Buying Your Luck

Japan’s Festival of Good Fortune

On certain November nights in Tokyo you may find yourself in a crowd drawn to Hanazono Shrine in Shinjuku’s San-chome district.Walking by the tourist hotspot of Golden Gai you’ll spy a line a yatai food stalls stretching down the street ahead, nearby shop doorways full of people munching on grilled chicken, plastic trays piled high with yaki-soba and the sad salt-crusted bodies of contorted fish skewered and grilled on chopsticks. Jostled in a press of bodies, wafts of meaty smoke tarring your nostrils and the chants of the approaching festival erupting ahead, the Tori No Ichi festival experience is a heady treat for all the senses.

Navigating the crush of bodies to the main square of the Hanazono shrine, a thick queue of people waits to pray to the otori-sama (the god of good fortune). Off to one side a pile of bamboo sticks, discarded daruma and various other gaudy items accumulate on a blue tarp. These are the previous year’s kumade — lucky charms for business and good fortune. I have been been told shrine burns the kumade, smoke scattering up to the heavens to meet the goodwill of the otori-sama, but it seems highly unlikely that the Tokyo Fire Department would permit the burning of thousands of bits of bamboo and plastic in the middle of Shinjuku’s cramped confines.

Kumade come in all shapes and sizes — from 6-inch mini rakes to stunning creations a good 1-metre across. The actual kumade itself is a rake and is adorned with other items said to bring good fortune (engi-mono).

My personal favourites are the kumade that explode out of bamboo sake boxes fashioned into lucky boats. Above them sit miniature gold and white sake barrels, and above those you may find all manner of adornment — maneki neko, old-fashioned gold coins made from foiled card, red envelopes for receiving money, sails, dragons, bells, 5-yen coins, daruma, disco mirror-ball cats, plum blossom, cherry blossom, cranes, Shinto deities, Hello Kitty, miniature omikoshi (portable shrines), bamboo leaves, red snapper (おめでたい！) and sprigs of rice. To top it all off, your name is written on a plaque and added to your chosen lucky charm before the staff bestow…

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