Museum Boasts Lecherous Octopuses Among Other Things

An oddly shaped Chinese character catches my eye causing my brow to furrow. My kanji knowledge is by no means advanced (I have the knowledge of perhaps a slightly lazy, exclusively-cartoon-watching six or seven year old Japanese elementary school student), however the simplicity of this character confuses me. Surely, something as easy as THIS I should be able to read. And so my mind wanders:

“Looks a bit phallic doesn’t it?”

My mind is not in swimming with filth in the gutter. I have no Freudian complex that I need sorted out. I have no penis envy. This is, oddly enough, what whoever placed the sign here was striving for. This character along with one other, which I can only assume was supposed to complete the set, pointed down the road. My companion and I followed suit, keeping our eyes out for any other curiously shaped kanji that would lead us to the end of our smutty treasure hunt.

A giant tree envelops us. Green, wise, wizened and meandering it stretches up into the sky. My eyes follow the massive trunk down and there, at the base the two seemingly simple looking Chinese characters have broken all the rules of normal, unsexy Chinese characters, flipped around, joined forces, come together, and sit there looking rather smug and coital. I half expect them to pop out a cigarette.

“We’re in the right place.”

As we round the corner a giant nine-foot Brobdingnagian phallus, probably stolen from the BFG looms up before us causing any guy to immediately feel hapless and inadequate. Carved out of wood its presence is overpowering as it dominates the shrine floor in front of us like a massive, wooden, fertile carrot. A Japanese raccoon-dog or tanuki welcomes us in the garden, it’s massive, pendulous scrotum almost causing the poor creature to fall over. It sits overlooking another randomly placed phallus which stands fully erect in the middle of a stone garden completely ignoring all proper rules of feng shui. This is no ordinary shrine. This is Uwajima’s claim to fame. It’s pride and joy. It’s risqué Eiffel Tower. It’s ribald Colosseum. The site that they boast about in the Lonely Planet. It is the Taga-Jinja Sex Shrine.

…Which is really just a fancy, swanky name for Some Guy Who Had A Preoccupation With Sex’s Three Story Slightly Disturbing Worldly Porn Collection With Things I Probably Should Have Never Seen.

It costs a reasonable 800 yen to enter (about 6USD) (I suppose free internet porn is even cheaper), although camera fees are a whopping 2,000 yen (almost 20 dollars), and our tickets are given to us by a man who sits behind a pane of glass which conveniently has a panel of wood at face level nonchalantly masking his identity. We don’t exactly enter anonymously, however if I were asked to pick the guy out of a line up, I’d be completely at a loss. The front entranceway doubles as a scanty gift shop with a few curiosities. Key chains with glimmering penis good luck charms fill a few baskets here and there- gold, silver, plastic, ceramic, the choices are endless.

The faceless man behind the glass mumbles something about three stories and happily tells us to “take our time.”

My friend and I enter along with three Japanese guys who are doing their very best to appear casual and not overly interested in anything the exhibits have to offer. We are welcomed with walls and ceilings that are simply plastered with anything remotely related to sex. Several walls of the first floor are covered with photographs with one common element: a specific rather goofy-looking Japanese man with Rivers Cuomo’s dark rimmed glasses.

There he is with some naked natives in Indonesia.

There he is with a native woman in Burma who bears a striking resemblance to a cobra with the stacks and stacks of golden rings stretching out her neck, elongating it, apparently making her appear more attractive and fertile.

There is he with a group of girls who appear to be getting some sort of, one can assume, excruciatingly disagreeable low-tech surgery on their vaginas.

It’s like Where’s Waldo, only it’s Where’s The Completely Porn Obsessed Collecting Japanese Man (hereafter, CPO for short).

The man is indeed well traveled. His passport brims full of stamps, probably the only thing in the world in terms of mass to rival his collection of porn.

Glass cases full of stones and rocks line one wall. Some appear lucky enough to naturally have the semblance of a penis. Others seem to have been carved by hand. Cases upon cases, penis pebble after penis pebble, all sitting there looking sluttishly comfortable. Across the way are glass cases full of books. Piled one on top of another, the collection is endless. The books are thrown open and visitors allowed a glimpse into the various kama sutra and ancient forms of erotic art. The amount of books is staggering, as is the way that octopuses, dogs and various farm animals have been incorporated in. CPO has certainly been busy.

Upon rounding the corner new exhibits appear. Statues and ceramics from all over the world have been gathered and sorted into cases. Some look harmless enough at first glance: Elegant Japanese women are decked out in luxurious, expensive looking kimonos. Bright blue and gold paint glimmer on the ceramic. They look regal and royal. It is something that might even have been found in my grandmother’s china cabinet. Only. Wait. No. These are certainly different, as when they are flipped upside down the extensive, detailed, anatomically correct painting of what lies under the kimono becomes completely visible. It seems that underwear had not yet been invented in those days.

Whilst some families showcase their family photos on the wall next to the stairs so that people can admire their children graduating, getting married, vacationing in Bermuda, the proprietor of the museum decided that the stairwell would instead house various kama sutra posters as well as photographs from the Uwajima’s Fertility Festival, which are more or less, one and the same. Vintage looking black and white photos of naked women being paraded around the city are showcased on the wall, which begs the question: Why aren’t fertile men being made a spectacle of as well?

On the next floor we come upon a row of glass cases with tiny cards messily stacked up inside. My nose crinkles up in dismay. The right side has information listed: age, sex, location, and general comments. The left side of the card has either a big fistful or a few scanty bits of pubic hair (depending on how generous the donator was) glued to it. There are thousands of cards- stacked and piled. Books line the backs of the cases with cards that haven’t been quite organized properly peeking out here and there. The ages on the cards ranges from early twenties to late eighties. How does one ask an eighty-nine year old man from Osaka if they can have some of his nether-hair? How does one even broach the subject?

Upon rounding the corner my more modest persona breathes a sigh of relief, as the glass cases appear to be full of nothing but an extensive collection of turtle paraphernalia. The shelves swarm with turtles and tortoises – key chains, medallions, figurines, cockleshells with googly-eyes – it is an sizable family of turtles. As I cannot read any of the explanations for this curious collection, which oddly enough feels more out of place than index cards covered with pubic hair, I can only presume that the curator held tortoises dear to his heart in addition to intercontinental porn, or that turtles are some sort of potent aphrodisiac which he shrewdly used to cause people to fall in love with him and contribute to his bizarre exhibitions.

The museum is extensive. Each floor is packed equally with various boldly indecent curios from various parts of the world.

We finally emerge, blinking into the bright, harsh lights of day. We stumble past the fertile looking tanuki, past the salacious, mammoth, shapely wooden trunk and make our way to a different temple; a more traditional one that won’t leave its visitor, head cocked to the side, eyes wide in their sockets wondering how someone could have amassed such an exhaustive collection. Any why on earth any octopus would agree to do that.

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Published:
10.16.07 / 3pm
Category:
amusing incidents, what i call life, travel, culture, unschoolish