Modesty Ablaze: A Japanese Vignette

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
“You heard me.” her voice hazy through the Skype connection, “Naked. Man. Festival.”

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The rumbling of the Shinkansen train comfortably offsets the taciturn Japanese commuters. We mutter amongst ourselves, self conscious of the fact that their culture demands silence on public transport – an etiquette of docility to which, no matter how hard we try, we cannot quite adjust. It has been a running joke that that we probably offend at least ten people just by walking out the door – and like all jokes, its humour rests on a small kernel of truth.

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A parade of paper lanterns hem the Saidaiji streets, specially blockaded for the night’s festivities. The Naked Man Festival, or Hadaka Matsuri, said to date back over 5000 years, centres around the ceremonial and somewhat vicious attainment of a talisman (shingi), which wards off demons of misfortune.

The Naked Man Festival today, however, is not quite as naked as its name might suggest. Over the course of time, it has not only seen a stark increase in popularity, but apparently also in carnal brutality, which is said to give reason for the implementation of regulation Sumo-esque loincloths, called fundoshi.

Although its religious sentiments may have since faded, participation still retains an honorific status – before the official ceremony, contestants are delivered atop shoulders through the bustling merchant-lined festival corridors. In both reverence and jest, the crowd moves aside for the oncoming parade, as white camera flashes and fireworks blaze violently against the night sky.

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Somewhere behind us, a whistle shrills, and we hustle through the thick of jackets and scarves to a cranny from which we might procure the best view. The procession of chanting, loincloth clad men stampede into the arena, carefully navigating their course across the slippery terrain.

“Washoi! Washoi! Washoi!”

At first, a zealous few stumble, but are quick to find their feet
before the water purification ritual. Safeguarded by adrenaline, they brazenly charge through a troth of glacial waters, in which they cast off yesteryear’s sins.

Enthralled, we ,the crowd urge them onward, hurling Sake-fuelled cheers from behind the barrier. Like demigods, the men valiantly trudge on to the shrine. Then steadily, the pandemonium of the crowd subsides, as a bell marks the stroke of midnight. The shingi appears, and for a moment hangs suspended in the crisp, night-time air, before descending upon the human entanglement below.

They clash and they clout, they cuff and they clamber, until a victor ultimately emerges, grinning savagely. In his grasp the small wooden stick - the emblem of his pains, and a yearly sum of good fortune. His rivals wilt away in retreat, many in arms. Once competitors, now comrades.

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We slip away from the festival lights, hoping to catch the last train. Once again in the dull comforts of public transport, we beam at one other in mischievous silence, as though we’d espied upon a clandestine side of Japanese culture, in all its brazen, loinclothed splendour.