Matsuri - The Traditional Japanese Festival
Are you currently or soon planning a stay in the “Land of the Rising Sun”? Maybe you are studying about Japanese culture for a class or perhaps even out of your own curiosity about Japan. Regardless of the reasons for your interest, there is a certain aspect of Japanese culture you most certainly will find it important to be informed about and also experience first hand, if at all possible. It is the traditional festival known in Japanese as “Matsuri” (pronounced “mot-soo-ree”).
Matsuri are so common and popular in Japan that a Japanese saying states there is always a festival happening somewhere in Japan. Just about everyone loves a good reason for a big party with friends and family, so it is certainly no surprise that the festivals are so frequent and well attended. It is one a few socially acceptable reasons to justify a day off and also many other potentially questionable behaviors such as partial, or occasionally full, public nudity and running through the streets shouting for hours. Not to mention the open celebration of themes like fertility with plenty of Japanese sake to liven up the party.
This is not to say that Japanese festivals are just big parties. To the contrary, one of the aspects that makes a matsuri so wonderful an occasion is the fact that it is usually focused on the celebration of a perceptually sacred purpose or event. Matsuri happen for a number of reasons, including the celebration of the New Year, celebration of women reaching adulthood, conceptual purification, boosting fertility, and many more. Since much of what is considered sacred in Japan is thankfully nature, matsuri also coincide with the arrival of the beautiful spring cherry blossoms and other such natural wonders. There are rituals performed by the “Shinto” priests of Japan’s animism and many of the fun activities which the public are involved in are also actually considered ritualistic rites.
Festivals can be a really wonderful way to learn a lot about Japanese culture in a very natural way and also can be a nice place to make new Japanese friends. People in Japan are sometimes not as readily willing to openly share the “unspoken” side of Japanese culture, but a matsuri is a much more open affair. Since there is often a lot of Japanese sake involved in matsuri, many people will be much more relaxed and also more likely comfortable enough to talk about anything. Even your attendance and genuine interest in the event alone is likely enough to inspire a new level of respect for you in your Japanese companions. Their openness is especially evident if they are only wearing a “fundoshi”, which is a Japanese loin cloth common at many matsuri. It is even more evident if they are wearing nothing at all.
While complete public nudity at a matsuri is rare, it does occur in certain kinds of matsuri. One, in particular, involves hundreds or thousands of drunken men in fundoshi gathered outside in winter and touching a single nude man chosen to be the purifier of the town. Now that is a party.
