So, my post on the speech contest and sleeping in the snow will have to wait because, by popular demand, I need to write down the events of last weekend.
But first a relevant complaint about how no one tells me anything until it's too late.
So, as a JET, we get a certain amount of days off and only work a certain amount of days a month and stuff. Somehow I wound up with an extra vacation day in February and had to decide when I wanted to use it. There was some kind of PTA meeting / half day being held on Saturday so I was scheduled to come in. They advised me to take off that Saturday, but in my never-ending futile quest to gain recognition and acceptance in the workplace, I decided I would attend, and instead took off a Tuesday.
So I stayed home, cleaned, whatever.
The next day I got an invite to a festival in Okayama. The fabled Naked Man Festival I had heard tales of.
One problem, it was on PTA day. So my only option was to waste one of my precious paid holidays if I wanted to go and be there reasonably early. The festival was at night, but it was a few hours away.
Fortunately my friend was moving out and back home to that very city that very weekend. I eventually did decide to take the day off. But I had made the decision too late to join the other JETs going, but thanks to my friend, I got to join the Japanese teachers' team. My friend's mom also helped me by going and buying the outfit I needed.
No one tells me things in advance (if they tell me at all).
So, I take the day off and my friend and I set out to drive off to his home. Except unfortunately, I had gotten really sick. And hiccups.
And let me tell you - I really really really hate hiccups. Once I get hiccups, they come and go for some three days or so.
But they even let me go home early from work; said I had stayed after so often that it was okay. So it was nice to hear they appreciate my efforts.
It was a long drive. Some five hours. We finally got there and I could barely stand, I just wanted to sleep. Instead, his mom wanted to give me a tour and ask if I wanted to eat or shower or various other things I clearly did not need. I wanted to sleep.
Finally, I was allowed to sleep. Not a moment after I put my head on my pillow, my hiccups decided, "No, fuck you!" And I was forced awake for who knows how long while I waited for them to heal.
I woke up pretty miserable the next day. They tried offering me food every few minutes as if I hadn't turned it down a few minutes before or as if some new food would somehow make me interested. The festival was later that night, and it was a strenuous one, so I needed to be healthy or I could get severely injured. People had died before.
So I kept trying to get more and more rest and took naps and occasionally tried to eat while my friend's mom seemed to call everyone she knew to talk about how I was going to participate in the festival even if it killed me. Which was looking like a distinct possibility.
Eventually I did heal enough to stand properly and could mostly breath. I had a pretty awful cough, but I figured I could survive one night of nudity in Winter.
They took me to the base camp, some ramen shop or something where everyone had gathered. After spending all week listening to Taka tell me how I had to drink to stay warm, then his mom every few minutes telling me, then these new people telling me every few seconds I was getting pretty pissed off.
Obviously, they have no concept of respecting what people want to do or any knowledge of the effects of alcohol on the human body. Alcohol doesn't make you more resistant to cold, it makes you more vulnerable. It constricts your blood flow. You just FEEL warmer. Also, I was sick.
So, I spent the first twenty minutes trying to stop them from pouring me alcohol as they completely ignored me.
Everyone was drinking and eating nabe and everything for a while. I met some of my new team. They were pretty cool guys and I use the title "brother" with them now.
Eventually someone came in and he decided it was time. He took off his clothes and someone got up and started putting on his fundoshi - the diaper-looking this that sumo wear, and tabi (the socks with the big toe separate [also it had some kind of sole to it <though it was quite thin so rocks were painful>]).
Never mind that women were still in the room.
In fact, they continued to stay after this. It wasn't for a while until the next person decided they were also ready to get naked.
The girls started to clear out finally. One of the girls was taking pictures of the event, she trailed a little behind, but she eventually left, too.
During this time, my new Japanese friends/brothers had begun to tell me how small their penises were. Obviously I never asked, they just decided this was information I wanted to know. And to prove it, they decided to show me. And other people's.
Which is strangely not all the surprising having lived in Japan for six months now. Though usually it is the other way around where I am approached randomly by my male students and told that I am "big" / "big American", as that is apparently the limit of their English.
The fundoshi is not something you put on by yourself, so I had to have help. I got naked, but then partway through the process, they realized something was wrong, so they had to take the cloth outside and refold it or something. So I had to put my pants on for a bit.
Then get naked again so they could try again.
It was a lot of spinning, but the end part is the hilarious part.
You have to grab onto something because they pull upward on the cloth running under you enough to lift you off the ground and get it up really really really tight.
The tabi socks were taped on so they wouldn't fall off and I was ready to go.
Fortunately, I am from a much colder climate that these Southerners, so I was okay. The Japanese complain about the weather regardless of what the weather really is and never take any precautionary measures like insulation or not having colossal windows or worse yet - opening them in Winter.
I got bored and wandered outside once where the girls were, talked for a bit, went back in, was taken back outside by my new brother to get my picture taken by the girls.
Inside was entertaining because the 20~25 people were all in various states of putting on their diapers, so you could always see someone being lifted up and hear them screaming.
Finally, eventually, we set out. We were forced to wear coats since we were getting in cars. The girls were driving since they didn't drink. The drinking limit is 0.0 in Japan. I went with some guy one of my brothers reminded me every few minutes used to be his boss and some guy driver. His car had a TV in it for the driver, which seemed pretty dangerous.
Eventually we found somewhere to park and gathered up. Some of them had already disrobed and I wasn't going to lose to anyone, so I did, too. The girls were in charge of the coats, so I gave one mine, and she put in on.
