Explore everyday life in Japan

Suika Wari

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Take a blindfold, a wooden sword, and a watermelon, put them together and what do you get?

Suika Wari, a Japanese watermelon splitting game that is pretty similar to breaking open a piñata.

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Here's how to play:

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1.

Chill a watermelon and set it on the ground or somewhere on the beach. Since you're going to be eating the pieces of it, I recommend placing the watermelon on top of a tarp or a sheet of some kind that will keep the watermelon from getting dirty when it splits open and breaks apart.

2.

Have a contestant stand a distance of three meters or more from the watermelon. Blindfold him/her and then give him/her a stick or a bat of some kind to try to hit the watermelon with. In Japan, a wooden training sword is often used for this.

3.

Have the contestant spin around a number of times. How many times is up to you. Often this is done by having a person place his/her forehead on the end of a training sword's handle, then having him/her touch the tip of the sword to the ground and spin around it.

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4.

Contestants then follow people's voices and the clues they are given toward the watermelon (A little to your left. One more step forward. Etc).

5.

When a contestant gets near the watermelon, he/she raises the wooden sword above his/her head and has one chance to hit the watermelon and split it open.

Often, contestants miss the watermelon completely. Sometimes, they hit the watermelon and it doesn't break. When somebody hits the watermelon and splits it open thoroughly, the game is over and everyone grabs big and small chunks of it and eats them as is.

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Suika Wari is a fun game to play, but possibly the strangest way of eating watermelon that I've ever encountered.

This summer, why don't you give it a try.

Image Credits: All images in this post are original.

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This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.

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If you missed my last post, you can find it here Barbecuing in Japan.