Tony Stinson Photography
Hadaka Matsuri (Naked Festival) in Kui
This is the major festival of the town of Kui in Mihara near Onomichi City. Each year a train driver from Tokyo comes to the town after having kanji characters drawn on his back in Tokyo by a renowned Japanese caligrapher. He then participates in the festival wrapped only in a Japanese fundoshi in which he first bathes in a river and then trekd through town with hundreds of other participants to the local shrine where particpants fight over a stick. The first to retrieve the stick and run solo into the entrance of the shrine receives a cash prize of about $1,000. The festival is held at night in the middle of winter and participants are usually quite drunk after drinking sake to keep out the cold. It is quite normal for fights to break out between participants.
