Bean Throwing Frenzy in Tokyo

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Published on Feb 4, 2013Japanese men and women throw soybeans in a festival to welcome the spring.Full Story:On February 3rd, hundreds of Japanese men and women threw over a ton of soybeans in a festival that follows a Japanese age-old tradition.The tradition, called "Mamemaki" is normally held in a shrine with only a handful of roasted soybeans per person.Instead, each of the 800 participants inside the landmark Tokyo Tower were given a pair of goggles and two kilograms of soybeans to throw at imaginary demons during two-hour event.It is a spring ritual held every year in Japan on February 3rd or 4th.Japanese tradition holds that ogres begin plotting evil on this day, and by throwing beans, a food that ogres hate, people can drive the evil away.[Arisa Hasebe, Festival Goer]:"I'm heated up. It's so much fun to throw something this hard, which rarely happens in my daily life."Another woman, 28-year-old Kaori Matsunami, aimed to drive away not only the evil, but also the stress.[Kaori Matsunami, Festival Goer]:"I want to vent all my stress by doing this."Takao Ozawa, an executive at a Japanese venture capital firm, Yahoo Japan Capital, remodeled the ancient tradition into a modern festivity last year.He says he was inspired by the world-renown Tomatina Festival in the Spanish town of Bunol.[Takao Ozawa, Event Organizer]:"Watching Spain's Tomatina Festival, I wanted something like that in Japan. So I searched for ideas and found this bean-throwing festival; I hope to grow it into a huge cultural event."Organizers say no one was injured in the soy bean throwing, demon exorcising festivity.For more news and videos visit ☛ http://ntd.tvFollow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevisionAdd us on Facebook ☛ http://on.fb.me/s5KV2C

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