Sox
I recently heard a very interesting story. I was teaching a student and we somehow got into a story about the meaning behind the fundoshi. Fundoshi is a traditional type of underwear for Japanese men. You can read about the fundoshi on Wikipedia or somehow rummage through posts from Rurousha’s Blog from around May 2012. To keep things simple, a fundoshi is basically a long cloth with strings and it is fashioned by tying it around your waist to create underwear. The story I recently learned was about why men wear fundoshi, specifically for swimming. Fundoshi can be over 2 metres long, but my student said that they could be up to 5 metres long. When swimming, it is possible that you will run into a shark in the sea. When this happens, the fundoshi serves a secondary purpose, decoy. Men are supposed to let their fundoshies go and the shark will see the fundoshi as a big and delicious fish. The fundoshi is supposed to look better for the shark and the swimmer can swim back to shore or onto their boat if they are lucky. They would be missing an important piece of clothing and they’d be naked wherever they found safety, but they’d at least be alive. I doubt this is a true story, but it is a fun story to share.
Information
- Fundoshi (Wikipedia)
PS: Sorry Ru and Lina, there are no pics of me in a fundoshi, but at least you get a picture of Sox! 😛
Sox and fundoshi in one post! Wheee!
Fundoshi is a decoy? Well, if a decoy is something that is “used to entice game into a trap” then it has certainly succeeded in trapping my attention. 😀
This was a fun Friday story. I’m off to go hiking in Chiba (Bōsō Peninsula) today, but I’ll be back later to read Lina’s contribution. ^^
PS: We patiently await Dru’s firefly fundoshi.
Glad you liked it. I had a feeling you and Lina would. Now to wait for her reply. 🙂
Have fun on Boso. I’ll be off too, but you can check out Twitter to find out where.
PS: That firefly fundoshi will not come for a long time. Keep waiting.
I was expecting that!
Talk about false expectation! HAHAHA
I hope I wasn’t leading you 2 on. 😉
Interesting story… It may even work, sharks don’t really like human flesh when they bite is usually because they mistake people for seals. Then they spit, albeit this is not of much consolation for the victim… If there is something tat looks lie a fish nearby they may go for it.
I wonder what Sox is thinking, it seems very absorbed in some very intense thought…
They say most shark attacks happen because surfers on surf boards are look like seals that are injured. Also, they found the black wet suits are not good either. Colourful ones reduce the chances of shark attacks. Either way, I’d hate for a shark to give me a taste, especially if they are going to just spit it out.
Sox, by the way, is absorbed in “let me out” thought. He wanted to see what was happening outside.
Crap!
I was expecting a fundoshi wearing caucasian male somewhere in the post as I hurried over.
Hmph.
But Sox is OK too. 🙂
Whew. Glad Sox was okay.