ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and analyzes an annual event – held in 1982 – that is organized by the joint Hieidaira-Yamanaka sports committee, and which draws to it the greatest number of local residents and representatives of local organizations. Members of this committee solicit contributions from many local businesses and neighborhood associations to cover the costs of the field-day. In conjunction with the neighborhood associations, the committee sends formal invitations to local and city officials to attend the sports day. On the city level it is the mayor and his deputy, members of the city and prefectural assemblies, the heads of the Board of Education, and the chair of the city's sports promotion committee who all receive invitations. The committee mounts an "advertising" campaign urging local residents to participate in the sports day. The chapter uses the ethnographic present to describe the sports day that took place in October 1982.
