Japan's genital festivals

Nothing says springtime like a penis festival

KOMAKI, Japan — It's springtime in Japan and that means one thing.

Actually, two things. Penis festivals and vagina festivals.

It may sound like a sophomoric gag. But these are folk rites going back at least 1,500 years, into Japan's agricultural past. They're held to ensure a good harvest and promote baby-making.

Maybe they should hold more such festivals. Japan has one of the world's lowest birthrates (1.37 children per woman), which experts blame on stagnant incomes and changing gender relations.

The center-left government that came to power last year hopes to make child-rearing more affordable with a $280 monthly stipend per kid.

Meanwhile, the festivals provide an economic shot in the arm for host cities, a party for foreign tourists and expats, and a chance for locals to let loose, too.

One of the best-known penis festivals is at Komaki City's Tagata shrine, about 45 minutes outside Nagoya, every March 15. In a neighboring village, a vagina festival is held the Sunday before that. This year, that was the 14th — meaning rare, back-to-back genital worship days.

At the Hime-no-miya grand vagina festival, parents dress up their kids, pray for healthy babies, and celebrate with sake, beer and snacks galore.

In the morning, children carry a small vagina to the Ogata shrine. Later, some 40 grown men strain under the weight of a massive vagina while carrying it to the shrine in the main parade. They're followed by two smaller vagina litters.

At the end of the day pink and white mochi (glutinous rice ball treats) are hurled into the crowd.

The penis festival the following day drew far more foreign and Japanese tourists — some 100,000, according to a festival brochure. Festival foreplay included much posing with wooden and candy penises.

The main event is the parading of a two-foot by six-and-a-half foot long phallus carved from Japanese cypress.

Teams of men strain under the weight, stopping to spin the penis around a few times amid yelling, cheering and jostling. The work is so hard that teams rotate during the one-and-a-half hour procession.

This phallus parade is rooted, says the brochure, in "an ancient Japanese belief that for the growth and development of all things, the mother, earth, has to be impregnated by the father, heaven."

"People come here when they want to have a baby," said festival volunteer and Komaki resident Katsuragawa Noboru. "If it works, they have to come back the next year to thank the gods."

It worked for Katsuragawa, twice: He has a son and a daughter now, he said with a laugh.

Lucy Glasspool, who researches gender and pop culture as a visiting scholar in Nagoya, was helping out at the information booth. It was her first penis festival.

"I heard about this a long time ago and I'm not sure I believed it," she said. "But now I'm here and it's everything I thought it would be. I highly recommend the penis-shaped candy."

She gave English-language updates on the penis' progress through a microphone, and passed out detailed information in English on the history and significance of the rite. But most Western tourists seemed happy enough just to drink beer and make endless penis jokes.

Vendors sell penis- and vagina-shaped candies and chocolate-covered bananas, wood penis sculptures and penis earrings, adding to the mirth. Eavesdropping was a riot.

Said one American woman into a cell phone, in a southern twang: "We just found an ashtray that's in the shape of a vagina that you need to buy."

"It's smaller than last year's," one jaded female expat loudly complained, as the phallus approached.

One American woman, reviewing a photo of her friends posing with penis-candy-sucking Japanese, said, "Oh my God. This one is so going on Facebook."

Original site

Fight flu with boat-burning

A Taiwanese tradition takes on special significance this year.

Global Post, May 15, 2009

XIGANG TOWNSHIP, Taiwan — Forget quarantines and Tamiflu. In southern Taiwan, the best, tried-and-true way to keep pestilence away: Burn a boat.

Not just any boat, mind you. For the best results, you need an elaborately decorated boat bearing effigies of the plague gods — a.k.a. the "Cholera Kings."

It's a folk ritual dating back at least 160 years here — much longer in southeast China — and it's performed every third spring on schedule.

But amid lingering swine flu fears, this year's "King-boat burning" took on an added timeliness.

"In 2003, there was the SARS epidemic, and in 2006, there was a pig flu in this area," said Ting Jen-chieh, an expert on Chinese folk religion at Academia Sinica. "After this ritual those diseases decreased — so people here believe it was because of the plague gods."

