April 16, 2006

• Japan At Last! Part 9- Okayama and Naked Man Festival

  The next morning, Vinh and I hopped into his car and took a brief drive
  down to pick up some other people…angie, adam(?) and virginia
  (correct me on those names vinh if i messed them up please)

  Having all piled into the car with even more new friends (i meet a lot
  of strangers when i travel…go fig) We set off on a three hour road
  trip to Ookayama to partake in the Hadaka Matsuri aka Naked Man Festival

  >
  But wait…I get ahead of myself. Allow me to back up a little bit. So
  when first emailing back and forth with vinh about my (then) upcoming
  trip to Japan, i was originally going to stay with him for several days
  in Nara and Kyoto. During one email he happened to mention to me that
  he was going to be leaving his place earlier than expected due to his
  learning of, and desire to participate in this Hadaka Matsuri thing,
  and he asked if i was interested in going along

  well, I googled Hadaka Matsuri and discovered that participating meant
  i would be running drunk through the streets of Japan wearing nothing
  more than a loincloth as part of a shinto fertility ritual

  Government endorsed streaking? who could possibly turn that down? Not me.

  So we took the 3 hour drive down to ookayama telling stories to each
  other all the way about the various stupid things we all did in
  undergrad and how hard we used to party, and just being friendly and
  getting to know each other in general. Aside from the cross country
  drive to school with my brother, it was one of the best road trips ever.

  We got down to Ookayama where we checked into a tiny little hotel that
  was next to impossible to find, and where we met about 50 other
  JET’s  who would also be participating in the festival. We then
  went out to another izagaya around 6ish and began drinking

  drinking you say? why would you drink if you were going to be running
  naked through japan in the middle of february at night in about 20
  degrees farenheit? why indeed
  
  On the far left is Zack, on the far right is Adam and flashing the peace sign is James (i think)
  
  Yeah i dont remember who these people are
  
  Some of my road trip companions
  
  Looks like we are really good friends doesn’t it? that’s the magic of beer my friends…
  
  Vinh and Nina
  
  Team Nara!
  
  I am pretty tipsy by this point…about 3 or 4 of those monjo beer bottles and a few cups of sake into the evening festivities
  
  Right about this point, two of the veterans got up to explain to us a little more about what was going to happen…

  The Hadaka Matsuri supposedly began during the edo period some 500
  years ago on a cold winters day when local priests were distributing a
  paper amulet. Rumors of the amulets effectiveness soared and people
  began pouring into the temple en masse to claim some of this good juju.
  Overwhelmed by the swollen numbers, the priests made their way up to
  the temple rafters and began throwing the charms into the crowd below.
  Over the course of time, the paper amulets were replaced by a pair of
  wooden batons called shingi, two kanji characters meaning treasure and
  wood. Whoever obtains one of these sticks is blessed with a year of
  good fortune (not to mention good sex mojo)

  But i digress. Basically Zack and Luke informed us that we wood first
  pay approx 15 dollars to purchase a loincloth known as a fundoshi
  (think sumo diaper) and some tabi (little white ninja boots). We would
  then take these into a changing tent where we would pay a little old
  Japanese man approximately 10 dollars for the privilege of giving us a
  wedgie
  
  As in, lucas warned us to hold the loincloth up very high near our
  chin, and cup the giblets with the other hand, for zack (acting as the
  japanese fundoshi tyer) would be taking the rest of the loincloth that
  is running through your legs and around your genitalia and…
  
  Yep. Yanking up HARD. and trust me, when i went through it…they did.
  Had it not been for the protective hand, i would be singing soprano and
  not base. Now after you get this peace of cloth jammed up your crack,
  for lack of a better term, the cord would be looped around you once or
  twice, and then pulled down equally hard, placing whatever cloth had
  not already been firmly wedged into your ass the rest of the way there.
  the final result would be
  
  a tiny strip of cloth dangling down meant to cover and simultaneously
  symbolically suggest the size of your manhood. If you had not held the
  cloth up high enough, you would look as if you were stepping lightly in
  your shoes, so to speak. If you did not want to pay for this, and tried
  to do it yourself, in all probability you would be running naked. Not
  that the cloth covered more than the actual penis itself however…my
  gloriously pale ass was still visible to all of Japan.
  
  Sounds like fun right? Running with the bulls is for sissies…

  So all good and liquored up, we boarded the bus to take us to the
  temple. Obviously, I would have no place on my naked body to hold a
  camera, so I handed it off to one of my new friends virginia and told
  her to take lots of pics and video. unfortunately for you she didnt see
  me during the actual event so i have no pics of my loincloth clad
  body…but i looked good…ask anyone who was there…the dity workout
  paid off
  
  
  
  
  

  >
  In case you are wondering, wasshoi in Japanese means i’m cold and
  shitfaced and here with my brothers in arms to fight nearly naked for a
  pair of sticks. Those subtitles will get you everytime

  
  
  move along, nothing to see here

  What are we all waiting in line for?
  
