On Monday, 08/20, the Dartmouth LSA+ students had the pleasure of meeting Ryan Goldstein, our senpai and a Dartmouth '93 alumnus who is currently practicing law in Japan.
We met Ryan Goldstein and Professor Dorsey bright and early at 8:00am in front of Matsuhidai station and rode a bus to the sumo stable 佐渡ヶ嶽部屋 (Sadogatake). On the way there, Ryan gave us a quick introduction to sumo, explaining the basic tactics of the sport (getting to the belt being key) and emphasizing how difficult it was to make it to the top and stay there. He told us that the ranking of the athlete was important, as it would determine their salary, when they practiced, whether they stayed in a 10-person/5-person/3-person/1-person room, etc.
We got to 佐渡ヶ嶽部屋 a bit before 9am, and then we had the chance to watch the morning sumo practice. We watched as the sumo wrestlers of lower rank practiced first, and then another group of higher ranked wrestlers go next. After Ryan received the okay from the sumo coach, we took some pictures of morning practice.
Once all the wrestlers finished practice, we had a chance to eat chankonabe (ちゃんこ鍋), a famous stew made to help sumo wrestlers gain weight. It was delicious and pretty heavy. Not all of us managed to finish our bowls, but as a group effort, we managed to eat most of it. Afterwards, the sumo stable even treated us to watermelon.
We hurried to leave after finishing eating so the sumo wrestlers could eat too. They let us eat first, and they did not eat until we finished. However, we still had some time to take pictures with the sumo wrestlers. We took many group photos, and I also got a picture alone with two sumo guys (as did some other students).
After the sump stable, we boarded the bus again to go visit his law firm in Tokyo. On the way we asked Ryan some more questions about sumo, and he explained many interesting aspects of a sumo wrestler life and some of the controversies to us. On the last half of the ride, some of us fell asleep, perhaps thanks to the ちゃんこ鍋.
When we got to his building, we all went to use the bathroom first, and then Ryan treated us all to Starbucks before we headed up to the 25th floor of the building, where his firm was located. There, he led us into a conference room. The views from there were gorgeous! Ryan explained the surrounding area to us, such as the gardens of the Imperial Palace Building and the famously expensive Imperial Palace Hotel.
Then, he told us about his time at Dartmouth - he did the study abroad while at Dartmouth as well and how he interned for the company Sharp in Japan. While interning was lonely and not too fun, afterwards he decided still wanted to study Japanese - as paraphrased: there are much worse things than being lonely and while being lonely he could study Japanese or do other things. Thus, before he went off to Harvard Law School, he studied Japanese at Waseda in Japan on the Tokyo Monbusho scholarship. He encouraged us to persevere in studying Japanese too, and let us know we could reach out to him about Japan-related things. Ryan also shared with us his experience being a lawyer in Japan - and a sort of celebrity, as he has appeared on TV and in journals before. He also runs a ramen shop called Gakuramen in Burlington, Vermont.
Ryan's stories and advice were very inspiring and entertaining, and we are thankful that he is continuing the Goldstein internship opportunity for Dartmouth students. We are also grateful that he took time out of his busy schedule to bring us to watch sumo morning practice and share with us his experiences learning Japanese and being in Japan.
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*Note: From 08/10 - 08/18 we were on the Kansai trip. Instead of writing a blog post for this, I will be making and uploading a video soon. Look forward to it!