Hadaka Matsuri (The Naked Man Festival)

I live in the cultural heart of this country, but I would say that one of the largest cultural assets in Japan is the many matsuri, or festivals, that take place throughout the year. So far, I have been lucky enough to attend many of the big ones, from the Jidai Matsuri (Period Festival) in Kyoto to the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) in Sapporo, Hokkaido. However, the largest and wackiest I have yet encountered had to have been the most recent: the Hadaka Matsuri, otherwise known as the Naked Man Festival, in Okayama. Don’t worry, it is not nearly as scandalous as it sounds and nobody is actually running around nude. It goes something like this...

The event is held every year at this large temple complex in Okayama city called Saidai-ji Temple. The basic premise is nine-thousand loincloth-clad men join together in the temple in a mosh pit-like fashion. At midnight, the temple priests throw out holy sticks (like relay-race sticks) that are supposed to bring the lucky soul who gets the stick enlightenment.
The participants arrive around 8pm and get dressed in heated tents. Most men wear white cloths, that look like what a sumo wrestler would don, with the exception of the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) who wear black. They also have traditional footwear, which looked like ‘penguin-toed’ (two toed) socks to me.

Guests are allowed in the temple area until around 9:30 or 10:00 when the participants start to gather. Before this time, they are running around, calling out chants (sort of like an army, trying to keep warm) and I guess they jump in a pond a few times. The evening we were there, it was freezing cold and pouring rain the whole time, so it does not surprise me that I think we saw a lot of them drinking. The area was also lined with stalls, selling grilled meat and such, and a lot of people were crowed at the banks of a nearby lake early in the evening to watch fireworks.

There are police everywhere during the festival, which is pretty necessary in such a big group. It is not that common, but people do get trampled in the commotion, and tragically, one Japanese man did die this year. So around 10:00, we went to our spots in the bleachers facing the temple (tickets required). Group by group, the men started to march in as the temple area began to resemble an outdoor rock concert venue more than a spiritual premise. The rain was coming down pretty hard and we were completely soaked through, so we were getting anxious to see what would happen when the sticks were actually thrown. We were able to catch a few small glimpses of some of our 'crew' (the Hyogo men) in the crowd. Once in a while, you would see a wave go over the crowd, as groups of men fell down the stairs in a domino-like fashion, but otherwise, it was just a lot of chanting as the mob swayed from side to side.

At 11:00, things started to happen. It was actually a bit frightening, and I think a few of us watching actually screamed. We could see men dancing at the front of the temple, but it was literally just a sea of flesh. And then... the lights went out. Due to the rain, the sky was misty, so it almost looked like a scene out of a thriller movie. When the lights came back on, the sticks had been thrown (from priests on the temple's beams), as men trampled each other and wrestled in groups for the chance to obtain that promise of enlightenment.* At one point, we spotted our friend Jim on the stairs, looking distressed. We later heard accounts of men getting pulled under the stampede and even of several fights. Many of our friends came out with big scratches and some more substantial wounds, and the majority of them went home promptly in the morning to tend to their aching bodies. But at that moment, they were in for the fight of their lives.

In the end, one of our friends actually got one of the sticks (which he hid - somewhere in his cloth...somehow... until he returned home). We stayed at a Japanese in near the train station in the center of town and ended up getting home and settled somewhere around 3am. As you can imagine, the energy from the event drove us to stay up a bit later, however, and I think I finally got to bed around 6am (after talking for a few hours). With so little sleep, it was a painful sightseeing trip to the black clastle and (georgous) Japanese garden the next day (before attending a Harimacho International Association event that evening, none-the-less), but it was worth it. The Hadaka Matsuri was definately one of the most bizarre cultural events I have ever attended. But, hey, it was a good time... makes a good story to write home about!

*It sounds funny, but people really do believe in these things. I have heard companies will pay around $10,000 for one of the sticks, because it will bring them good luck.
More information: http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/history/traditionalevents/a11_fes_eyo.html