October 14, 2006: Swinging bricks from the chest
 

http://cellar.org/2006/bricks.jpg

Not sure how to title this xoB/WaPo shot. The official cap says this guy is from the Meishan tribe and this is a tribal festival. Now my question to you is this: why does there always have to be some weird tribal connection to body modification and nails through the chest and etc.? It seems like there is always talk about ritual, religion, tribalism and so forth, surrounding these things.

The fact that this is happening in China tells us maybe it has a universal nature -- have different cultures have picked up the practice independently?

Would anyone (amongst us) find this to be a personally fulfilling act somehow?

When implants go bad.

The ancient Mayan kings performed fertility rituals that involved bloodletting from rather more intimate body parts... I suppose it's just as well they couldn't leave behind photographs for us.

Does the guy in the light blue shirt have his arm coming out of his groin? :eyebrow:

Makes sense, I mean how many people would chose to do this for fun? The warm and fuzzy feeling of having accomplished something that has been quantified as to it's ballsiness. That way when you brag about it, people say Wow, instead of WTF.

didn't "A Man Called Horse" have one up on this guy in the pain threshold department?

Anybody else think he's a Nance for not hooking those bricks through his nipples?

Yep, 'cause the pins through the skin were bearclaws and the guy was hoisted up in the air and hung from his own chest flesh/muscle. I can still remember how I cringed watching that... :eek:

I want to see him stop suddenly!

Once they all get satellite TV with 500 channels over there, this sort of activity should evaporate.

Then they'll all be fat and lethargic like us. :)

No time to swing bricks from skin any more, the Munsters are on. :biggrin:

Anybody notice that there are no women in the audience?

how bored they must be over there.

um... we're looking at pictures of them salving their boredom. What does that say about the intensity of our lifestyle?



edit smelling so it makes some sense

It's like the military says, "Pain is just weakness leaving the body."

People do these things for various reasons. Some times it's to face pain to show one's devotion to a cause or deity, some times it's for the endorphine rush that accompanies pain. Same reason some people like whips in the bedroom, really.

Should be modified to "Pain is just IED shrapnel entering the body".