Summer is now just humid haze in the back of our minds, and as winter approaches, I can only hope that it brings with it a public spectacle that will entertain me even half as much as suikawari. This traditional past time is reminiscent of the Mexican piñata, interesting enough to occupy small children and sufficiently dangerous to entice stupid drunks. One day, while walking down by the local river, I saw a man blindfold his little daughter and spin her around in a circle several times. Then, he handed her a heavy stick and pushed her in the direction of a watermelon sitting on a vinyl sheet about a meter away. The girl took a few steps and started to tomahawk chop the ground in the hopes of making contact with that elusive rind. I think the goal was to break it open eventually and serve her hard earned spoils to the family members watching from afar.

The game sort of perplexed me for a couple reasons. For one thing, melons are hard and she probably would have been more effective with something that could actually pierce through their thick skin. Also, in the event of an unlikely success, who wants to eat fruit that’s been smashed after rolling around in the dirt for ten minutes? This child was clearly too preoccupied, determined and dizzy to contemplate such concerns, but I felt like somebody should have done so on her behalf. Finally, one of the womenfolk in her clan stepped up the plate and tried to put an end to the nonsense. Or so I thought. She promptly removed the little one’s blindfold and put it on herself before whacking away at the ground like a crazy person. From where I was standing and as far as I could tell, the fruit had definitely won this round. Wellplayed, watermelon, well played.