There haven't been any confirmed cases of swine flu in Taiwan. But with memories of SARS still fresh (it killed more than 70 people here), the island remains on edge.

The most recent scare came after Hong Kong's second confirmed case of H1N1. Seven Taiwanese passengers sat near the victim on a San Francisco to Hong Kong flight, and then traveled onward on a separate May 11 flight to Taiwan.

All were tracked down and determined to be disease-free later that week.

Not all locals here in southern Taiwan really believe boat-burning will drive away disease, of course.

But the community still embraces the ritual. On May 11 I witnessed hundreds of locals pulling the boat (on a wheeled platform) with two long ropes. Elderly, middle-aged, 20-something Taiwanese — all joined in.

Walking alongside them was James Chan, 70, visiting the boat-burning for the first time, and sporting a traditional conical farmer's hat for shade. "It's unbelievable, all these people pulling together," Chan said. "It's powerful."

Chan had just returned from overseas, stopping in Japan. He said airport controls were tight there, amid the swine flu scare. Inbound flights waited on the tarmac, as biohazard-suit-clad Japanese health workers checked each passenger's information and condition.

We walked with the villagers as they pulled the boat to a lot outside town. There, a mind-boggling pile of "ghost money" awaited, to serve as the boat's pyre.

The boat was lowered onto the pile with a crane. Locals stacked the money and fitted the boat with masts. A fire was lit, and the boat went up in a furious blaze.

The ritual's exact meaning and origins are murky. In a 1976 essay the U.S. anthropologist David Jordan tried to get to the bottom of it (see his essay here). He lived in this part of Taiwan in the late 1960s and 1970s, carefully recording local folk customs.

Locals gave him conflicting accounts of the boat-burning. The most common one: Taoist priests tricked the plague demons by worshipping them as gods — then destroyed them in a burst of fire to protect the community. Jordan wrote, "Flattery and worship are accomplished for three days upon the demons, who are gradually lulled off their guard and become vulnerable.

"Late in the evening of the third day the priests file into the temple, where the demons of disease are at rest. Quickly the demons are captured by spells and chants and confined to a paper and wood ship, so that they are no longer free to roam the countryside working disaster on its inhabitants.

"On the following morning the ship … is hauled to the middle of a field in the village of Poplar Camp, traditionally considered to be the ancient shore line, and is ceremonially burnt and thus destroyed, demons and all."

More than three decades later, that ritual remains intact, says Academia Sinica's Ting.

There are only a few modern touches: A construction crane to lift the boat onto its burn-here spot, and a mini-bulldozer to help pile up the "ghost money" around the boat.

For the past year Ting has been living in the same village as Jordan did, noting how customs have changed. A few are in decline: There's a serious shaman shortage now, for example, as the occupation loses its past prestige.

But many folk beliefs are remarkably resilient.

"He [Jordan] predicted Chinese folk religion wouldn't change — and I've confirmed his prediction," Ting said. "At least in this agricultural area, the traditional way of explaining things is still very strong."

This, despite the island's vault to first-world status.

Just an hour or so drive away, factories churn out liquid-crystal display panels in a high-tech science park. Here, Taoist priests busy themselves trapping the Cholera Kings in paper and wood.

Why a boat? "A boat can bring the plague, but also carry the plague away," Ting explained as we watched the smoldering ashes, and waited for the charred mainmast to fall.

With pestilence like swine flu now spread worldwide via jumbo jet, maybe they should start burning a mock 747 instead.

Original site

The goddess and the Web

How technology is affecting one ancient religious ritual in Taiwan.

Global Post, March 28, 2009

CHANGHUA, Taiwan — Catching up with the sea goddess has never been easier.

Every year, Matsu — goddess of the sea — goes on an eight-day temple-hopping tour of central Taiwan. This year's tour kicked off on March 21.

Her procession takes a highly circuitous route, and doesn't exactly stick to a strict timetable. That used to make her hard for believers and tourists to track down.

