At many a shrine, rows and rows of wooden votive plaques are hung up in various places. They’re called ema (the kanji literally mean ‘picture horse‘.) Visitors write their wishes, hopes and dreams on the ema in the hope they’ll come true.
Aww. How optimistic.
I wonder how many trees have been sacrificed to the gods by the dreamers and wishers of this world. At least we don’t continue the original tradition of donating ‘good luck’ horses to shrines…
Whenever I get the chance, I enjoy reading as many ema as I can. Not just for the language practice – people wish for some strange things. This one below, for example, is by someone aiming to get into an NBA team. I really hope he’s young enough to still stand a chance. If a grown man wrote this, and didn’t know the kanji for ‘senshu’ (pro athlete), that’s kinda embarrassing.
At the very famous Fushimi-Inari shrine in Kyoto (seen Memoirs of a Geisha?) the ema are shaped like fox faces. Each person’s taken the time to write down their wish AND meticulously draw something else on the back. I wonder if the gods judge each request on how well the other side’s been illustrated. I hope not. I’m rubbish at drawing.
If I’m in a tourist-y area, some of the ema are usually in English, which makes them a lot more fun. Easier to read, yeah, but fun because tourists wish for such different things. It’s common to see them in other languages, too. French I might try and decipher, Italian and Spanish not so much, Korean just no.
There are the ‘Japan’s an amazing place’, dream bubble, slighty sickening wishes…
…the ones made by go-getting badasses…
…and the ema clearly written by one person but dictated by somebody else.
Even after visiting so many shrines (and being nosy enough to read so many ema), I’ve never made a wish myself. I’m not sure what I’d wish for. Nothing specific comes to mind. Maybe it *would* be better if I just bring them a horse.
