With only a skimpy loincloth to protect their modesty, thousands of men brave freezing temperatures to fight for lucky charms thrown by a priest at Japan’s annual Naked Man Festival.
A writhing mass of sweaty worshipers wrestled for elbow-room inside Saidai Temple in Okayama late on Saturday night in the hope of catching the sacred batons.
About 10,000 hardy souls celebrating the religious festival stepped under ice-cold fountains to purify their bodies before risking life and limb in a mysterious ceremony dating back 500 years.
Photo: AFP
“It can get very rough,” 62-year-old auto mechanic Kazuhiko Nishigami told a reporter, bare-chested and ready to rumble. “You have to write down your blood type on a form and tuck it into your loincloth in case you get seriously hurt.”
Most who took on the Hadaka Matsuri (Naked Festival), suffered no more than a few bumps and bruises after scrapping over a pair of wooden sticks, measuring 4cm in diameter and 20cm in length, believed to bring good fortune to whoever catches them.
However, revelers have been crushed to death in the past in a melee that makes Tokyo’s infamous rush-hour trains look like a walk in the park.
Photo: AFP
It is easy to see how fatalities could occur when the lights suddenly go off and priests cast the mystical charms from the temple’s rafters into the heaving crowd below.
As holy water was splashed from above, camera flashes illuminated the sea of bodies like disco lights at a rave — before all hell broke loose.
In a scene reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno, steam rises as thousands of groaning men, faces contorted with pain, thrust their arms upwards from the suffocating pit below, as if begging for forgiveness — or if not a pair of trousers and a shirt to keep warm.
Those who snaffle one of the holy talismans tossed from above have to fight tooth and nail to keep hold of it as they come under attack by rivals desperate for the fortune it bestows.
Fueled by beer and sake, many festivalgoers came to blows.
“I was lucky to escape,” said firefighter Kosuke Yasuhara, clutching one of the talismans.
“It dropped right in the middle of our group,” the 38-year-old added. “I had to quickly slip it into my loincloth to hide it and then force my way out.”
High priest Zenko Tsuboi said the festival was not an orgy of violence, even if wailing ambulance sirens have provided an unwanted soundtrack in previous years.
“Those who catch the charms will prosper and receive a bumper harvest,” he said. “We want to remind people this is a religious festival so we have become much stricter these days about alcohol and rough behavior.”
As revelers and the hundreds of police and firemen on call made their way back through the rice fields to the city, father-to-be Yasuhara broke into a wide grin.
“This charm is a gift from the gods,” he said. “I believe it will deliver us a bouncing baby when it’s born in April.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese