Nakizumo: Watch as Babies Shed Tears in Japan

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Over 400 Years of Baby Tears

Although this is a rather odd tradition, it certainly is a well-aged one. Nakizumo is a 400 year old tradition that sees babies shed a lot of tears. Konaki ("crying") Sumo or Nakizumo ("sumo of tears") is a Japanese tradition that goes back more than 400 years and is organised in some Japanese temples.

And the Winning Baby Is….

There is a competition involved in this. Two sumo wrestlers, both holding a baby, face each other and wait for the babies to start crying. The toddler who cries longest and loudest is considered the winner.

Left: Sumo wrestlers wait to see whose baby is going to cry first. Right: Crying baby competes.

Nakizumo baby crying festival in Japan.

Making the Babies Cry

How the hell do you make a baby cry on the spot, you may ask. What if your baby is a happy and bursts into laughter instead? Well, the festival organisers have thought of everything. There is actually a referee who shouts and waves at the babies and uses masks of demons to scare the babies so they cry.

What Nakizumo Represents

There is more to the festival than simply making the babies cry. Konaki is the time of praying for baby's health and all that crying is the symbolic activity associated with it. There is a Japanese proverb stating that "naku ko wa sodatsu" or "crying babies grow fast". It is believed that the louder the baby cries the more gods' blessing she or he gets.

(On the flip side, the Japanese have another proverb which suggests just the opposite. They say that "neru ko wa sodatsu" or "children who sleep grow fast".)

Catch the Crying Babies in April

Konaki Sumo is organised every April in the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo and the event includes almost 100 babies. That's a lot of tears!