Despite wearing like 10 coats, she complained about the cold.
Eventually we formed lines. Which was fortunately kind of warm. We marched and chanted while the guy in front whistled. And occasionally someone on the front line threw sake on us, which was unfortunate.
The socks were thin, so rocks were a problem. Before we had reached the temple, someone had managed to cut his toe, but he seemed proud of himself despite his sock turning red.
We would occasionally stop to cheer in front of crowds. And in a few places, we stopped and tossed people and took pictures.
They were many fans that came to see us, and I high-fived a few. There were a lot of cute Japanese girls that were excited to see a foreigner.
Eventually we reached the temple.
This is when hell began.
We marched in, did some more cheering and throwing, gathered up again and marched on to the right. This is when my brother told me, "Are you ready for freezing water?"
No.
We marched straight into a pool of water.
And by march, I mean we jumped and splashed the person in front of us.
We had to circle some kind of fountain in a horseshoe-shaped pool.
It was the most painful thing in my life.
And I have seen an entire episode of Big Bang Theory.
I thought that if we could just go up on the platform, I could be warmed by all the people gathered.
Except the suffering wasn't going to end that easily.
We had to circle the entire platform. Halfway around, priests sprinkled ladles of water on us.
We got to the beginning again and decided to do some more throwing and some kind of circle.
Finally, we climbed up on to the platform. I was excited that we would finally be where it was warm and I figured the event would start soon.
Instead a new form of hell began.
I was pulled about a third into the crowd, which was apparently a good spot. I was glad to be more towards the center since the possibility of tumbling off the platform was very high. However, I had gravely undercalculated the power of 900 people pressing against each other.
The people moved like waves. One moment, they surged forward, the next the other way. I tried to resist. I didn't want to pushed off, but finding footing was a constant struggle. I also feared my feet would be crushed.
Other times, the forces collided on me and I was crushed, gasping for air. As my teammates said, if my arms fell below the crowd, I could have been pulled under.
People were pressed into me with incredible force. There was no where I could go. The person behind me had his arms wrapped around me as he reach upwards.
Once my arm fell below everyone's heads, I could have very well have had it broken.
Steam began to rise as priests above us sprinkled us with water from time to time.
The stood up on a deck above us. Along with the priests was a man with a red searchlight and a laser and another man with a megaphone saying something. I wasn't entirely sure what they were saying, but fortunately it was never directed at me either.
Some time later, men in suits complete with flowers and a ribbon showed up to look over us. And a foreigner even for a little while looked down on us from above.
It felt like a science horror movie. We were a swarming mass, gasping for air. In front of me, a small man was pressed up against someone's chest as he struggled to keep from being pulled under.
Arms were everywhere. At times I could see almost nothing, sometimes they covered my face completely. Sometimes chins were painfully pressed into me or my face, or arms into my neck. Sometimes hair was forced into my mouth. My contact rolled over, blinding me in one eye, but even the smallest of movements were almost impossible. Fortunately somehow it fixed itself.
It went on for seemingly forever. The crowd swayed back and forth and crushed me in every way, while those on the deck yelled down to us and threw water at us and pointed a laser and searchlight at us.
My cough got worse and even my hiccups returned for a bit. I thought I might be in real danger. Many times I considered trying to figure out how to escape. But I had come all this way and I didn't want to disappoint. I couldn't imagine being the only one to walk out into the open with the large crowd gathered to see the festival see my failure, so I stayed and prayed that the ceremony would finally begin.
And yet it went on and on and on.
It seemed like an eternity.
Priests came out with the sticks we were supposed to capture. If you made it off the platform with the sticks, you would win money.
But they just stood there with them.
Taunting me.
But finally.
Finally. Finally they said the ceremony would start in ten minutes.
And after another short eternity,
the lights went out and they tossed them.
A short flurry of action happened,
and finally the crowd began to give way.
In its stead, however, the cold returned.
Though most of the crowd disappeared fairly rapidly, the brawl continued for a while. Men were against the wall, praying while a crowd fought over something I couldn't see. Occasionally, the crowd would press them or me into the wall with a crushing force. I did my best to stay on the outskirts. I had made it this far, I decided I would stay until the end. However, my teammate, the boss, found me. I had forgotten they had told me about a meeting spot. But they mistook me for participating and thought I had fought until the end and were proud of me.
We climbed down from the platform and we left the temple. My tabi were browned by being stomped on so much, but it didn't appear I had been injured, which was a relief.
We regroupped with everyone and I got my coat back and made our way back to the cars. The boss told everyone how I fought until the end. Apparently one of the men had managed to get a hold of a set of sticks and stuff it in his underwear, but someone stole them from him. Another grabbed them, but only broke off a small chunk, which he still had.
We drove to go eat ramen. I was still sick, so I could barely eat, but I did my best. Eventually, my friend showed up to pick me up, and we regaled him with tales of the night.
He drove me home and I took a nice, long shower. I had gotten a bunch of bruises, but nothing was broken or cut fortunately. Then I finally got some sleep.
The next morning, I realized how much damage my feet had taken and, for a while, I had to slide my feet to travel. I was still sick, but a lot better. I went with my friend and one of my festival brother and a friend of my friend to a "world" buffet the next day. Then we went to an anime shop, and I headed home.
I was asked quite a few times how it was.
I told them just: "suffering."
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Pictures for the incredibly brave (or the foolish):
http://oi45.tinypic.com/2rnftzm.jpg (Front)
http://oi49.tinypic.com/14u87b7.jpg (Back)
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