But now, a GPS chip attached to her sedan chair beams her location to a website that shows it in real-time — down to the exact lane or alley — on a detailed map of the island.

"People tell us it's very convenient," said Chen Chong-fen, a local government cultural official who helps organize the event. "Before, because Matsu goes to 21 towns and many temples, finding her could be a headache. But now, using GPS, it's easier to know where Matsu is."

The virtual Matsu-finder is just one example of how tech-savvy Taiwan is updating millennia-old folk traditions for the internet age. It's using the web to make life easier for adherents and to promote festivals to tourists.

A "ba jia jiang", or one of the eight generals, guards Matsu's path

Taiwan is rich with temple and folk customs, most brought here in the 17th through 19th centuries by settlers from the southeast Chinese coast.

Matsu-worship is one example. Like most Chinese deities, she dates back to a real woman who lived on the southeast Chinese coast in the 10th century. According to legend she had supernatural powers, and after her death, she became immortalized as a protector of fishermen and other seafarers.

Now, she's worshipped throughout the ethnic Chinese world, but especially on the southeast Chinese coast, Hong Kong, and Taiwan where settlers had to brave a perilous sea journey across the Taiwan Strait to get to their new homes.

Every spring, Taiwan sees its own version of the Muslim hajj. Thousands of believers trek along with icons of the goddess as it tours through the countryside. The most well-known is an eight-day, seven-night tour by the Matsu icon from Jenn Lann Temple.

I caught up with the procession March 22, about 12 hours after Matsu had left her home temple. Finding the goddess was a breeze, thanks to the website. I sped to central Taiwan on a bullet train, had the information desk helpers look up the website, and wrote down a street to give to a cabdriver. What would the 10th century Matsu have thought?

The procession is far from austere. Matsu is greeted by a deafening roar of fireworks wherever she goes, along with the occasional possessed Taoist shaman and gaudily dressed temple guardians.

Her procession is something of a carnival, with ritual figures (an "informer" wearing oversized black glasses at the front, followed by two guardian gods) joined by scantily clad female singers on truck flatbeds, horn-blowing and gong-beating musicians, and mobile advertisements for car tires and herbal remedies.

Hard-core adherents walk with Matsu the entire way, some 300 kilometers (186 miles), sleeping on storefront sidewalks or sardine-like on transport trucks. They also abstain from eating meat for the first three days.

"After eight days you'll know what the meaning of pain is," said John Hu, 32, who helps market merchandise for the Jenn Lann temple. "They want you to be reborn — it's just like in other religions."

One 46-year-old said he's done the entire eight-day walk every year since the 1990s. "It's an expression of our faith," he said. A trader in Taipei, he only gave his name as "Jeffy" because he's afraid of too much publicity.

"I don't want to tell you my last name because then all my friends and family will ask me too many questions — just like you're doing now," Jeffy said, with a laugh. "They don't know I'm here, every year I just tell them I'm taking a vacation."

Most Taiwanese Matsu-worshippers are too busy with work or studies — or too casual in their belief — to take eight days off to chase the goddess around central Taiwan's back-alleys and rice paddies.

For them, touching Matsu's sedan chair for luck as it passes is enough. Or better yet, crouching down on the road and letting the divine sedan chair pass over you.

Problem was, in the past, it wasn't always easy to find the sea goddess' procession.

Enter the website. Chen, the local government official, said organizers hired a company to set up the site, and first offered it last year.

This year, they also offered PDA updates to the growing number of people who followed Matsu on bicycles (a consequence of the island's bike fad, which I wrote about here.)

Such services also reflect the shifting appeal of the sea goddess festival.

"The Matsu pilgrimage is changing rapidly," said Hsun Chang, an expert on folk religion at Taiwan's Academia Sinica. "It's becoming more and more tourist-oriented, and relying on mass media more than before."

The "informer" walks ahead of the Matsu procession

Original site

Greeting the War God

"Jackass" or marketing opportunity?

