Japan Photo Guide

Chalk this up in the category of bizarre Japan. This weekend I had the chance to go to Kanamara Matsuri, commonly referred to by foreigners as “The Penis Festival.” Every year Kanamara Shrine holds this festival on the 1st Sunday in April in Kawasaki, Kanagawa. According to Wikipedia:

The Kanamara Matsuri is centered around a local penis-venerating shrine, once popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection against sexually transmitted diseases. It is said that there are divine protections also in business prosperity and the clan’s prosperity, easy delivery, marriage, and married couple harmony, etc. Today, the festival is used to raise money for HIV research. There’s also a legend of a demon that hid inside a young girl and castrated two young men on their wedding nights before a blacksmith fashioned an iron phallus that was used to break the demon’s teeth, leading to the enshrinement of the item.

Metropolis had this to say in their article about Kanamara Matsuri:

Today, the highlights of this saucy festival include transvestites parading through the town’s streets carrying a mikoshi (portable shrine) with a humongous pink phallus on top. And, if that’s not guaranteed to make you blush as deeply as the surrounding cherry blossoms, then the spectacle of grandmas and grandpas sucking on carnal candy and sweetmeat replicas of this stupendous phallus, is more than likely to. Other attractions include locals carving penises out of daikon (radish), children and young women sitting astride penis-shaped seesaws for good luck and fertility blessings, as well as a seated banquet in the compound of Kanamara Jinja (aka Wakamiya Hachiman-gu shrine) where the phallic radishes are auctioned.

As you might expect, because of the nature of this festival, the photos and videos I have are probably not safe for work (NSFW), but neither are they x-rated. The photos and videos from Kanamara Matsuri are not for everyone; however, they are somewhat interesting, sometimes surprising, usually inappropriate and definitely bizarre. If this sounds like something that would interest you, then continue on at your own risk to see the photos and a movie.

I have been in Japan for more than 3 years now and I am very rarely surprised by much of anything anymore…That being said, I was surprised about a couple things at this festival…
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Like Nebuta and Tachi Neputa, Neputa is a giant float festival in Aomori Prefecture. Neputa takes place in the city of Hirosaki from August 1st to August 7th. If you want to see all 3 of the float festivals, Hirosaki isn’t a bad place to stay because it is kind in between the two other festivals (it is kind of a long trip from Aomori City, where Nebuta is, to Goshogawara, where Tachi Neputa is).

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Tachi Neputa takes place about the same time as Nebuta, in Goshogawara, from August 4th-8th. Like Nebuta Matsuri, Tachi Neputa Matsuri is a night festival where extremely large floats are carried around in a parade like fashion. The difference is in the “tachi” which actually means “standing” in Japanese. So instead of large, wide floats like at Nebuta, here you can see really tall ones. The floats can be as big as about 70 feet (22 meters) and weigh around 15 tons!

Nebuta Matsuri is a lot more famous, but I actually prefer Tachi Neputa.

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Nebuta Matsuri, in Aomori Prefecture, is considered to be one of Tohoku’s best festivals. Apparently a lot of people think so because last year an estimated 3.7 million people came to see it! Nebuta takes place from August 2nd to the 7th every year and after living in Japan for a few years I will finally have the chance to go this year in 2007. There are actually 3 festivals in Aomori at about the same time and all of them are similar, but slightly different. The three are:

• • Nebuta in Aomori(most famous and has huge lantern floats)
  • Neputa in Hirosaki (smaller fan shaped lanterns)
  • Tachi Neputa in Goshogawara (instead of huge wide lanterns, this one has really tall ones…up to 22 meters and 16 tons!)

One thing you need to know about Nebuta is that it is REALLY crowded. If you are just a spectactor it might not matter as much, but if you are a photographer, you should do one of the following things to be able to get an unobstructed view:

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Tanabata, according to wikipedia, is a Japanese star festival, derived from Obon traditions and the Chinese star festival, Qi Xi. The festival is usually held on July 7, and celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). The Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year. This special day is the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar; however, in Sendai, Tanabata is celebrated from August 6th-8th and has fireworks on the 5th.

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Gion Matsuri is one of the, if not the most, famous festivals in Japan. It actually lasts pretty much the the whole month of June but the peak of the festival is July 17th with the Yama Hoko Parade. This is a massive parade where 32 floats are either pulled or carried throughout downtown Kyoto. More massive than the parade itself is the crowds of people that come to watch it. Seriously, if you are not good with crowds, then you might wanna pass on this festival. I was once told that there is an old Japanese joke that goes:

Question:
What did you see at Gion Matsuri?

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Asakusa, about one mile from Ueno in Tokyo, is most famous for the Buddhist temple Sensoji, inluding a huge lantern at the entrance (photo below), five story pagoda and a traditional Nakamise shopping arcade. At the shopping arcade you can find lots of souvenirs from fake swords and katanas to wall scrolls to funny tshirts (for example changing “Puma” to “Kuma,” which is bear in Japanese, along with a logo change) to photos of pop idols. You can also take a rickshaw ride and occasionally see geisha or maiko.

If you are spending time in Tokyo, Asakusa is worth checking out and a lot of interesting photos can be made here. Also there are a lot of festivals in Asakusa throughout the year, these festivals, or “matsuri” in Japanese, always make for good photographs. Here is some information with short descriptions of the festivals in Asakusa and here is another list with the 2007 dates of festivals in Asakusa. Note that some of the dates may change from year to year. Perhaps one of the more interesting festivals is the annual Samba Festival, which takes place in late August. It is interesting because it is obviously very different from the usual traditional festival in Japan. Here is more information on the history of the samba festival in Asakusa. Below is a photo of the shopping arcade.

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