As promised, today I went to the fertility festival in Komaki. Yet another famous festival very close to where I live. I have never seen so many gaijin (foreigners) concentrated in one place in Japan. It was CRAWLING with foreigners.

Our friends at What’s Up Aichi state,

At the Tagata Shrine Fertility Festival in Komaki, a Shinto priest leads five women who carry offerings to the female god of fertility. Holding all-too-detailed carvings of oversized phalli, the women walk the short distance from shrine to shrine surrounded by townspeople and visitors with hopes of a bountiful harvest and prosperous year in their hearts. The star of the show, an enormous male member carved especially for the festival from a local cypress tree, soon makes its way from Kumano Shrine on the shoulders of the town’s 42-year-old men (the age is considered unlucky for unrelated reasons).

While the festival is generally light-hearted and the sake flows generously into the cups of pilgrims from far and wide, a serious aura also pervades, revealing the venerated place that the ceremony holds in the local lore. Don’t be surprised to come across the local clergy blessing the offering with the utmost gravitas.

Early in the adventure, the pressure was put on me by a colleague. “You speak Japanese, go ask where the [6 foot penis] is.” I was successful in my inquiry, and led our group of about 10 people to the giant member on the mountain.

Some claim the photos are not safe for work (NSFW). To see more, click through. Continue reading Fertility Festival – Otherwise known as the festival of the p33n

I had a list of topics that I wanted to cover in my Thai posting.  I got most of them covered in my entry, but there are few I didn’t get covered.

Gender fluidity

One thing I noticed in Thailand was gender was very fluid.  I’m not talking about sleazy bar areas where ladyboy shows are the norm.  Just in normal, every day life, sometimes gender was difficult to determine.  Was that beautiful girl and guy?  Was that odd looking man a woman?  There were definitely times where Tomo and I would ask each other, “male or female?”  It was a very interesting to see in everyday life – the group of security guards at the airport, the maid who came to turn down our room in Koh Samui, the server at Ice Monster, and any number of other places.

Plastic surgery

Apparently Thailand is also known for plastic surgery.  I didn’t know that.  We saw a lot of Thai women with Angelina Jolie-esque lips that didn’t quite fit.  But the icing on the cake was two women on our flight who looked like they had a little “work” done in Thailand.  I looked at them and thought, “can they really think that is sexy?”  I just don’t get it.  I understand vanity, and I certainly want to look good, but where does their perception of looking good come from?  That’s what I don’t get.  Wear funky clothes if you want, get a cool hairstyle, but don’t inject a bunch of junk in your lips to make them look like … like what?  Puffy lips?  Sigh.  I could also go on and on about bad wigs on men in Japan, but I’ll pass on that for now.