souichiro_arima

Now lets see....Unlike any other countries, Japan is one of the countries that cultivated its own culture in their own way. If anyone here knows some traditions or customs that make Japanese unique in their own way and makes them different from other culture, please post it here. Ill just post mine after several posts here..

__________________

tsurara

And I'll just wait here for people to post silly things... *cracks knuckles*

This thread's for you Evol.

__________________

Evol

you complete me


My contribution...

Big Metal Phallus anyone? Japanese Penis Festival Photos | The News is NowPublic.com

I remember seeing one of these festivals in a documentary on the travel channel once. Little Japanese ladies and tourists sucking on pee pee lollipops. I personally prefer red bean flavor.

Hassun

The problem here is just us and our prude Christian upbringing.

__________________

Arukih

Indeed! Apparently Japan Is a Really Open mind in somekind of things that for rest of the world is unthinkable!

That is a very Odd Fastival to me!! LOL

__________________

Hassun

Other than that, fertility celebration and worshiping is one of the oldest versions of religion in the world.



How about the Japanese extreme obsession with losing face?
E.g. One of the reasons they have so much reservations about saying the word 'no'.

__________________

Youth-anime-fan

I've often heard of the blossom viewing during the spring. Watching the cherry blossoms (sakura) reminds of how short beauty lasts.

Lots of people take "picknics" under the trees and leave lots of trash behind.

__________________

souichiro_arima

Ehh??! Did I a commit something??

Anyways, the event that Japan I found very interesting is that of the Autumn Leaves.. They used to watch Autumn leaves during the start of "Ber" months in different places in all of Japan. This says that Japanese really give important to nature... Thats my opinion....

__________________

Legend

I remember seeing on the news once where once Japanese males reach certain age they have a rite of passage sort of thing. All I remember is they dress up like those drum players so basically very little with that towel-like underwear. They go to some river or pond, so needless to say the water's cold, they dance and pour that cold water over themselves...

Anyone know what that is?

__________________

tsurara

bullshit?

If a coming of age half-nude cold-water ritual exists - it is obselete or incredibly uncommon. In four years of living here, I've never seen any men in loincloths jumping into lakes (well maybe one or two... but they were just idiots).

There are, however, local festivals (hadaka matsuri, or "naked festivals") that involve all-male groups dressing up in loincloths and fighting over tokens thrown into crowds, climbing greased poles, being doused with cold water, and other creative "fun" tortures. They're special events unique to certain areas and currently practiced for community bonding and as tourist draws, not necesarily standard rites of passage.

Maybe you saw a report on one of these and the newscaster misunderstood (or overstated) it's cultural significance.

__________________

Legend

No it was just one of the few things they did. I don't remember every part of it as I was saying I saw that little news story long ago when I was a kid. On top of that it wasn't really much of a deal considering that story was a filler at the end to roll the credits to.

__________________