  Well, at around 8pm, they let us go in groups to cleanse ourselves in
  the temple pond located near the main gate. Now this is no mean feat
  here…despite how gay the idea of a bunch of naked men frolicking in a
  lake may appear, allow me to remind you

  1.  It is the middle of february, hence about 20 degrees farenheit
  2. It is night
  3. I am wearing nothing more than a thin strip of cloth over my privates
  4. I am drunker than drunk
  5. I am jumping into a cold lake under all the above conditions

  Once in the lake you are supposed to make a minimum of lap around while
  touching the gluteus maximus and mammary glands of the female statue
  sitting in the center of the lake. (fertility ritual, remember?)
  Somewhere during this lap i lost one of my ninja boots, so i came out
  of the lake with a dripping wet, icy cold loincloth, and one equally
  wet paper thin shoot. But dont worry…i lost the other one on the run
  to the temple. SO i was barefoot for the rest of the ceremony. SO
  obviously once leaving the lake, the pace picks up in an effort to keep
  warm

  We make our way to main pavilion of the temple (running barefoot on
  cobblestones and wood no less), while the priests up in the rafters
  pour “holy” (read as: ice cold-literally) water on the combatants.

  All of the above take donkey sized cojones. Now allow me to add o a few
  more tidbits i forgot to mention…once you are on the temple grounds,
  it is like being in a giant naked mosh pit. You lose the ability to
  move independently of the mob and whichever way it goes, you go. You
  only have the ability to shift yourself at most a couple inches in any
  given direction and even that takes massive effort since you are
  crammed together like sardines with the other combatants.

  Incidentally i dont use the word combatants lightly; a number of people
  have died over the years taking part, and many more have been injured.
  The fighting and shoving that take place is pretty damn brutal and
  while not encouraged, is anticipated. Newly intiated members of the
  yakuza wear flesh colored tape to hide their tattoos and sneak knives
  or other objects under the tape with which to start fights and all the
  better if it is foreginers.

  Not to say that you are not equally in danger from all the rest of the
  japanese just jostling you and stepping on your feet or jamming elbows
  into you as the crowd shifts. At times you have to place your hand up
  into the air, just to creat a conduit so you can breath. The
  tempurature heats up from all that body heat and the buckets of ice
  water being thrown on you from the priests are both a shock and relief
  right up until they evaporate once they hit your skin
  
  .
  
  At 11:00pm the last of the groups are ushered into the main building.
  This year 10,000 men participated. Our nara team alone was about 50. At
  this point in the night the chanting (wasshoi!) becomes deafening and
  the struggle for position begins. Those in the inner sanctum start
  swaying and chanting in unison, like hypnotized. Others are on the
  rafters perched like vultures waiting for the carnage about to begin.
  The tempo builds and the pushing and moving of this massive mosh pit
  becomes more violent, with men on the outer edges of the shrine’s
  veranda being shoved off in the hundreds. Nor are these railing with
  handles…these are cold, brutal steep narrow stone steps and a painful
  landing for any who do not quickly catch their step.

  Fights
  begin to break out as the clock approaches midnight. Since 8pm
  we have been huddled shivering and sweating at the same time waiting
  for this moment. As the clock strikes midnight, a switch is thrown and
  the complex plunges into darkness. The shingi are dropped into the
  thousands of outstretched grasping hands below. Those only moment ago
  clinging to the walls thrown themselves into the crowd like kamikaze.
  Within seconds the sticks are claimed and the struggle to keep them
  begins
  r>

  
  Now i fought for the stick but not too hard since there is only one
  place to safely secure a shingi if you manage to get it in the first
  place-and that’s down the front of your shingi. Yes folks not only do
  you streak as part of this ritual, but you stuff your loincloth. Now
  try and imagine fighting your way out of a mosh pit with a wooden stick
  shoved down your pants. Now remember that on other teams are people
  looking for the shingi to the extent oh having team members who run up
  and will give other men the reach-around to see if the shingi is hidden
  in the crotch of the fundoshi. I got more action that night then i have
  seen all year :-O. Now lets says you had the shingi, then the fellow
  who just got to second base with you will scream for his teamates to
  help him get the shingi from you, and well i think you can all imagine
  what happens next. So if the shingi happened to come my way, great and
  if not, well, i tried

  Finally the fights began to disperse, a team emerged bloody but
  victorious and we all made our way back to the changing tents. Sadly my
  CMS beanie was stolen, but since everything else was still there, i
  came out ahead. We then made our way back to the buses basking in our
  own glory among each other. We had faced the beast and survived. And
  while it was an awesome exprience, i think i can confidently say that
  once was enough.

  Fundoshi and Tabi: 1000 yen
  Man to give you a wedgie: 1000 yen
  Bus ride to temple grounds: 500 yen
  Government sanctioned streaking with strangers in the middle of Japans coldest month of the year at night: priceless

  hows that for a mastercard commercial?

  Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops…no the next morning i
  woke up both drunk and hungover simultaneously. It felt sorta like
  this…

  “Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he
  could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the
  halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked
  to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the
  morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he
  resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty
  thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had
  been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its
  mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and
  then been expertly beaten up by the secret police. He felt bad.“

  So yeah
  
  
  
  
  
  I bid vinh and all the rest of my new friends goodbye and caught a
  train out of okayama heading for my last stop of this trip, karatsu
  (sounds like “carrots”) to meet up with uclari and roninmk
  
  It was off to the countryside for me…

  -J

  • 1:07 am
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