Leaving Bad Fortune Behind

2008-01-16

That's the idea... After the New Year begins I've heard 80 percent of Japanese people will visit a Shinto shrine. They may not be "believers" but they are concerned about "doing things the right way" for the sake of good fortune, luck, or whatever you want to call it in the year to come. After arriving at a shrine one typical activity is to pay some money and receive a strip of paper with your fortune written on it. If the fortune is good, the visitor will take it home. But if it's bad then the recipient will take it to a rack like this one and tie it to one of the strings. They hope that by leaving the bad fortune at the shrine whatever bad spirits associated with it will be exorcised.

It makes me wonder what sort of bad fortune this child received, or how his parents felt when they read it (especially if it was grim). Outsiders look at these rituals as fun or exotic, and for many Japanese it's a kind of game like hunting for Easter eggs and such. But despite the general culture of unbelief, there is a certain amount of real hope, concern, and fear involved -- that's not so much about connecting with the Divine as avoiding undesirable connections and other troubles.