January 26, 2009

Manly Festivals: Getting Cold and Naked

An English speaker introduces a manly festival in this video. What is going on here? I shall explain a bit.

I think I implied that the first manly post would get a followup, so here it is.
What is more manly than running around with other naked men? Nothing! Actually, 裸祭 (naked festivals) usually don't have truly naked guys. You get a ふんどし (loincloth). But that's about it. Some people seem to get the wrong impression about these things and think that naked=sexuality*, but think of it as purity. Manly purity. In fact the whole thing about being in your starkers in the cold is about purifying your soul.
Speaking of cold, half-naked manliness, you don't get any more wicked cool than these guys. I've heard of meditating under a frigid waterfall, but martial arts training on top of it is just solid.


These gung-ho gung-fu men (okay, karate, but you gotta love alliteration) gather on the coldest day of the year to gather their ki in such concentrations that small animals in the area explode.
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Bonus (Japanese only) reading: Check out these guys, dousing themselves with frigid water.
And an article about the freezing fists above.
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* Some foreigners seem to not get the nudity is not the same as sexuality in this context. But hey, I just wrote a vaugely homosexual-looking post (I am, for the record, a Claysexual).

Girls sometimes participate and wear fundoshi too. But this is pretty rare. Anyways, the "Many" terminology is not meant to be much more than a humorous framework for these posts! A man admits that the women folks be manly too.

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