NSFW :: the infamous Hounen Matsuri

On March 15th, a couple girls and I trekked up to a town called Komaski-shi to see the infamous Hounen Matsuri which is, decidedly, NSFW. In case this acronym is new to you: NSFW means Not Safe For Work. I take no responsibility for you reading this in your cube and your boss coming up over your shoulder and making it real awkward, real fast. Hokay? Hokay.

Hounen Matsuri is colloquially known as the Penis Festival. Yup. Held at a shrine called Tagata Jinja just north of Nagoya, it's pretty infamous and was billed as a 'don't miss.'

Traditionally a rural community, the festival celebrates fertility and renewal, praying for an abundant harvest of crops and a place to ask for blessings for upcoming conception, ongoing pregnancies, or expected births. The worship is of the Earth, of the power of nature through regeneration and rebirth.

The procession to the temple is made to ensure a bountiful harvest: it symbolizes the ancient male deity Takeinadane visiting the powerful and waiting female deity Tamahime-no-mikoto. The process includes phallic shapes of all kinds and sizes, from women cradling wooden penises like babies (and inviting the audience to reach out and touch), to the giant and detailed banner waving in the wind. Sake is handed out to crowds, and it was encouraged to have more than one glass.

The big kahuna (sorry) in the procession is a giant wooden phallus, measuring 13 feet long and over 620 pounds. It's carried on a large shrine, where it sticks out from both ends, and the total weight is more than 885 pounds. It's carried by 60 men, who are broken into 12 different teams. The men are all aged 42, which is considered an unlucky year for males (carrying the phallus is said to change one's luck). It winds alongs streets lined with people drinking and cheering before it enters the shrine and is blessed and enshrined for the next year.

The mood is boisterious and roudy, and it cumulates in a mochi toss, where mochi -- glutinous rice balls that traditionally symbolize good luck -- are hurled from a balcony to the crowd below. Catch one and you'll have good luck for the next year, but watch out because they could leave a bruise; those suckers are hard! The crowd was as crazy as a sake fueled mosh pit. 

We all caught one, and then had our pictures taken by a slight inebrated man, whose finger is captured along with our faces. (I love these photos.)

As my new Japanese friend Y. put it: the Japanese are usually very reserved and formal, but given the right situation, and let can really let loose. I'll say.