It's popular to be attacked by firecrackers in Taiwan, at least once a year.

By Jonathan Adams, Global Post, February 11, 2009

YENSHUEI TOWNSHIP, Taiwan — Wrapped tightly in coats, motorcycle helmets, scarves and gloves, a group of Taiwanese bounces up and down like teens in a mosh pit. In the sedan chair they're carrying, their God of War bounces along with them.

Suddenly, amid a thunderous roar, a wave of bottle rockets fires into the crowd and over their heads from a line of racks about 25 feet away.

Welcome to the Beehive Fireworks Festival, Taiwan's answer to Pamplona's running of the bulls. Every year, on the 15th day of the first lunar month, thousands descend on the township of Yenshuei, in the island's rural south, to deliberately put themselves in harm's way.

They'll be hit, over and over, by thousands of firecrackers — and they'll love it.

It may sound like a stunt from one of the "Jackass" movies, but the roots of this festival are religious. According to local officials, it dates to the late 17th century, when this part of Taiwan was afflicted by disease, especially cholera. Locals believed that parading the war god and setting off firecrackers could drive away the plague.

Now, this and other similar festivals are growing in popularity, as townships like Yenshuei hope to cash in on their folk rituals by attracting tourist dollars.

"It's getting bigger and bigger," said Ting Jen-chieh, an expert on Taiwanese religion at Academia Sinica. "Twenty years ago the scale wasn't so big, but now the city wants to promote the festival to get tourists."

This year officials estimated that up to 350,000 people attended. "The bad economy hasn't affected the festival," said Hsu Fu-kai, a festival volunteer. "In fact, it will be even bigger then last year, because we believe the more firecrackers you have, the more prosperity you'll get."

In the festival, bottle rockets are carefully packed in tight rows inside box frames — thus, the "beehive." Each rack contains up to 60,000 firecrackers. Organizers said some 200 racks were used in the main event Feb. 9.

Every year, there are injuries, sometimes serious. Glen Chin, who is making a documentary on the festival, was injured one year when a rack of bottle rockets went off near him before he'd put on his helmet and jacket.

But he says there's little risk if you follow the dress code. "It's a bit dangerous, but not as dangerous as it looks," said Chin. "There's a method to the madness."

I went to Yenshuei on Feb. 8, the eve of the festival, on a junket arranged by Taiwan's Tourism Bureau. The celebrations were a warm-up for the main event held the next night.

In Chinese tradition, the 15th of the first lunar month marks the end of Lunar New Year celebrations. Localities across the island celebrate in distinct ways, and Taiwan's tourism officials are now hoping to better market those festivals to visitors.


In northern Taiwan, the main attraction is the sky lantern festival in Pingsi. In the city of Taitung on the rugged southeast coast, there's a ritual called the "Bombing of Master Han Dan." In it, a male believer dressed only in red shorts, red head wrap and banyan tree leaf is paraded around in a sedan chair, as others lob firecrackers at him.

Still, Yenshuei's beehive festival is the island's most intense. It centers on the temple of Guan Yu, the God of War, a second-century Chinese general now revered as a deity (and also a character in John Woo's "Red Cliff" movies). During the celebrations, the God of War leaves home to visit every nearby temple and its gods.

Naturally, Guan Yu has to ride in style. So his icon is placed in a plastic-protected sedan chair (think the Popemobile). Flunky gods get their own, less lavish sedan chairs. Some Taiwanese temples pimp their gods' rides with gaudy neon displays and pulsing techno music on truck flatbeds.

On the night I attended, the holy motorcade proceeded to an open field at a local high school, where the sedan chairs were positioned in front of the bottle rocket racks for the first firecracker beat-down.

Then the God of War began his tour. At each stop, sedan chair carriers bounced the god up and down, sometimes stepping forward and back three times.

"The bouncing means possession by the god," explained Academia Sinica's Ting. "And when two deities meet each other, they need to go back and forth three times, to show respect."

At each temple, the God of War and his entourage are pummeled by more bottle rockets, usually in a nearby street or alley.

Original site