fukuoka - yamagasa matsuri

click for map!

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many japanese cities have a matsuri - some sort of festival where floats are carried or rolled through the streets. rumour had it that the fukuoka matsuri was the most exciting in japan, so we had to be a part of it!

.one of the floats on display the night before the race

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the festival dates back to the 13th century, when a buddhist priest was carried through the streets sprinkling holy water hither-nither to protect and cure people from the plague. today, huge, heavy and elaborate floats are taken on the shoulders of men in g-string like garb and raced through the streets of fukuoka while bystanders spray the runners with water. 7 teams representing 7 districts of the city participate. children can also run - including girls - but once you hit puberty women need to learn that their place is in the kitchen and can only take part as spectators - to the festival and to their lives.

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the race starts at 04:59am, so g and i grabbed a few hour's sleep after a late night on the town, then headed into the pre-dawn streets with thousands and thousands of locals and tourists to catch a glimpse of the passing hordes.

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the video below shows the first float to pass us - please excuse the lars von trier-like shaky camera work!

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now i need to follow a relevent tangent for a short while to comment about race in the race. there were some ex-pat whities in the teams there in fukuoka. without exception, their bodies looked like trembling masses of processed meat barely held together by a thin, wrinkly, loose plastic coat. skin rolled off, and every footfall brought ripples of mini fat-waves washing up and down the passing lily-white thigh. by contrast, even the 60 year old japanese men running past in their g-strings had bubble butts. they were tight. i felt almost embarrassed - fat by association - as if the japanese were struggling to stop themselves from turning to me en-masse and - pointing to a passing porker like a greek chorus - screaming that once i was on the wrong side of 30 i too would be condemned to look un-tight (before turning away to gag). damn lazy fat ex-pats - giving every gaijin a bad name.

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we had a great time there - lost in the crowds of excited people, and fukuoka itself - even from having been there only the night before and the morning of the festival - had the feel of a relaxed, fun, welcoming, party-like town, true to its reputation. i don't know how it works, but you know how you sometimes get a really good feel for a place almost the minute you arrive? that was fukuoka. definitely one of the coolest places we visited in japan.
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