Kawasaki ¨C Each year on the first Sunday of April, large crowds pour into Kawasaki, a city in Kanagawa Prefecture just across Tokyo¡¯s southern border more known for its factories and refineries than tourist hot spots. These visitors are directed by smartly uniformed security guards to the leafy Kanayama Shrine, a place of worship far from Kawasaki¡¯s city center.
Today, however, is the Kanamara Festival ¡ª the ¡°Festival of the Steel Phallus¡± ¡ª more commonly referred to as ¡°the penis festival.¡±
As with many matsuri (festivals) in Japan, part of the day¡¯s merriment includes the parading of mikoshi, portable shrines that serve as temporary vessels for kami (Shinto deities), around the shrine grounds and adjacent streets. At the Kanamara Festival, however, these mikoshi are unmistakably phallic: One is fashioned from black iron and one wood, but the most famous and most photographed ¡ª a fuchsia-colored, 2-meter-tall sculpture ¡ª that happens to be named ¡°Elizabeth.¡±
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