New Year and the Japanese Shrine (part 2)
Traditionally, Japanese families visit a Shrine on the first day of the year. The Shinto Shrine is a popular place of worship in Japan. There are around 100,000 shrines all over Japan and people go to pray for good fortune and to pay their respects to the kami (the shinto gods/spirits). Manners at a shrine are very important, and so in our last lesson of the year we took a tour of a Shinto Shrine and learnt about the ritual of visiting a Shrine.
Firstly we made shide, zig-zag shaped paper streamers to hang on our shimenawa (Straw rope). The shimenawa makes a boundary for somethig sacred we hung ours on our torii.
The torii is the first thing you see when you visit a shrine. It is a big gate that marks the entrance. It is usually made of wood and is painted a reddish-orange colour.
Just in front of the torii are two stone statues called komainu. These are the guardian dogs of the shrine. Their names are A and Un. You can tell them apart because one always has its mouth open while they other is closed. Can you guess which one is which? A is the one with his mouth open, like someone at the dentist saying "aaaaaah".
(Our torii with hanging shide and A and Un in front)
When entering the shrine it is important to be quiet and respectful. Once inside the first place you need to visit is the purification font (chōzuya), a fountain of fresh water that pours into a trough. Here you need to wash your hands and
mouth before visiting the Offering Hall. Using a ladle you
gently pour fresh water from one hand to the next, then using a cupped hand you put some water in you mouth and spit it out to the side. The students took it in turns to wash their hands in our purification font (see right).
After cleansing yourself you then move on to the Offering Hall (haiden). Here you make a small donation to the shine by throwing a coin into the offering box. You then shake the rope that hands from the ceiling to ring the bell (suzu). This will call the kami to the shine. Then you take a step back, bow twice and clap your hands twice. After you have spent a few moments in prayer you bow once more before you leave.
(Bowing in front of the offering box after praying)
After praying you can maybe buy an omamori (an amulet) which can have different meanings, such as luck for exams or preventing car accidents. You can also buy an ema which is a wooden plaque to write your wishes on. You hang it up
at the shrine in the hope that it will come true. All the students wrote down their own wishes for 2015 and hung them up. Lets hope they come true!
