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The title of this blog alone should attract more visitors than any of my other entries! The third week of February I was lucky (unlucky?) to go to the Naked Man Festival, better known as the Hadaka Masturi. There are naked man festivals all over Japan, but I think the one in Okayama-Ken is the oldest and most famous. If you have no interest in reading the blog, check out this guy Josh's video.
Naked Man Festival
Casey Lary2006-10-06 17:55:58
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basics of the Hadaka Matsuri. Now onto my experience....
Since the trek to Okayama is a little far, Lisa and I went early so we could check out the sights in Okayama...not much! We did go to Okayama castle, better known as the "Black Heron Castle," which is the opposite of the most famous castle in Japan, Himeji, aka "The White Egret." I'm still not sick of castles and loved to go
Stirling and Pete psyching themselves up for the run
up the castle. Lisa and I got to try on kimonos inside the place. Super fun! As the nigt continued more and more jets were lurking the streets of Okayama.
Early on during the night of the festival there are events for younger boys to pariticipate in, possibly training for their future participation in the main event. Beers in hand, we arrived at the temple grounds with thousands of people already there. There were the token festival vending stalls selling squid on sticks and more beer. I have never see soooo many police officers in my life! It was craziness! In Japan they have no law against drinking in the streets. Felt very awkward to be able to drink and be drunk in front of the police officers, no questions asked. Coming here we had no idea what to expect. I thought it was a quick event...men shed down to the loincloths, run out there, get the stick, and go. ooooh no. Crazy Japanese men were running around for HOURS in nothing but those loincloths. I swear Japanese people have no concept of being cold! It was CRAZY! Of course, it definitely made for some good photos. There were
some guys wandering around with paint. Somehow I took the paint from them, and drew smiley faces on their stomachs. In return they gave me a uni-brow which i quickly wiped away. When we got to the waiting ground to watch there were already hundreds of guys in position for the Shingi to be dropped. It was cold! I kept on saying how cold I was, but knew that those guys were a hell of a lot colder
...
See photographs from:
Japan Gallery
