Japan's Fortunes, Omens & Lucky Charms

About this book

Why does a nation of bullet trains still queue before dawn for a paper fortune? Why are weddings crowded onto one named day of a six-day cycle, why does a red doll stare from the shelf with one eye blank, and why must the New Year's roll be eaten whole, in silence, facing one particular direction? This complete English guide answers with 200 entries in one fixed, easy-to-use format. It begins with the omikuji itself — the ladder of blessings and curses, the poems, the small print, the knot on the pine. It surveys Japan's forms of telling, from palmistry and the Four Pillars to tortoise-shell cracks and blood-type horoscopes; explains the lucky calendar that still schedules weddings, funerals and house-movings; catalogues the lucky charms, from the beckoning cat to the household talisman; walks through the rites that ward off the calamity years; listens to the everyday omens in tea stems, sneezes and numbers; visits the places where fortune concentrates; and closes by following the whole system through one full year, from the first sunrise of January to the 108 strikes of the last bell. The book presents these traditions as culture, history and etiquette — it promises nothing and debunks nothing — and wherever a date, a festival or a shrine arrangement can change, each entry closes by pointing you to the official source to confirm before you go. Draw your first fortune and actually be able to read it.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.