Monday, March 17, 2008

In Pursuit of the ペニス


Yessir, that's a picture of exactly what you think it is.

Considering that, up to this point, Muy Oishii has been a fairly family-friendly blog, I warn you up front that this post will dabble in what might be considered PG-13. But, my dear friends and family, this past weekend's adventure -- a trip to the Hounen Matsuri -- was too hilarious not to share. Based on the picture above, I'm sure you can gather, well, the long and short of the story...

Tagata
Jinja
is a Shinto shrine located just north of the city of Nagoya, and is actually a fairly somber place. It's a fertility shrine where couples can go to pray for conception or to offer thanks for a healthy new baby. But on March 15, all of that sobriety goes out the window (literally-- there's a sake cart involved) as Tagata Jinga comes alive for the annual Hounen Matsuri (Fertility Festival). A giant 13-foot, 620-pound wooden phallus gets paraded through the streets by teams of 42-year-old men (42 is considered an unlucky age in Japan -- maybe this is why?) before it is, err, inserted in the shrine. Afterwards, there's the aforementioned free sake for everyone, plus plenty of chocolate-covered bananas and other appropriately-shaped goodies.

Interesting fact: Because the Japanese love shiny, new things, and, for religious purposes, believe they're more pure, a new 13-food, 620-pound wonder gets carved every year. The wood (sorry) gets blessed at the shrine before carving begins, and the crafter also wears special purified clothes. After the festival, it gets housed in the shrine until the next year, when it is sold to a local family. The word is that the new owner builds a shine for it inside their home -- apparently, a 13-foot shrine.

Wow.

I road tripped to Nagoya (and subsequently got lost and circled the city for 90 minutes) in the company of four other Fukui JET gals, but it turns out that every other foreigner living in Japan had also decided to descend upon Tagata Jinga in worship of the wonder that is fertility. Because the shrine was Gaijin Central, we made fast friends with some interesting characters: some good ol' boys from Wisconsin (I never realized how much I missed hearing The Dairy State accent on a regular basis - braaaaaats, anyone?), a grad student from Azerbaijani, a dude from Syria, a German economist, a Hong Kong-born Kiwi, plus a Japanese hand masseuse. I also randomly reconnected with a friend from Chicago in a grocery store parking lot. Nice.

Nothing like a little ペニス (pe-ni-su) to bring folks together.

2 comments:

Tilly said...

WOW..I love reading your blog, never know what's coming next!

Anonymous said...

this blog is a wiener...i mean winner!