Monday, March 22, 2010

Naked. Shoving. Festival.

I don't even know HOW to start this story...

I went to school last wednesday and there was a large plastic bag sitting on my desk. The contents of the bag were...

White shorts that slightly resembled boxers

Strange white shorts that I can only explain as being like a vest-version of shorts. They went on and they didn't really connect in the front, you just tied them and hoped they stayed shut.

A long white sheet that was about 8 feet long and maybe 3 feet wide.

White sock/shoes. They looked like socks except the bottom had thick rubber like a shoe. It was split so the big toe would go in its own section while the rest of the toes would huddle together in theirs own section. (They call these tabi in Japanese)

Last was a piece of cloth to tie around my head.


These contents could mean only ONE thing...

NAKED. SHOVING. FESTIVAL.

Halfway through the day a teacher came with a map of where to go after school.
"
First go to this building," He circled a spot on the map in red pen.
"Then we will get warm before we change clothes, and we will have something to eat."
He drew a line in red pen. "We will walk here after we have changed clothes. We will rub wax on each other."

Then he stopped and looked at me and said, "This part will get dangerous...maybe."

He scribbled a spot in red. "Here, some men will start to push against us. They will not win, though. In groups of 4 we will push past. When you get past these men you must run. Many people will shout 'RUN! RUN! RUN!' so please, run this way." He drew a line to a dead end. "WATER." he said. "Cold water." he gave me a look, the look meant "cold. water." then he said "When you enter the water you must clap and then say some words."

"What words?"
"Magic words."
"Can you tell them to me?" I knew it was Abracadabra.
"No, because I don't even know them, they are magic."
"Does anyone know them?"
"Yes, someone, I don't know, they are magic, just yell loud and people will think you are saying them.. they sound like this..."
he yelled something that well... sounded like magic words....then he drew a line back to where we broke through the groups in teams of 4 but right before he reached them, he cut down a little side area "Now run here and shove everyone you can. You want to get inside the temple, but maybe you won't. Many people will push against you and only 1 person may go in at a time. Most people will not enter."

"Have you ever entered?"

"Seven times." And he slapped down his pen with pride.

"Wow! How many times have you done it??"

"Seven." He closed his eyes to express even greater pride in letting know that he as made it every time he participated.

"How long do I shove for?" I asked.

"As long as you like, maybe for one hour? If you want to leave you can walk out, but only exit on the south side or else everyone will shove you back into the group and you were have to keep shoving."

At this point, I knew that I had something special waiting for me that evening.

The teacher handed me a sheet of paper that had the events written out in Japanese. It said...

4:00 "Warming the body"

7:00 Candle ceremony

and it continued down with all sorts of things

"Wait, this says I should warm my body at 4, but I will still be at school." I said.

"That's ok, you can go at 5:30, only serious people go at 4:00."

"Do you just go in a bath? or what?"

"No, warming your body is to drink lots of alcohol. Lost and lots of alcohol." He gave me a smile and left.

So after school I went home, changed into some more comfortable clothes. I wasn't sure if I would be wearing my underwear under all these garb. I had on long underwear and decided that if I were supposed to have underwear on (it's called the NAKED man festival, after all, this wasn't the strangest thing to be wondering.) that I should have on white underwear so it didn't show through my white fesitval clothes. I switched out out of my long underwear, threw on some more comfortable clothes and headed out.

I got to the building where I would be "warming my body" at 5:30 and was welcomed by warm applause from some of the "serious" teachers who went at 4. 7 were already there and 18 teachers had signed up in total. "MIKE! MIKE! BEER? OR JAPANESE... SPIRITS!?!?!? SPIRITS!!! HAHHAHA!" they love speaking English when they get "warm."
I had some beer. They were shoveling down festival food which is usually pretty greasy, I didn't want to over do it. The last thing you want is a stomach ache after you've been bringe drinking and are being shoved from all sides... puking is one thing... but the other end... in all white? No thank you. I stuck to the dry foods, crackers, chips, peanuts... ya know, typical bar food. Although I had a little takoyaki (octopus dough-balls).

At 7:00 it was announced that we would now change out clothes. Everyone in the room stood up, at this point everyone was beet red and wobbled about. Someone had to help you wrap yourself with the long cloth. You held one end down and just spin really fast. "THIS IS THE FUNNEST PART!" someone yelled. "THIS!?! is the funnest part?!" I thought, great... there is still 2 more hours of wax, ice water, and shoving ahead of me and apparently the funniest part was over in 30 seconds. We were given these sandals that we tied to our feet, they were made of straw.

We lined up and everyone started yelling "SANYO! SANYO! SANYO! SANYO!"
Sanyo is a Japanese electronics company... but I don't think they were referring to that...

