呼び出し

In sumo, yobidashi are the keepers of the dohyo (ring). It is their responsibility to build the dohyo before each basho (tournament), to keep it swept and maintained and the dohyo area equipped, and to call the rikishi (wrestlers) onto the dohyo before each bout. It is this last duty that is their most visible (and audible) and the one that gives them their name - a literal reading of yobidashi is "calling out".

In their traditional workman outfits, the yobidashi appear humble next to the ornately-garbed gyoji (referees), but the vocation of yobidashi is an equally important and honourable one. Like everything else in sumo, it comes with its own hierarchy, with ranks like those of the rikishi (jonokuche, jonidan, sandanme, makushita, juryo, makuuchi, sanyaku), overseen by Fukutate (deputy-chief) and Tate (chief) Yobidashi. All professional yobidashi are salaried by the Nihon Sumo Kyokai (Sumo Association) until the mandatory retirement age of 65.

If you visit a sumo arena, here are some of the things you might see the yobidashi doing:

• Before the basho, yobidashi build the dohyo. The dohyo is a raised platform of packed clay, 22 feet on a side and two feet high: building one to the exacting physical and ceremonial requirements is an undertaking of great responsibility and skill. When it has been ritually purified and blessed it will stand for the fifteen days of the basho, then be destroyed. Yobidashi also build training dohyo for the heya (sumo stables).

• At the beginning of the basho, yobidashi will climb a specially-erected wooden yagura (tower) outside the arena and beat taiko (those enormous drums) to invite the public in. More yobidashi with taiko walk the surrounding streets. After each day's bouts, the yagura-daiko are played again to invite the departing crowd to return the next day.

• Before each bout, a yobidashi will stand in the centre of the dohyo and call the rikishi. This is an art in itself. Facing each rikishi in turn (the rikishi wait, seated, on the east and west sides of the dohyo), the yobidashi holds a fan extended and calls out the rikishi's shikona (fighting name) in a long, stylized, pentatonic song. In practice, this is a kind of ritualized ring-announcing; ceremonially, the yobidashi's invitation is necessary before the rikishi may mount the dohyo in honour.

  Early in the day, bouts will be called by low-ranked yobidashi. Later and more important bouts are the responsibility of more senior yobidashi, with the final bouts, involving the highest-ranked rikishi, typically being called by the Fukutate and Tate Yobidashi. The Tate Yobidashi gets to clap the hyoshigi (cherry-wood sticks) to introduce the day's last bout.

• Between bouts, lesser yobidashi will mount the dohyo to sweep the surface, ensuring it is smooth, evenly-dusted, and free of sweat-drops. Other yobidashi keep the dohyo area in order, making sure the approaching rikishi are properly seated and attended to, carrying towels, and tending the containers of salt (for the rikishi to throw into the ring for purification) and chikara-mizu ("power-water" - really just water, for the rikishi to wash ther mouths before fighting).

• Before some bouts - later in the day, and later in the tournament - a procession of yobidashi will circle the dohyo holding banners while the rikishi are being called. On the banners are the names of sponsors who have offered kenshokin (special cash prizes) to the winner of the coming bout. Whether kenshokin are offered depends on the popularity of the rikishi and the likely viewing audience: early on, one banner may appear for a favoured privately-sponsored rikishi; the climactic bouts of the tournament might see dozens of yobidashi in procession. The yobidashi calling the rikishi calls out the sponsor's names too, but not in song, and rarely to anyone's attention.

Since yobidashi means "calling out," you'll hear it in non-sumo contexts as well. For instance, if you hang around the arrivals hall at New Tokyo International Airport, you'll hear the following enough to make your ears bleed:

お客様にお呼び出しを申し上げます。
O-kyakusama ni o-yobidashi o môshiagemasu.
Paging all passengers.

Oh yeah, I know what you're saying. "It takes them seventeen syllables to say what we can say in six?! What kind of smacked-up, cracked-up, wackity-wacko wack is that, Jack?!" Well, it's commercial Japanese, which dictates that you have to make everything sound long and important. Compare the following two sentences:

ご協力をお願いいたします。
Go-kyôryoku o onegai itashimasu.
We ask for your cooperation.

早くやりなさいよ！
Hayaku yari nasai yo!
Hurry the fuck up and do it!

The latter is prolespeak; the former is the language of the yobidashi. You hear it wherever there's a loudspeaker and an audience to be loudspoken to. If your train is coming in, for instance, you'll hear something like:

間もなく電車が到着します。
Mamonaku densha ga tôchaku shimasu.
The train will arrive shortly.

A normal person would probably say "Densha da yo!" which means "It is a train!" and, by sheer coincidence, contains the same number of syllables in both Japanese and English.

See, Japanese is a language that can be gloriously blunt at times, but that has to be strained when you're using it in public, especially to people who are paying your salary, and especially when you're thanking them. Like this little gem I heard upon my arrival at Dallas-Fort Worth:

アメリカン航空をご利用くださいまして誠にありがとうございます。
Amerikan-kôkû o go-riyô kudasaimashite makoto ni arigatô gozaimasu.
Thank you for flying American Airlines.

23 syllables in Japanese versus eleven in English. But because it's a yobidashi, the extra syllables are important, and you can't leave them out because some old lady is going to be offended and send trained ninja armies to shuriken your pet kitten into kitten kaboodle.

In a way, I suppose this kind of language is useful, because it lets you feign respect through your grammar regardless of whether you actually respect the other person or not. That isn't a luxury we really enjoy in English, but Japanese people get to ham up their conversations every day. I do some work every now and then on the Japanese Wikipedia, and the people there actually talk to each other in yobidashi-like language, which is really creepy at first because I start giving them the voices of JR conductors in the back of my head, saying "The next station is Tsukamoto, Tsukamoto."

Loudspeaker Japanese is not for the faint of heart. Indeed, I usually prefer the American way, which is to speak softly and carry a big stick.