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Some people will compete to be or do anything, as long as there are enticing rewards to be had.

SOME people eat to live and others live to eat. Then, there are those who eat to compete, amazingly, in a circuit called Major League Eating.

Why am I not surprised this is the work of Americans, who call it the professional eating circuit? They’ve even marketed the franchise globally. So far, there’s no World Series Eating, but give it time.

The contestants are called “gurgitators” – Americans will conjure a word for anything!

Despite the very American-ness of the event, the world’s champion eater is a Japanese chap called Takeru Kobayashi. I like the name – there’s a ring of Star Trek to it, and fans will know what I mean.

Anyway, Major League Eating came to Singapore for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and guess what?

Kobayashi, who won the contest held in New York for six years running before losing it the last couple of times to an American, beat the same rival. His feat – he wolfed down 5.4kg of satay in 12 minutes, when the American, Joey Chestnut, could manage only a pathetic 4.1kg.

Most people would be stuffed at their 10th straight stick of satay spread over a half-hour meal. Seen in this context, Kobayashi’s feat is nothing short of phenomenal.

Did someone say: “And pointless?”

Not that I have anything against eating competitions. As a teenager, I could hold my own against friends who were well above my height and weight class when it came to eating.

One of our favourite games was to go to a restaurant, order a particular dish repeatedly and see who could put away the most – the first to give up footed the bill for everyone! Last one standing was dutifully crowned champion. Teenaged males often do the silliest and most pointless things.

I never won, but I never had to pay the bill either, I’m proud to say!

Eating contests didn’t get much publicity back in the 1970s, except for a few paragraphs in the newspapers or magazines.

These days, the Internet and YouTube can turn any small, local event into a truly global circus – Major League Eating gets regular coverage on TV, too.

I’ve seen these professional eating contests on TV, and boy, you need a strong stomach to sit through one of these. A plate of sausages may look tempting enough for your average, hungry non-vegetarian, but when people start shovelling them in end to end, sauce dribbling down their chin and corners of their mouth while trying not to regurgitate the contents of their stomach ... not a pretty or appetising sight, you’ll agree.

What drives these “professional eaters” and what’s the point behind it all? It seems anywhere there’s the slimmest chance for competition, the Americans will organise one. Man’s competitive spirit knows no boundaries ... and there are always people who will watch!

As for Kobayashi, he’s a lad with immense willpower and concentration skills, almost of yogic proportions. During a contest, he says he gets into a zone where it’s just him and the food. Everything else is presumably just cosmic dust.

“It’s like I’m in a trance,” is how he describes this surreal state. If the flower-power generation had this ability, perhaps none of the great rock music of the 1960s and 1970s would have been recorded!

Don’t you wonder what the champion gets out this, apart from the thrill of humiliating his rivals, and raking in a small fortune in prize money and appearance fees each year?

“Sometimes women send me their clothing”, a bemused Kobayashi said.

Now, here’s something you guys aspiring to be rock stars and sex symbols might want to chew over ... perhaps over satay.