They gave me a final cup of "holy Sake" someone yelled "HOLY JAPANESE SPIRITS! AHAHAHAHHAAH!!" then we went outside where some giant candles awaited. Our team leader lifted the candle and hot wax poured off of it. Everyone stuck their hands into the candle and started rubbing hot wax all over everyone. On peoples backs, chest, arms, cheeks, legs. Any exposed skin. I guess this is part of the "warming." Many strangers came up to me and put hot wax all over my nipples. Probably 20 or 30 people rubbed wax on my nipples by the end of it... That's how popular I am. I don't think the sexual escapades of most porn stars even include that. I can't even lie... it felt good too. Not in a weird sexual way... but you know when someone blows a candle out and you put wax on your finger? That's fun and its warm. Well it was cold out! AND I'd been drinking heavily for an hour and a half and now I was being covered in warm wax, don't act like you aren't curious what its like.

We started marching and within moments of marching, the shoving began. We linked arms in groups of 4 and marched forward. We got to the temple gates and the shoving grew even strongers. I could see the opposing line-up ahead. All I had to do was make it past them... then I could jump in cold cold cold water and scream some magic words... talk about incentive.

I got closer and closer. By the time you were up to the front your group of 4 had been broken and you were just shoving as hard as you can while at the same time you were being shoved so hard that you weren't supporting your own weight anymore. It hurt a little to be pushed this hard, but the most painful part was everyone stepping on my feet. The straw sandals werent holding up so well, it was cold and icey on the ground from the snow and the straw was starting to break. I started to shove harder and harder. I saw a group of 3 people break through and they needed a fourth in order to ender the pool. I stuck my arm out and yelled "SANYO!!!!!!! SANYO!!!!!!" I still wasn't sure what it meant, but everyone else was yelling it. One of the people in the group, a fellow teacher at my school, grabbed my arm. A small tug of war ensued and eventually I was lifted out of the shoving group, over the top of the opposers and into the "RUN!" area. "RUUUUUUUUUN!!!" they yelled and we bolted to the cold water. We jumped in and I clapped and said "ABRACADABRA!!!!" in a really loud slurred voice because it kiiiiiinda sounded like I was supposed to say, plus no one was paying attention to what I was saying anyway, we were all too cold, too covered in wax, and too drunk.

"GO! GO! GO!" we ran back and before me was a pit of men. A laaaaaarge pit of men. Shoving get into this small small shrine. I pushed to get into the center so I could make it past a group of "temple guards" who were pushing back. In order to get in you basically had to be stepped on and have you face smushed and probably hair pulled. On a normal day you can go into this temple clothed, sober, and free of any pushing... so like before I had so much incentive to do it this time. Even the guys who made it into the small opening in the wall of temple guards got pushed out and they had to try again. I made it front and center but a huge wave of warm male wax covered flesh knocked me out of the middle back to the side. I pushed for about an hour, maybe forty five minutes. I could see Hilary watching from the sides, her mouth gaped open and she waved and photographed me. Every so often they temple guards would yell "YOU WILL LOSE YOU WILL LOSE!" and we'd respond "YOU WILL LOSE YOU WILL LOSE!" and we'd do this for a while then the guards would unleash a handful of mochi cakes (little pounded rice cakes) they were about the side of a double-stuffed oreo. Catching these are good luck, but really hard to do when you're drunk and being shoved. I knew I wasn't getting into the shrine but I HAD to at least get a mochi. ...and I got TWO. TAKE THAT TEMPLE GUARDS! I GOT TWO MOCHI CAKES! I was also determined to not be the first person from my school to give up pushing and I succeeded, 8 other teachers quick before me. I ran out the enterance where a camera man stopped me and interviewed me for the local news. "WHERE ARE YOU FROM?! HOW DID IT FEEL? WHAT DID YOU DO?" he asked me a bunch of questions...

then my naked man experience was over for the most part. I got dressed, though I had to wear my cold wet tighty-whiteys the rest of the night. I walked home and grabbed some festival food on the way back. Okonomiyaki, Okinawan Donuts, and some anko filled cakes. The dinner of a Naked Shoving Festival Champion.

The next morning I had a large slightly swolled bruise on my left knee, its a week later and it is still there and it still hurts. My feet were a bit bruised but mostly just hurt a lot. All in all it was a successful event!

A brief history on the event, this dates back about 1200 years, YEP, I'm a apart of this historical event now. I believe it has to do with the coming of spring, if you make it into the temple you can wish for health in the new year and for a healthy crop at your farm. Niigata Prefecture and Urasa, specially, has lots of farms so getting a good crop was a big deal. No one could answer where the naked part or the shoving part comes in. My guess is the shoving comes from everyone trying to do it... the naked thing... I'm not sure. The festival is called "Hadaka Oshiai Matsuri" which is commonly translated as "Naked Pushing Festival" but Japanese even use the word "Hadaka" when someone isn't wearing a short so I think that we get the image of someone totally nude so maybe a word like "Bare Pushing Festival" is better. or "Bareback Pushing Festival" though that sounds a little more like some kind of American festival in the south, maybe.

Enjoy some photos and a video... all courtesy of Hilary.













Here's the video, in all fairness, it doesn't look like I'm getting too shoved. This was was right before I quit shoving and left... I'd made my way to center at the beginning but the large wave of naked men shoved me away to the outside. Once you are out, there's no getting back in the center...