Crying Sumo Baby Contest = The Future?

"An annual "crying sumo" contest for babies, in which pairs of infants are brought together to see who can cry the first or the loudest, was held at Tokyo's Sensoji Temple on Sunday."

Hoo boy. Where do I begin. Alright, basically this is a contest to determine which baby can scream/cry the loudest. Sumo wrestlers hold up babies and attempt to scare them into oblivion. The winning baby...wins....I have no idea. Honestly, I have no idea. I can't help, but compare this story to another award-winning tale called "Monsters Inc."

I'm willing to guess that these sumo wrestlers are not using the fear of children to power the cities of Japan. Then again, Japan is pretty bizarre. If someone told me that Tokyo Tower needed to be powered by the cries of children, I wouldn't be that surprised. Japan has always been on the forefront when it comes to modern-day tech. It would only be a matter of time before it would hit the American Shores in the guise of some sort of "Wii" game. Excuse me, gentlemen, welcome to "WII TEARS!"

Original Article here. Like many other Japanese events, this is done to promote good health. Good grief, thanks for being so original. You have all these wacky festivals, but they always promote the same damn thing. Good Health. Bah.

More Penis Festivals in Japan!

Remember the old posts I put up about penis festivals? Well, there are even more pictures of these festivals! Reuters and Destructoid talk about phalluses being marched down streets of Japan during a festival called the Kanamara Festival. According to Reuters, the Kanamara festival is actually over a hundred years old and was originally done to prevent Japanese women from getting syphilis. That's right. SYPHILIS. The festival is also held to protect people from AIDs. There were approximately 30,000 people at this event to boot. Man, I wish I could go celebrate my name!

This is the wikipedia entry:

"The Kanamara Matsuri is centered around a local penis-venerating shrine, once popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection against sexually transmitted diseases. It is said that there are divine protections also in business prosperity and the clan's prosperity, easy delivery, marriage, and married couple harmony, etc. Today, the festival is used to raise money for HIV research. There's also a legend of a demon that hid inside a young girl and castrated two young men on their wedding nights before a blacksmith fashioned an iron phallus that was used to break the demon's teeth, leading to the enshrinement of the item."

Original articles from Destructoid and Reuters.