Sumo and Sushi
by Mai Luong

   On Wednesday, September 7th, Roth Cafeteria held its annual Sushi and Sumo Night where all students, not just freshmen, were able to try sushi from a wide range of selections and battle their friends on the mat. The festivities started at 5:30pm and went on for more than four hours. I was there at six and the lines were already long - the mark of curious, hungry, or skeptical students coming to test the quality of the sushi.
   But seriously think about it, at six pm when the hunger juices start kicking in after a long day of classes, where else on campus could you have found sushi that hasn’t been sitting in the SAC or Union refrigerators all day? The sushi chefs prepared the sushi right in front of you with the most incontestably freshest ingredients you can find in Campus Dining. Ask them and they rolled it, cut it, and packed it in a plastic box. It was a bit expensive for your average college student; then again, it was made right there with quality preparation and seemed fresh.
   Undeniably the best part of the night judging by the turnout, some of whom ate at Burger King instead of sampling the sushi, was the sumo wrestling. The middle of the dining area was covered in mats with a white ring of tape I believe attached to the mat in imitation of a real sumo ring. There were two full body sumo suits which were big and bulky covering the neck down to the ankles. To ensure the safety of the wrestlers, a helmet in the imitation of the “hair pulled-back into a small knot” hairstyle worn by sumo wrestlers was strapped onto their heads. 
   The object of this sport is to push the opponent out of that white circle by pushing and shoving. The first two brave souls to put on the heavily padded sumo suits were two girls. It took both staff members to pick them up every time they fell. There were more fights, this time between males which was interesting in their own tame way of sticking to the rules of sumo and pushing the opponent out of the ring.
   However, it came to a point where someone had to kick it up a notch however funny the previous rounds were. Our own two members of the AA E-Zine, Jin Woo Cho and Mike Tiongson, “decided their differences” and fought it out in the ring in a particularly violent, yet extremely entertaining fashion, totally against the conventions of regular sumo wrestling.  It was during this specific fight that the Staff members made the wrestlers put on the sumo hair helmets. You can find the link to the video of the fight on this webpage. What happened after this fight only God, and the people who stayed to see it of course, knows.
   But if you missed out on it this year and you feel that it’s something you and your friends would like to take part in, fear not, there’s always next year. So until then... keep on eating sushi; you can always find some in the SAC, the Union Deli, or Kelly Dining Hall from Campus Dining.

VIDEOS:
http://www.aa2sbu.org/aaezine/videos/SumoRoth1005aMLuong.avi
http://www.aa2sbu.org/aaezine/videos/SumoRoth1005bMLuong.avi