Men dressed in loincloths react as a priest splashes water on them before they prepare to snatch a wooden stick called “shingi” during a naked festival at Saidaiji Temple in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture Japan February 15, 2020. The person who grabs the wooden stick is considered the “luckiest man of the year”. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
OKAYAMA, Japan (Reuters) – About 10,000 Japanese men clad only in loincloths braved freezing temperatures at the weekend to pack into a temple and scramble in the dark for lucky wooden talismans tossed into the crowd, in a ritual that dates back five centuries.
The highlight of the raucous day-long ‘Hadaka Matsuri’ festival came at 10 p.m. on Saturday, when the lights went out and a priest threw bundles of twigs and two lucky sticks, each about 20-cm (8-inch) -long, among the participants.
That set off a 30-minute tussle for the sticks, coveted as symbols of good fortune and prosperity, although most men escaped with just a few cuts and bruises, in contrast to past occasions, when some have been crushed to death.
“Once a year, at the coldest time in February, we wrap ourselves in just a loincloth to be a man,” said 55-year-old Yasuhiko Tokuyama, the president of a regional electronics firm.
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
“That’s the significance of this event and why I continue to participate.”
Plenty of sake and beer is sold outside the temple to warm the revelers, but a purifying plunge into pools of cold water before the start of the festival was a shock to the system for most.
The annual celebration at the Saidaiji Kannonin Temple in the southern city of Okayama has its roots in a competition to grab paper talismans that dates back more than 500 years.
But as its popularity grew, the paper talismans began to rip, as did the clothes of the rising number of participants, so that eventually wooden sticks were adopted and garments discarded.
Reporting by Akira Tomoshige and Jack Tarrant; Writing by Jack Tarrant; Editing by Clarence Fernandez