Eyo Hadaka Matsuri - Naked Man Festival

Over the past weekend, I had the pleasure to take in a matsuri (festival) known as Eyo Hadaka or Naked Man. This event took place in Okayama with the festivities beginning around 7:30pm. First, a little background.

The Eyo Hadaka began in the 1500s when priests gave out amulets to coincide with the lunar new year. The amulets became popular and were coveted for their good fortune. In order to better distribute the amulets the priests moved to the balcony where they could toss the sought-after item to the crowd below. The amulet switched to a pair of wooden sticks called shingi. And then, it evolved into what I saw last night, which I will now try to describe.

I inadverdently volunteered Will to run in this festival. I had little to no idea of what it entailed except that he would be nearly naked and running around in cold weather with a bunch of other near-naked men. I duly booked a hotel room and then we organized ourselves to get to Okayama (a 2 and a half hour drive away). We arrived with little incident and were loaded onto spectator and runner buses.

Once in the vicinity of the temple the runners were herded off to change into their fundoshi (a cloth covering the groin area, similar to what you see Sumo wrestlers wear) and tabi (ankle socks with a defined toe). This was all the clothing the participating men were permitted to wear during the festivities. Yesterday evening the temperature hovered somewhere near 0 degrees celsius. Once properly garbed, the men sort of half-jogged down a small street leading to the temple gates continually chanting: "Wasshoi! Wasshoi!" which I was told meant "I'm strong/healthy/happy."

Once through the gates, the men were required to run around the temple 3 times. Included in this circuit was a refreshing run through an icy cold fountain. They came out soaking wet and then jogged up the steps of the main pavilion where they stood chanting for a little while before jogging back down the steps to repeat the torture. Around 11:30pm the men started jockeying for position in the main pavilion. Bascially the men were smushed together so that they hardly had enough room to breathe comfortably. A lot of pushing seemed to be involved and, periodically, an avalanche of men would tumble down the stairs. From my vantage point what I saw was a rather large grouping of back, behinds and legs all scrambling and moving, either to get closer to where the shingi would be dropped or merely in a vain attempt to keep warm. From the center of this sardine-like gathering emitted a cloud of steam, created solely by the heat of the mens' bodies.

Promptly at midnight the lights were turned off and the shingi dropped. The lights came back on and the spectators witness an undignified struggle to grab hold of the shingi. I have no idea who managed to get them and have no idea how anyone could tell what happened in the melee. In about 10-15 min it was all over. The Eyo Hadaka was finished until next year.

Once I met back up with Will, he told me it was a great cultural experience but one he likely wouldn't repeat. I suppose it would be hard to try and recreate the first time of running around in a g-string, willingly dunking yourself in freezing water, getting crushed with throngs of other naked men, and frantically chasing two sticks.

Though I could no longer feel my feet by night's end, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the festival. You couldn't pull off something like this back in North America let me tell you. Cheers all.

Twins

I had the pleasure of teaching 2 new additions to a class of mine. And I had the worst time getting their names straight. Why? They looked exactly alike. I've never actually met a pair of identical twins before and the experience, while novel, was somewhat frustrating.

The two had the same hairstyle, nearly the same expression and, unfortunately, the almost the same clothing. The one difference was, one wore a black shirt underneath his vest and one wore a brown one. Nevertheless, I still kept screwing up their names. They had to keep correcting me though I think it started to amuse them that I was having such trouble trying to identify them from each other. By the end of class I'd figured identical twins should have identical names if for no other reason than to make my life easier.

I just fear that they'll be wearing exactly the same clothing for the next class.