#Brauchtum

You’ll find them at almost every temple and shrine: a wall full of little printed or written-on wooden plaques, called ema (絵馬). Visitors buy the plaques, write a wish on one side and then hang them up.

The range of wishes is huge, from health and passing exams to career success, a good relationship, and even world peace. Even tourists have picked up the custom, so you won’t just find plaques written in Japanese, but also in Korean, English, German and other languages.

The custom goes back to the Nara period (around the 8th century). Back then, horses were seen as messengers of the gods. To make sure their wishes and prayers were heard better by the gods, people donated horses to the shrines. However, these animals were extremely expensive. So, anyone who couldn’t afford one made horse figures out of wood, clay or paper instead. That’s how today’s little wooden plaques came to be. The word Ema translates to horse picture.

A look at the phrasebook tells you that “enjoy your meal” in Japanese is いただきます (itadakimasu). But there’s a lot more to it.

With “enjoy your meal”, we’re just wishing the others at the table a tasty meal and a nice time eating together.

Itadakimasu, on the other hand, is an expression of gratitude. You’re thanking the plants that were harvested for the food, and the animals that gave their lives for it. You’re saying thanks to the emperor, your parents, the farmer, the fisherman, the cook, and basically everyone who pitched in so you can tuck into a delicious meal right now. You’re realising that this isn’t something to take for granted. If you take the idea seriously, it also means eating absolutely everything, right down to the last grain of rice.

The original meaning of itadakimasu was “to raise something above your head”. Buddhism brought the custom to the country of taking an object received from a superior and holding it above your head first, as a sign of gratitude and respect. Over time, this turned into a general expression for politely receiving an object.

Using it before eating is pretty new, though. Up until the early twentieth century, it was only a regional thing before it caught on nationwide. Even today, whether you put your hands together while saying it or not varies depending on the region.

PS: At the end of a meal, you say ご馳走様でした (gochisōsama deshita) - “That was a feast.”

You don’t have to look around for long to spot the first of these red heads with big eyes and a grumpy expression. We’re talking about a Daruma (だるま).

The figure represents the monk Bodhidharma. According to legend, he has no arms or legs anymore because they fell off from years of meditating. And because he once fell asleep while meditating, he cut off his eyelids out of anger over his carelessness, which gave him the big eyes.

The Daruma is considered a lucky charm. It’s mostly sold with white eyes. You make a wish and then paint in one eye. Then you put the figure in a place where you pass by daily if possible. The sight of the Daruma with only one painted eye is meant to constantly remind you of the wish. If it comes true, the Daruma gets its other eye painted in as a reward. It has then fulfilled its purpose and is ceremoniously burned at the turn of the year in the temple where it was bought.

Daruma figures are made of papier-mâché and are hollow inside. They come in different sizes. The body is usually painted red, but you can also find it in white and other colours. You can buy them in temples and sometimes as おみやげ (omiyage) in souvenir shops - a nice little gift from a trip to Japan. For a quick wish on the go, you can sometimes even find pre-prayed Darumas, for example for health or exam success.

Thanks to its shape, the Daruma also became a roly-poly toy in the 18th century. It reminds you to get back up and carry on after a setback. The Japanese say 七転八起 (nanakorobi yaoki) for this: fall down seven times, get up eight times.

Fun fact: Snowmen are called 雪だるま (yuki daruma) in Japanese - snow Daruma.

Even though Japanese culture doesn’t have Christian roots, there’s a witching hour in Japan too. Or more accurately, a half-hour witching hour.

It’s called 丑三つ時 (ushi mitsu doki) and literally means “the third time of the ox”. This slightly weird phrasing goes back to how they told the time in ancient Japan. The 24 hours of the day were split into 12 chunks of two hours each. The individual chunks were assigned to the Chinese zodiac signs and then divided again into four parts of 30 minutes each. The time of the ox is the slot from 1 am to 3 am. The Japanese witching hour is in the third part of this slot, so it happens at night between 2 am and 2:30 am.

Just like over here, the witching hour is a spooky time when you can bump into ghosts and summon demons. An old ritual practised during the witching hour is 丑の時参り (ushi no toki mairi), the shrine visit at the time of the ox. This is a curse that’s supposed to bring death to its victim.

The summoner (usually a scorned woman) wears the iron tripod of a fireplace upside down on her head. She has stuck a candle into each of the metal legs. Wearing this crown, she sneaks into a shrine during the witching hour and hammers nails into a sacred tree. If she manages to pull this off for seven days in a row without being seen, an ox appears. To finish the curse, she has to step over it.