If anything, they did it on a grander scale.

Dozens of people soaked and splashed themselves in painfully icy cold water in a pool at a Tokyo shrine, adhering to Japanese ...

Shinto shrines abound in Japan, and most Japanese take part in one or another Shinto ceremony over the course of a year. Although Shinto is not a missionary religion, Shinto now has an international ...

Mostly half-naked men with just white loincloth around their hips and several women in white robes joined the annual cold endurance ritual at the Kanda Myojin, a Shinto shrine in downtown Tokyo.