The ultimate fun run
2007-09-26
Hash House Harriers
Beer and bipedal pursuits may seem at odds, but the wacky triathlon of Hash House Harriers calls for running oddball orienting and drinking for the ultimate trophy - fun. For 70 years, this venerable tradition has bridged borders between fun and fitness, child's play and playing to win - and even nations.
Imagine a race with 20, 50 or more competitors that have no idea where they're going. Sure the goal is to win, but finding chalk-mark trail signs left by the meet's hosts along a dizzying urban or suburban landscape is par for the course. Diehards have their own chalk to write their finishing times on the pavement of immortality. But even they rely on group efforts as finders of false or true trails alert the pack to what lies ahead. Beer, whether before, during and most certainly afterward is not only OK, it's embraced. This is the "hash," a surreal sport of sorts played the world around.
"You can hangout and act stupidly with people you don't have to see at work the next morning," says Ryann Thomas, who when hashing goes by the name of Cockbait. "I do it because I hate running and I find it bearable if I'm with friends. It's also a great way to see places you wouldn't normally see as a tourist."
For hashers, the revelers in this quirky noncompetitive race, it's part game, part party and a full-fledged international social club. For many it's a great way to gather for fun and work up a thirst as well as a sweat. For some, like Andrew Sheppard, AKA Snow White, "grand moonie" of the Rising Moon Hash house, trail master for Tokyo Ladies Hash house and joint master of the Tokyo Hash House Harriers, it's a way of life.
"I graduated from University, there was no work for architects in the UK, so I went to Dubai and found work," says Sheppard, who has also hashed in much of Southeast Asia, the UK, Moscow and met his wife and most his friends at hashes. "Hashing was what everyone there did, on a Sunday night after work the run start was advertised in the national newspaper." That was 20 years ago and he's been at ever since.
"The way the hash runs work is that fast runners do a lot of running trying to find the trail. Slower people do not have to do so much running. They can even walk," says Sheppard, adding that most people keep together. What keeps him going back for more? "It's a social group. The running part is a shared experience that makes the party more enjoyable. ... Japan is probably the best place to hash in the world. There's so much beautiful countryside and it's accessible by train."
The hash originates from the British schoolboy game hounds-and-hares in which fleeing "hares" leave a trail of paper; the ensuing "hounds" must find and follow the trail to snare the hares. The modern-day adult version started in present-day Kuala Lumpur in 1938. Accountant Albert Stephen Ignatius Gispert and other British ex-pats wanted to keep fit, get rid of hangovers, work up a thirst for beer and show older members they weren't over the hill, according the club's charter. As a slam to the bad food served at the inn where members lived, the club dubbed itself the Hash House.
Today, there're an estimated 1,700 hash houses worldwide. More than 20 of these city- or area-based clans are in Japan with a total of about 5,000 members. They can be found in Iwakuni, Ibaraki, Kobe, Nagoya, Okinawa and Osaka, while the Tokyo area boast three houses that have weekly runs and another half a dozen that host occasional hashes. Each has its own group dynamics and most have overlapping memberships. Hashers also participate in regional, national and international hashes.
Like its origins, the hash has traditionally been an oasis of ex-pat camaraderie but times have changed, especially in Japan. These days, most in the Kanagawa-based Samurai Hash House Harriers, the area's largest house, are Japanese. While hashers say, the Hash Harriers in Tokyo and the Tokyo Ladies Hash House Harriettes draw more foreigners on their weeknight runs. "More and more Japanese are doing hashes," Thomas says. "Without the locals, (regular) hashes don't survive because foreigners often eventually leave. The strongest hashes are the ones with a strong Japanese base."
Part of hashing's universal draw is its unique subculture that includes given "hash names," frat-like customs and terms such as "on-on" and "on-back," respective cries for finding or losing the trail, which are part of everyday hasher vernacular. But that's not to say these fun-loving trail seekers are hung up on rules. "There are no central rules, but there are traditions that damn well better be followed," says Sheppard, quoting the illustrious hash motto.
Those traditions include senior members doling out hash names to initiates such as Sear My Ass, Snow White and Cockbait. Then there's the "down-downs," post-hash parties where everything from first-time hashers ("virgins") to winners of the night's hash are saluted with the raucous ceremonial quaffing of a full mug of beer (soft drinks for minors). "We are not runners with a drinking problem," hashers are wont to say. "We are drinkers with a running problem." But that's not to say hashes aren't for serious runners.
An avid runner and adventure tour guide calling himself Sear My Ass, says he finds hashing scratches more than one itch: "I think running is better than sex - it's cheaper and safer." But the U.S. native who says he runs 23 kilometers a day and competes at least twice a year adds running is not the only thing that's lured him to hashes for more than six years. "Running in competitions is kind of boring. I come here to meet people, socialize and drink beer."
Sheppard says all the Kanto-area hashes have their share of "FRB's" (Fast Running Bastards). "If you are very, very slow, fat, old or unfit," he adds, "you might want to avoid a weeknight hash in Tokyo and start by going to the Samurai or another weekend hash in the countryside."
"Keeping fit demands motivation," Sheppard says. "Most people don't have it, but the hash provides that motivation. Without the motivation that I got from the hash, and the hashers who provided the challenge, I would never have been able to run a full Marathon, do a triathlon, do the Mount Fuji Tozan Marathon or walk the Oxfam Trailwalker Japan 100 km challenge."
Anyone can join a hash, says Sheppard, "all you have to do is know where to go."
Kanagawa area hashers and would-bes alike would do well to visit the Samurai Hash House Harriers at: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/samurai/. Tokyo Hash House Harriers' Monday meets and more are detailed at: http://tokyohash.org/Tokyo/Mens.html. The scoop on the Tokyo Ladies Hash House Harriettes' Wednesday hashes and more is at: http://www.tlh3.co.jp. The international collective voice on hash-house hijinks in Japan and elsewhere is online at: http://www.gotothehash.net. For an irreverent but not necessarily updated summary of Tokyo area hashes check out: http://tokyohash.org.
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