Hadaka Matsuri (literally, "Naked Man Festival") takes place in select locations around Japan in January or February every year. The gist of the event is this: thousands of men strip down to loincloths (fundoshi) and tabi (socks) and run around a Shinto shrine, trying to catch a couple of smelly sticks (shingi- they smell of incense) that are thrown by priests at the stroke of midnight. Whoever catches the sticks will have good luck for a year. In some cases the winners are given a lot of money, which is probably then invested in sutures and plastic surgery, as the winner is inevitably cut, bruised, crushed and trampled in the chaotic rush for the sticks.
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| I have over 500 photos from the evening, all of mostly naked men. Let's just say that it's nice that Asian men are mostly hairless. |
The Nara delegation for Naked Man put forward 8 intrepid competitors, though that number would have been higher were women allowed to participate. As spectators and members of the entourage, the rest of us pitched in by giving moral support and prepping our team for the grueling night ahead of them: having your nether regions wrapped in a loincloth by a stranger, running around in the cold, and being doused in freezing water as part of a purification ritual. Our prep mainly consisted of passing around a bottle of Jameson to keep our champions comfortably buzzed (for warmth), and finding ingenious ways to conceal the large tattoos of two of our party. Tattoos are a big no-no in Japan because they are associated with the yakuza (Japanese mob). In an effort to exclude yakuza from public spaces and events, people with tattoos are prohibited from going to onsen, having massages...or taking part in Naked Man. Of course, the yakuza find a way around this ban by covering up their tattoos with bandages and surgical tape. You can spot them at Naked Man because of their black fundoshi (most everyone else is wearing white). The loudspeakers declare that drinking is strictly prohibited, but that rule, like that of no tattoos, is quietly overlooked by most officials. However, in order to minimize the number of injuries that arise from (or in part from) intoxication, the shrine changed the time they would drop the sticks from midnight to 10pm.
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| Outside a wrapping tent |
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| On the run, being sprayed with water |
Runners and spectators arrive separately, as the runners need extra time to get wrapped up in their fundoshi by local volunteers, which apparently involves a cinching action that sounds quite painful. We the spectators got to the shrine at around 7:30pm, and found that the party was already in full swing. Legions of diapered men, old, young and middle-aged, were jogging around the streets to keep warm, through water-filled ponds that had been dug on the grounds, and up the steps of the shrine, shouting, "Wasshoi, wasshoi!" After making the rounds a few times, I went to snag a spot in the spectators area that was appropriate for someone vertically challenged. I was not disappointed, as I had a prime view of the main "stage" of the shrine, above which the priests throw out the shingi. Standing on the stage with 10 Japanese men were 4 of our party, whose strategy was clearly the same as mine: get a good spot early.
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| Running up the temple stairs |
At 8:30pm, I checked the temperature. It was -3 degrees Celsius (that's 27 degrees Fahrenheit). By 9pm, the shrine was filling up quickly. The "stage" and its surrounding stairs were soon so crowded with jostling bodies that every 5-10 minutes you'd see whole sections of men tumbling down the stairs like dominoes. You could hear the thumps from where we were standing, about 150m away. After a few seconds, the dazed men would straggle up the stairs again, and try to push their way deeper into the crowd. Fights and pushing are not uncommon, and are considered a part of strategy. One of our runners told me incredulously afterwards, "There was this pervert standing next to me! The dude kept pinching my butt and then reaching around and plucking my pubes! I tried to elbow him, but he just kept at it until [another ALT] reached around me and put his hand between the guy's hip and his, you know, front. That finally stopped the guy, but it was SO WEIRD!" Another ALT turned around and found a middle-aged Japanese man giving him a death stare. The man then proceeded to start punching the ALT, which he made no move to fend off so as not to escalate the situation, until other Japanese runners quickly came over and dragged the pugilist away. At one point, the police had to intervene and push their way through the crowds to rescue a man who had been injured in the scrum, a process that took about 10 minutes to complete.
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| Start the countdown |
By 9:45pm, the crowds were so dense that you could see steam rising up from the bodies, as though it were a scene from Dante's Inferno. The atmosphere became more and more frenzied until 10pm, when the sticks were dropped and the lights went out. When they came back on a few moments later, the mass appeared to be boiling- steam was coming from everywhere as cold water was thrown down to keep the bodies from sticking together. People were pushed and tackled, and some were trying to hurry off. As one ALT said to me, "Once I realized I hadn't caught one of the sticks, I realized it was time to just put my hands in the air, and calmly try to walk away. If you stuck around at that point, you were just looking for a fight." Checking the temperature again, it was now -5 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit).
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| Shrine exodus |
The end was anticlimactic, like a poorly executed magic trick that gets built up and built up, but the illusion is so quick that you miss it. Thankfully, there were no deaths this year, and other than a few bruises and abrasions, none of our lads were hurt in the scuffle. They even made the paper the next day! Still, as we made our way back to the buses, I couldn't help but think that the runners looked a little deflated and unwilling to let go of the evening, despite its trials. They meandered their way down the street slightly hunched, no longer chanting or carousing, their still-bare butts peeking sadly from underneath their snugly zipped down jackets. Naked Man was officially concluded. Goodnight, moon.
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