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December 05, 2003What a relief--other cultures are crazy, too!
Today was my last day of class for the quarter. I don’t have any finals, so except for an Early Japanese Literature essay I’m still in the process of writing, I’m done with all school-related tasks through the beginning of January.
Speaking of Early Japanese Literature, a few girls from the class gave a presentation of mythical creatures this afternoon—one of which was the tanuki. Although tanukis are real animals (a raccoon dog, basically), they’ve historically been considered supernatural creatures in Japan. They often turn into random objects, which makes Tanuki Mario’s ability to turn into an invincible (albeit stationary) monk statue in Nintendo’s "Super Mario Brothers 3" much less random.
What Tanuki Mario’s inclusion in the game never suggested, however, was the testicular might with which tanukis were attributed in Japanese folklore. The real-life tanukis are endowed with rather large testicles due to the competitive nature of mating, but the mythological tanukis put them to shame.
In folklore, tanukis would drag their testes behind them as they walked, wear them as a kimono, or even use them as a drum. Some legends suggest that the tanukis could stretch their scrotums to the size of eight tatami mats—or even the size of one thousand tatami mats.
Let’s think about this. A tatami mat is eighteen square feet in size. There are 43,560 square feet in an acre. It would take just shy of two and a half tanuki scrotums to cover an acre. With 2,904 tanukis, one could scrotally cover UC Riverside’s entire 1,200-acre campus.
You’ll never look at "Super Mario Brothers 3" the same way, will you? I won’t even tell you what kappa (the mythological creatures upon which SMB’s turtle-like koopa was based) were known for doing to their victims…
For more information on tanukis, check out this guy's site.
Posted by patrick at December 5, 2003 02:12 AM
CommentsKind of gives a whole new meaning to the term "teabagging," doesn't it?
Posted by: Jon Bastian at December 5, 2003 11:52 AM
I've heard of these before.
Tanukis were also known to be very ferocious animals. Warriors of the past used the Tanuki as a right of passage into manhood. Battling these mythical animals was quite perilous, and truly, only the strong survived. At the end of their bloody struggle with the beast, the victorious adolescent would take their trophies from the carcass of the Tanuki: their hallowed testicles. To carry around these pearls of strength was customary amongst people of that time. Twas a sign of power and prestige.
This legend spawned many euphemisms in our native language that still carry through today.
To "Have the balls" to achieve a difficult task. Stemming from the bravery usually instilled by wearing the Tanuki testicles around one's neck.
To be "Blackballed" from a club or event. Stemming from stigma towards imposters wearing beaver testicles, both which had the same size and shape as the Tanuki's, but unmistakably darker.
"That man has brass balls." Another hat-tip to the lucky balls wearer. But, due to the natural decomposition of flesh, their trophies soon became distastefully putrid. It soon became customary to bronze their treasures.
And who could forget the word "Baltic". Undoubtedly the toughest body of water and monopoly property yet.
Too much free time.
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James
Posted by: James Dalby at December 19, 2003 11:06 PM
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Posted by: bfc3745 at March 5, 2005 06:19 PM
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Posted by: bfc3745 at March 5, 2005 06:20 PM
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