Last weekend I had an opportunity to attend the Hounen Matsuri (commonly known to foriegners as the Penis Festival). This event takes place every March in Komaki, a town north of Nagoya. The main attraction is a parade that includes a portable shrine that houses a giant chalice. I would imagine that I am only one of hundreds of foriegners blogging this event because there were tons of them there, so I’ll save the explanation of the meaning of this unique event . The festival featured the typical matsuri food venders as well as some specialty items such as food and wood carvings in the shape of the special body part of the day. There was also a sucker combo pack that included both male and female parts.
While the parade is the most famous part of this event, what turned out to be even better was the the mochi throwing. Mochi is a big blob of pounded rice that is generally tasteless and inexpensive but on this day it was a most sought after item. There must have been over 1,000 people packed into the corner of a shrine courtyard in hope of catching a mochi blob when hundreds of them were thrown from the grandstands above. We waited for about 35 minutes in anticipation of the start of this event. Some people passed out, either from claustrophobia or sheer excitement. Finally, the honored guests ascended to the balcony and began hurling the blobs into the crowd. Men, women and children jumped, pushed and crawled on the ground in hopes of securing mochi.
For anyone looking for a truelly unique Japanese experience, the Hounen Matsuri is a unique event that I would recommend for anyone who may be in the area of Aichi-Ken in March.
