Hounen Matsuri

Festival Location: Komaki, Japan

Festival Type(s): Bizarre Festivals, Traditional Festivals, Adults Only Festivals

Hounen Matsuri Media:

Beer, Women and Huge Male Genitalia

By: © Glen Kenner 2009

Yes, its that time of year again. Time to put on a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" button and celebrate Stupid Button Day. Opps! Wrong holiday. No, actually its time to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, the only day of the year when you can serve green corned beef to thousands of customers without being sued by 39 states for fifty billion dollars.

But St. Patrick's Day is just one of many festivals around the world during this time of year. Festivals are important cultural events that give people an occasion to come together in brotherhood, rejoice, celebrate and pay $10 for a cup of warm beer. Every nation, culture, and religion has its own festivals. America has a lot of great festivals and most involve beer and women in bikinis, which brings to mind of picture of the Kennedy compound on election night. Or, really, any night.

But other countries have great festivals, too. In Lusaka, Zambia (official motto: Visit Lusaka. Please!), you can attend the Mud Marathon, which, we suspect, involves mud. And where's there's mud, you'll often find women in bikinis. Happen to be in Wineba, Ghana? Don't miss the Antelope Hunting Festival which features - you guessed it - women in bikinis. Residents of Antananarivo, Madagascar, as well as any tourists who have stopped by to ask for directions to Tijuana, will soon be celebrating the Turning of the Bones festival. The actual name of this festival is Famadihana (literally, Festival of Keeping Lost Travelers in Town as Long as Possible) and involves digging up your dead relatives and having a party. Again, beer is obviously involved here. We're not sure about the women in bikinis.

Not to be outdone, every March 15th, the small town of Komaki, Japan celebrates Hounen Matsuri. Matsuri means festival and Hounen, I'm fairly sure, means Big Wooden Penis. Okay, actually it means something much less interesting, but it SHOULD mean Big Wooden Penis, because there is, in fact, a Big Wooden Penis featured prominently throughout the festival.

I attended the festival this year and am therefore qualified to make fun of it as much as anyone, but also to share some of the actual facts that I learned from stealing a pamphlet from a shrine, called Tagata Jinja, that houses the Big Wooden Penis. This festival, and I quote from the pamphlet, "is well known to everyone as a unique festival." This is very true. I have never personally seen a Big Wooden Penis paraded up and down the streets of any other Japanese city I've visited. And its not like I wouldn't have noticed, either. Did I mention that the Big Wooden Penis is two feet wide and six feet long?

The villagers of Komaki, "offer this huge penis to Tagata Jinja, praying for world peace, the growth of all things, and a bumper crop." No where does the pamphlet mention women in bikinis, and for good reason - there weren't any. But did someone mention sake? Ah, yes, sake. It's a well-known fact that the Japanese make crappy music, but also that they can't hold their liquor, which is a lucky thing for me.

Sober men simply would not haul a Big Wooden Penis through the streets of their hometown. Sober women would not pose next to the Big Wooden Penis for photographs - often patting it, sometimes stroking it, occasionally kissing it. Sober high school girls would not walk around licking foot-long penis suckers. And hundreds of foreigners, by which I mean me, would have to travel to Lusaka, Zambia just to get a decent cup of warm $10 beer.

Check out more of Glen's hugely entertaining writing at http://www.glenkenner.com

by Glen Kenner

Hounen Matsuri Photos:

Hounen Matsuri Dates and Location

Every March 15 in the small Japanese town of Komaki

Accommodation in Japan

Hotels in Japan

Hounen Matsuri Video

You can never find a giant 12 foot penis when you need one but then when you don't.............

Join the fun in Komaki, Japan each March 15 for the Penis Festival (or Chiwawa Matsuri) where hundreds gather to parade such a phallus through the streets in a bizarre male fertility rite. Mix in a bunch of women weilding smaller 2 foot versions of the main attraction and a tempting range of penis shaped snacks and and you got yourself one interesting anthropological study at the very least.

Food for thought that!