The Boy Travellers in the Far East [Part First]: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and ChinaKnox, Thomas Wallace
General
The Boy Travellers in the Far East [Part First]: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and China
Knox, Thomas Wallace
China -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature; Japan -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
"There they stood glaring, as I told you, and making a noise like
animals about to fight. They stamped on the ground and made two or three
rushes at each other, and then fell back to watch for a better chance.
They kept this up a minute or so, and then darted in and clinched; and
then you could see their great muscles swell, and realize that they were
as strong as they were fat.
"They did not try to throw each other, as we do when we wrestle, but
they tried to push from one side of the ring to the other. I couldn't
understand this until the Doctor told me that it is not necessary for
one of the men to be thrown. All that is to be done is for one of them
to push the other outside the ring; and even if he only gets one foot
out, the game is up. Only once during all we saw of the match did
anybody get thrown down, as we should expect to see him in a wrestling
match in America. And when he did get fairly on the ground, it was not
very easy for him to rise, which is probably the reason why the rules of
the Japanese ring are so different from ours.
"They had several matches of this kind with the two men standing up
facing each other before they clinched; and then they tried another
plan. One man took his place in the ring, and braced himself as though
he were trying to stop a locomotive. When he was ready a signal was
given, and another man came out full tilt against him. They butted their
heads together like two rams, and tried to hit each other in the breast.
In a short time they were covered with blood, and looked very badly; but
the Doctor says they were not hurt so much as they seemed to be. They
kept this up for nearly a quarter of an hour, and took turns at the
business--one of them being bull for the other to play railway train
against. It was as bad for one as for the other; and if I had my choice
which character to play, I wouldn't play either.
"After the wrestling was over they had some fencing, which I liked much
better, as there was more skill to it and less brutality. The fencers
were announced in the same way as the other performers had been. They
wore large masks that protected their heads, and their fencing was with
wooden swords or sticks, so that no harm was done. The game was for each
to hit his adversary's head, and when this was done a point was scored
for the man who made the hit. They did a good deal of shouting and
snarling at each other, and sometimes their noise sounded more as if
made by cats than by human beings. In other respects their fencing was
very much like ours, and was very creditable to the parties engaged in
it. One of the best fencers in the lot was a young girl. She wasn't more
than sixteen years old, and she had arms strong enough for a man of
thirty. The performance ended with the fencing, and then we went back to
the hotel."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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