Naked man performance

The last time I stripped to my underwear in the middle of winter and got completely wasted was when I was an art student living in Sweden. Once a month my friends and I would host underwear parties. It became a ritual. This time around the party was being held at Saidaiji Temple in Okayama, where a 500 year old Shinto ritual takes place every year in February, one of the coldest months in Japan. This festival is known as Hadaka matsuri or 'naked man' festival. An estimated 9000 men run up and down a few streets and through the temple grounds wearing nothing but fundoshi (traditional Japanese underwear). Talk about male bonding! After a while, they gather at the main shrine for the highlight of the festival, where they push and shove to get closer to a monk who will throw some sacred shingi (wooden sticks) into the crowd. At 22h00 the lights go out and sticks are tossed to the roaring men. It becomes an absolute frenzy. It is believed that whomever is able to catch a stick (and actually hold onto it), will be granted a year of good luck.