Annual Mud Festival

An exuberant festival celebrating social equality, it commemorates commoners throwing mud at former nobility as the ex-nobles left the palace when the monarchy was dissolved. Mud is thrown in public spaces across the city, and impromptu mud wrestling is widely encouraged. Neighborhoods typically provide mud and erect temporary wrestling pins. Treating the results of a festival wrestling match with anything less than lightheartedness is considered spiteful and bad form. People in powerful positions are expected to good-naturedly congregate in public squares to have mud thrown at them and/or be wrestled. The festival is the source of the phrase "Dropping the mud," meaning to put on airs or to declare yourself socially better than someone else.