Saturday, February 06, 2016

Kanamara Matsuri

I had not heard of the Kanamara Maturi festival in Kawasaki, Japan.

But now I have.  The Wikipedia page tells you at least as much as, and possibly more than, you wanted to know.

Some things do occur to me (having listened to Ellen's description).

1.  This is a festival that Tommy the Tenured Brit could really get behind.  Or, in front of.  As it were.
2.  If the parade lasts more than four hours, do they need to call a physician?
3.  What if it sees its shadow?
4.   But mostly, WTF?  As Wikipedia notes, the festival started out quite small, but it "keeps getting bigger and bigger."  Wikipedia, folks, for the win.


1 comment:

ericmc said...

I just spent a year teaching in Japan. There are a couple of these festival things, but they are smaller than advertised. Mostly, what happens is a small Japanese town has this crazy penis festival. A giant mob of westerners shows up and takes pictures with the penises. There is a very large industry catering to westerners that would like to believe Japan is full of crazy shit like this. It certainly is weird sometimes, but this is not mainstream in the slightest.