Japan: Nothing says springtime like a penis festival
Bring on the giant wooden penis. The vagina shrine, too.
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By Jonathan Adams
Published: March 16, 2010 16:42 ET in Asia
Published: March 16, 2010 16:42 ET in Asia
KOMAKI, Japan — It's springtime in Japan and that means one thing.
Actually, two things. Penis festivals and vagina festivals.
It may sound like a sophomoric gag. But these are folk rites going back at least 1,500 years, into Japan's agricultural past. They're held to ensure a good harvest and promote baby-making.
Maybe they should hold more such festivals. Japan has one of the world's lowest birthrates (1.37 children per woman), which experts blame on stagnant incomes and changing gender relations.
The center-left government that came to power last year hopes to make child-rearing more affordable with a $280 monthly stipend per kid.
Meanwhile, the festivals provide an economic shot in the arm for host cities, a party for foreign tourists and expats, and a chance for locals to let loose, too.
One of the best-known penis festivals is at Komaki City's Tagata shrine, about 45 minutes outside Nagoya, every March 15. In a neighboring village, a vagina festival is held the Sunday before that. This year, that was the 14th — meaning rare, back-to-back genital
worship days.
At the Hime-no-miya grand vagina festival, parents dress up their kids, pray for healthy babies, and celebrate with sake, beer and snacks galore.
In the morning, children carry a small vagina to the Ogata shrine. Later, some 40 grown men strain under the weight of a massive vagina while carrying it to the shrine in the main parade. They're followed by two smaller vagina litters.
At the end of the day pink and white mochi (glutinous rice ball treats) are hurled into the crowd.
The penis festival the following day drew far more foreign and Japanese tourists — some 100,000, according to a festival brochure. Festival foreplay included much posing with wooden and candy penises. The main event is the parading of a two-foot by six-and-a-half foot long phallus carved from Japanese cypress.
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Now I've heard everything.
Now I've heard everything.
Most unlikely I'd say. So
Most unlikely I'd say. So much to learn after all.
Perhaps you are well read on Shinto Shrines but perhaps not and, just in case the latter applies, let me say that both of the shrines referenced are places of prayer for many people who are as sincere in their prayers as any others. While living in Japan I had the priviledge of visiting both shrines and very many more and was always touched by the faithful at prayer in them.
Just because it's different and one doesn't understand it is inadequate excuse for derision.
Ethnocentrism anyone?
How refreshing, a community
How refreshing, a community that is not afraid to acknowledge that we all possess reproductive organs!
Far too many people assume that any reference to genitalia is shameful, but most would attend such a festival and be amused by it.
The world naked bike ride attracts crowds in many towns and cities all over the world and these crowds, including children, see it for what it is; harmless fun. It is only a very small minority who ever object, unfortunately they are often the ones making the loudest noise and giving the media "good copy".
Well done GlobalPost for seeing the other side.
Phalli worship was common in
Phalli worship was common in every society and culture beginning in pre-history and fading in the CE era. India has the Lingam-Shiva; the ancient Greeks honored Aphrodite's son Priapus; the Dahomen of Africa carve outsized phalli, amulets to ensure fertile crop yields and abundant rainfall; rites for the worship of Osiris centered around a phallus; the North American Mandan had a phallic buffalo dance; then there is the Maypole handed down from early Germanic and Celtic fertility rituals. Today in Portugal, though there is only one practitioner of the age-old art of phallic pottery, one can buy penis patries much larger than the Japanese candies but smaller than the cypress carving, in Sao Goncalo during its May Day festivities. The best phallus is in Thailand, in the ruins of an ancient city called - no kidding!-Kandi Sukuk. The stone carving is headless, its penis points northward. Tourists often joke if two heads are indeed better than one considering man is known to employ just one.
I love it! The Japanese have
I love it! The Japanese have a way to help get over sexual repression. USA might try ot have penis and vagina festivals also, but...Fat chance!
w.
Wow, I'm half Japanese but
Wow, I'm half Japanese but i've never heard of such manifestation! In what part of Japan does that festival take place?
The pictures are funny and it seems pretty cool :-). I'll try to attend next year!video x streaming
Different cultures and
Different cultures and rituals. Thanks for sharing.
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I know that you are not
I know that you are not trying to say anything wrong and how you have to resort to using 'words' like Japan anyway because it's convenient, but its really misleading. I, and my relatives all grew up in Japan for most of our lives and have never even heard of this Penis Festival till I LEFT Japan. Your article makes it sound like its "a Festival in Springtime for the Japanese". Maybe that's not bad-sounding but to it is because it once again perpetuates this image how Japanese people are a horde of the same identical stereotypes that all do the same thing.
I personally have no issue with the existence of the festival, what I have issue with is that people are picking it up as a "Japanese" festival when it is not, its a local festival within Japan. It's not that I find the festival offensive, it's just contrary to the truth if someone starts associating thats what it is in Japan.
I've been corrected many times when I comment on how weird Americans are because "you guys throw cow poo in contests" or "eat testicles and call them oysters", "love trucks while hating oral hygiene despite using dip" or "wearing overalls but with no shirt while working in the field"... because those are not "American activities and traits" so much as "traits in America".
So unless I get to call you a non-sea food liking land locked corn grower who worships some Amish God, maybe its time you realize not even Japanese people see eye to eye on a lot of issues and this is one of them.
But I suppose it doesnt matter since they are all the same to anyone else.
As one commented different
As one commented different countries, different rituals.
Find more edu articles
An interesting post about
An interesting post about penis festival, first time I heard.
Find more political articles
Its great. It reminds me one
Its great. It reminds me one thing. Near our native place there is one local festival where the vagina is worshipped. Thousands men and women alike throng the place where docorated vagina adore the site.
i wan t to see this
i wan t to see this