn’t feel a single reader was making fun of what they saw, but rather I was bewildered that they seemed so bewildered by it. Yes, everything in the world is bizarre. Sometimes I wonder if God and Picasso were one and the same (which would mean that all of us have missed the boat waiting for the Saviour). I mean, who else would have invented flounders?
Posted by Mary Beth 2003.05.30, 06:52
I didn’t think anything other than WOW! when I saw this. As a former morris dancer (English-based ritual/performance dances) who danced for a few years using flowered garlands while wearing iron-clad wooden-soled clogs, I was totally impressed by the performance aspects - the uniformity of movement, apparent precision as well as the juxtapositioning of the huge flag and the rest of the activities.
Add to that the similiarities of using radishes where I had once used short wooden sticks or a woven willow arch twined with flowers - and well….. WOW.
Posted by Mike 2003.05.30, 11:55
I’m awed by by Miguel Arboleda’s comments. It is quite illuminating to see how one culture percieves another. Our sacred rituals (like the Jumping Frogs), other’s sacred rituals (like Morris Dancing and Daikon Odori) seem ridiculous only because they’re completely different from what we’re used to. (I still find football (American style) a bit weird.)
Put in context, Daikon Odori sounds like it would be a lot of fun to watch. (I’m usually mesmerized by a taiko group - there are quite a few here in the States.)
I found a pretty good site for background. Nearly as I can figureout, it’s from a dissertaion on Japanese theater.
Suzuki: White Radishes and Borrowed Views
The first page is 238, the daikon stuff starts about page 243. It’s pretty good.
Posted by Kelly 2003.05.30, 21:31
I saw this at the Nerima Ward summer festival last year. One of Nerima’s “meibutsu” is a variety of daikon, apparently. The daikon dancers were from an agricultural college in Saitama Prefecture. I made the mistake of sitting in the front row. Between the unbelievablly loud taiko drums and the amplified yells, I seriously thought my ears would blow out. During the loudest sections I plugged my ears with my fingers, but nobody around me seemed to think the sound was a problem.
One detail I remember: the daikon greens would fly off the daikons when they were swinging them around, and the stage was littered with them.
They gave out daikon and other vegetables to anyone willing to wait in line after the show.
There were a cute Mr. and Mrs. Daikon walking around—sort of a root version of Mickey and Minnie.
Posted by ennisreid 2003.05.31, 11:13
Has anyone out there ever EATEN a daikon radish? I can understand dancing with a vidalia onion, which I have done plenty of times in grocery stores when the blessed vidalia is in season. These daikons just don’t do it for me. Call me old - fashioned.
Posted by Radish the Great 2003.06.03, 10:27
They have to use a daikon. It just wouldn’t be the same with a smaller radish variety.
Posted by Terri M 2003.06.05, 01:15
found this link on Dave Barry’s blog. I think it’s hilarious and wonderful: one of the things I love about living in Japan is unexpected twists to cultural events. And the photos rock!
Posted by Oz 2003.06.07, 12:04
Wow. In looking at daikonOdori_04.jpg all I could think of was that if anyone wanted to illustrate Lovecraft’s works this would be a great image of Chthulu worshipers.
Posted by Carroll B. Knox 2003.10.22, 12:37
In my time in Tokyo (1949-1951) I never encountered a Daikon Odori, but I found and enjoyed the yellow, pickled radish in many meals. As for the various sights, sounds, scents and flavours of other Odoris: Oh! to be back there just one more time!
Posted by wee kee 2005.08.30, 01:04
really cool
Posted by South African 2006.03.26, 09:00
This was very interesting. I stumbled onto your site. I’m a qualified soil scientist so all agricultural topics are of interest to me.
Posted by Curious 2006.07.23, 07:39
See this for an official explanation (google search for Tokyo Nogyo Daigaku daikon odori):
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