The Japanese Nut Festival or Hadaka Matsuri is a festival that takes place every third Saturday of February at Saidaiji Kannonin Temple, Okayama City, western Japan.
During the festival, men had to take off their clothes in the cold of Japan's cold, wearing only one white dress called fundoshi and a pair of white socks called tabi.
The Hadaka Matsuri Japan Nut Festival attracts up to 10,000 Japanese men to participate each year.
Hadaka Matsuri was born 500 years ago and originated from the Saidaiji Temple and has been passed down through many generations.
At first, participants competed for a paper spell, but because it was easy to tear, people later replaced it with a wooden stick.
In Saidaiji, the coldest days of the year are usually February, when thousands of male followers of the faith will strip their robes, wear a pillow, drink sake to purify, then scream and dance to warm people.
They wear traditional costumes and enter the cold waterfall to purify their bodies before entering the sacred temple.
At exactly 10 o'clock of the festival night, the lights in the temple will all go out, a Taoist standing in the window will throw two lucky sticks (called Shingi, 20 cm long, 4 cm in diameter) to the crowd.
Festival participants strive to win Shingi in their hands because according to legend, whoever holds the Shingi the longest and puts the wooden stick in the box called masu will have luck and happiness for the entire 12 months.
Others will try to touch whoever gets the stick to hope for luck to spread, then everyone will return to order.
People across Japan and a few foreign tourists attended the matchmaking festival. Some people attended the event alone, but many people representing local businesses also attended the wedding festival.
"We hope to maintain the Hadaka Matsuri tradition in the future," Mieko Itano, a representative for Okayama Department of Tourism, told CNN Travel.
