Naked Men and so forth...

I didn't know, after all, that they would run into the ocean.

The day started brightly. Soon after, it began to rain.
I was thrilled to be up bright and early on a Sunday morning. I was soon to head off to an Aikido seminar to break in the new year. I was greatly looking forward to seeing Suganuma Sensei again. I could hardly believe I'd been invited to a yudansha(black belt) seminar by Suganuma personally.

That's about where the good part of the morning ended. I made certain the night before that I understood the train schedule perfectly. I did exactly what I was told to do. Yet, somehow, in Japan, so far, that hasn't seemed to work out for me. I got on the wrong train. It went to the right place, only it was the local and not the rapid train, so I arrived after the seminar had already started. I was supposed to meet the group of ten or eleven people from my dojo on the train, but actually, they'd told me to get on the wrong train, so I didn't find anyone! I didn't even have a map of how to get to the dojo from the train stop!!! I did everything I could to get there. I asked for directions at the info booth in the train station. I got directions to the wrong dojo.
Finally, I gave up. I tried to maintain some composure as I poaked at a cabbage salad and dryly buttered my toast in the Fukuoka train station cafe.

I had been asked to this seminar a couple of months ago after talking to Suganuma Sensei at a party, and I was thrilled. Unfortunately, I didn't write the date down, so I promptly forgot when it would be. Naturally, I was surprised when someone reminded me about it at yesterday's practice. I'd already planned to go two festivals and have a meeting with my supervisor, my supervisor's boss, and the woman who has become my tutor. The purpose of the meeting was to promote positive communication among the staff in my office. It was to be informal, with eating and drinking. It would start at one.

So, I needed to quickly devise a plan so I could go to the seminar and the festivals and the meeting. I resolved to go to the first part of the seminar and skip the rest to come back for the meeting and so on. Well, as I said, I decided to give up on getting to the first part of the seminar and got on a train to ride two hours back to my town for the meeting. In the middle of the ride, my supervisor called to cancel the meeting. It was too late to turn around and catch the last half of the seminar.

Therefore, in light of the fact that my whole day had turned to crap, I went to the Naked Man Feast. Fest, that is. ; )
The men actually donned white loincloths, and they gathered at a very special shrine for the purpose of purifying themselves and blessing the town with good health and good fortune in the new year. They held fast to each other in a circle facing inward, about 30 men, with one man in the center hoisted on the shoulders of the others. They chanted 'Wa-soi, Wa-soi, Wa-soi' in rounds, as the man in the center urged them on. Firemen and police officers surrounded the ball of men as they swayed back and forth, sometimes into the crowd. It was pretty dangerous. One man in a loin cloth, with blood smeared across his chest staggered past me, apparently crushed by the unsteady mass. After inquiring, I learned that the men weren't drunk. They were cold.
People from the outside were tossing buckets of cold water onto their bare skin. Some of the men looked dazed, as steam rose from their bodies. But they kept chanting, and finally I could see that the man in the middle was holding something. I couldn't see what it was.
The pack started moving down the street, taking directions from the frigid man on top. Soaked and shivering, some with purple lips, they made their way through the tiny streets of the town, maybe four or five blocks to the Ariake Sea. Then, as simple as that, they ran in! It was probably 35 degrees Fahrenheit out at the time, and an icy rain was again starting to fall. As they shouted and danced around, I could then see what they were carrying. It looked like a straw target. Someone said it was the seat of the local deity, moved to the town from a neighboring shrine over four hundred years ago(I doubt it was the original cushion of the god! : ) ). The seat represents luck and strength, I was told, and it was the mens' job to safely carry it to the ocean!

Then, I got my picture taken with some of the naked men. : )

Bummed out that I missed the seminar, but so happy to have witnessed yet another angle of the complex Japanese cultural mobile.

Tomorrow it's back to school again. Tuesday is my last day at Arao #3 Middle School. I'm looking forward to moving on. There seems to be some stale air at #3. Thursday I start at #5...