300-year-old burdock festival held in central Japan for bountiful harvest

FUKUI, Japan - A traditional festival dating back more than 300 years, in which participants pray for a bountiful harvest by eating large servings of burdock from a vermilion bowl, was held Tuesday in Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, in central Japan.

Around 20 men dressed in traditional Japanese haori coats and hakama trousers gathered at a private home to celebrate the Soden Shogatsu Jushichinichi-ko Festival, sustaining a custom passed down since the Edo Era, which dates from 1603 to 1868.