La Tomatina · Worksheet 1
One Red Hour in Buñol
Read the story. 英文を読もう。
1Every year, on the last Wednesday of August, a small town in Spain turns red. The town is Buñol, about 38 kilometers from Valencia. Only about 10,000 people live there. But on this day, around 20,000 visitors come to throw tomatoes at each other.
2Local people say it all started in 1945. Young people pushed into a parade of giant puppets in the town square. Someone fell down, and a fight began. There was a vegetable stand nearby, so people grabbed tomatoes and threw them. The next year, the young people came back with their own tomatoes.
3At first, the town did not like the tomato fight. It banned the fight several times in the 1950s. So in 1957, people held a funny protest. They carried a big tomato through the streets in a coffin, like a funeral, and a band played sad music. Two years later, the festival became official.
4Today, the battle starts at noon. Big trucks bring more than 100 tons of very ripe tomatoes. These tomatoes are grown for the festival, not for eating. You must squash a tomato before you throw it, so it does not hurt. And you must not tear other people's shirts.
5After one hour, a loud signal ends the fight. Then fire trucks wash the streets with water. Since 2013, people need a ticket to join, because the crowd got too big. Children aged 4 to 14 have their own smaller fight on the Saturday before. By the evening, the red streets are gray stone again, and the town is quiet until next August.
- parade パレード、行列
- puppet 人形、操り人形
- stand 屋台、売り場
- grab ぱっとつかむ
- ban 禁止する
- protest 抗議
- coffin 棺おけ
- funeral お葬式
- official 正式な、公式の
- ripe 熟した
- squash ぐしゃっとつぶす
- tear 破る、引きさく