Three hundred people gathered a temple in Tochigi prefecture on the night of the 31st so they could let out some stress by screaming bad words at Saishoji temple’s “Festival of Abusive Language.” Here’s a news clip that includes a couple foreigners joining in the fun:
And here’s an excerpt from a 1993 New York Times article about the festival:
In this city about 50 miles north of Tokyo, people take this one occasion to let it all hang out and say what they really think about the year gone by. In one of the strangest festivals in a country full of festivals, they walk up a dark mountain road to a temple screaming curses into the starry night sky that they would never say directly to their fellow man.
“Once a year, we can get rid of our pent-up frustrations,” said Ryoken Numajiri, the head priest of the Saishoji Temple. The temple is the headquarters for the Akutare Matsuri, which might best be translated as the “naughty festival” or perhaps the “festival of abusive language.”
More fun stuff at Tokyo Catalog
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