Wishes for Better Luck ~ or, Japanese Bad Luck Traps

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That's a lot of bad luck in one photo!

wishes_for_better_luck_copy.jpg

The pieces of paper are called omikuji (御神籤). At all shrines you can buy your fortune. It's most common around New Years, but you can buy them at any time. I have even started to see vending machines at shrines offering them.

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There are various levels, ranging from great luck all the way down to bad luck. If you get middle or good luck, you say thanks and take it with you, but if you get bad luck the thing to do is tie the paper to a tree or some lines like in the photo and pray for the bad luck to stay with the tied up paper and not follow you around.

So I guess this isn't so much wishes for better luck, but rather a bad luck trap[1].

❦


Hi there! David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.

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    1. Don't cross the streams. ↩

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    (Edited)

    Wow, nice photos. Actually, I feel very powerful energy. I guess everybody wishes a lot this year...

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    Everyone is wishing for an end to covid, I'm sure. Let's hope that energy works!

    !PIZZA

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    This post has received a 100.00% upvote from @fambalam! Join thealliance community to get whitelisted for delegation to this community service.

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    Wow))

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    Indeed

    !BEER

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    You need to stake more BEER (24 staked BEER allows you to call BEER one time per day)

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    So a really evil person could go and set all those bits of paper free, and unleash the bad luck into the world?
    Hmmm.....

    !PIZZA

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    haha I suppose one could if one were so inclined.

    !BEER

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    You need to stake more BEER (24 staked BEER allows you to call BEER one time per day)

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