When Japanese people hear “Mongolia,” many probably picture vast grasslands first.
Endless open land, horses, sheep, and gers.
The scenery is completely different from Japan, so Mongolia can feel like a very distant country.
And yet, there are not many countries that have felt so familiar on Japanese television for so many years.
The reason is, of course, sumo.
Asashoryu, Hakuho, Harumafuji, and Terunofuji.
Even people who do not follow sumo closely may have heard some of these names.
Mongolian wrestlers have become a major presence in professional sumo, and several have risen to the rank of yokozuna.
Whether it was a championship race or news about a wrestler being promoted to yokozuna, Japanese people have heard the phrase “from Mongolia” again and again.
So for some people, the faces of sumo wrestlers may come to mind almost as quickly as images of the grasslands.
That is something quite distinctive about the way Mongolia is seen from Japan.
Normally, people may know a famous foreign athlete without paying much attention to the athlete’s home country.
Sumo is different because a wrestler’s place of origin is mentioned repeatedly.
Even Japanese people who have never visited Mongolia may have felt familiar with the country’s name for years through wrestlers such as Asashoryu and Hakuho.
Japanese people also encounter the Mongol world in school.
In Japanese history classes, students learn about the Mongol invasions of Japan, known as the Genko or Moko Shurai.
They are standard topics in Japanese history education.
So Japanese people encounter the word “Mongol” in medieval history and “Mongolia” again in modern sumo.
The name Genghis Khan is also widely known in Japan.
And then there is another slightly confusing connection.
A Japanese lamb dish called Jingisukan — the Japanese pronunciation of “Genghis Khan.”
It is especially famous in Hokkaido, and the name can make some people assume that it must be a Mongolian dish.
But Jingisukan developed in Japan and is not a traditional Mongolian dish.
Even so, in the Japanese imagination, “Mongolia,” “sheep,” and “Jingisukan” can easily end up sitting close together.
At the same time, when Japanese people picture Mongolia, grasslands still tend to come to mind before cities do.
Some may know the name Ulaanbaatar, but far fewer could clearly picture its streets.
The images people have seen on television and in travel photography — grasslands, horses, and gers — are simply much stronger.
Seen this way, Mongolia occupies an unusual place in the Japanese imagination.
As a landscape, it can seem like a distant country of endless grasslands.
But Japanese people encounter the Mongol world in history classes and have watched Mongolian yokozuna on television for years.
For some, the faces of Asashoryu or Hakuho may come to mind before the landscape of Mongolia itself.
It is a distant country, yet the faces of people from there can feel immediately familiar.
For Japanese people, Mongolia can look very far away as a landscape, while feeling surprisingly close through the people they have come to know.
References
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Mongolia” and Japan–Mongolia relations
- Japan Sumo Association, materials on yokozuna and professional sumo wrestlers
- Japanese history education materials on the Mongol invasions of Japan
- Mongolian government and tourism materials
- Japanese agricultural and Hokkaido-related materials on Jingisukan
