Fortunate Ones

11 October 2022

I stopped taking horoscopes seriously when, as a teenager, I learned that a Capricorn’s favorite colors were supposed to be green and black. WRONG. My colors are blush and bashful. And a bucketful of purple.

I still keep my tabs on horoscopes and Capricorn memes for the entertainment value, if nothing else. I also like to joke, saying that Jesus is a Capricorn, too, and it’s nice to know what kind of a day He’s having.

If you speak Japanese, you might find this old Flash animation funny. In this screenshot, Admiral Perry is saying: it’s a JOKE.

Did I expect to find horoscopes when I first moved to Japan? I did not. But I also quickly learned that Japanese superstitions abound, together with different means to understand our futures through divination and fortune-telling.

The western horoscope readings are available in Japan, but they wax and wane in popularity. More people put stock in horoscopes based on the Chinese zodiac, called 干支 (eto) in Japanese. In another issue I might dig a little deeper into why characters that literally mean dried branches represent the twelve zodiac animals that raced for the pleasure of ancient gods—the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar, in their winning order.

Fun fact: on the lunar calendar, I am Year of the Snake but in Japan I am Year of the Horse. Why? During the Meiji Period in Japan’s History (1868–1912), the Japanese pursued rapid Westernization in the hope of avoiding China’s fate at the hands of colonial powers. Everything in Japan changed, from government to education to the military and even to the calendar.

Japan had followed the lunar calendar, as introduced by emissaries and monks from both China and Korea in the middle of the first millennium, CE, but on December 31^st, 1872, which on the lunar calendar was December 2^nd in the fifth year of the Meiji Era, the Gregorian calendar was officially adopted, with the next day recognized as the first day of January in the sixth year of the Meiji Era (1873). From that day forward, the Chinese zodiac (as used in Japan) also switched, which each animal’s year beginning not at the lunar New Year but on Japanese 1^st.

Fortunately for me, a few of the Snake and Horse characteristics overlap. They’re both responsive to their lives’ passions (some refer to that as work but let me quote James Baldwin and say: I do not dream of labor). Snakes are a little more secretive and harder to get to know at first, and Horses tend to over-share and can be easily hurt. Checks all around.

Japan is also home to a lot of palm-readers. Late at night, after the shops near the train stations in Tōkyō had closed up, the readers would set up their chairs and table, hanging out their proverbial shingle. (In contrast, I met no one who understood Tarot, a divination practice I learned in high school—yes, I was a little Goth, too.)

Another common form of divination is the お神籤 (omikuji, literally the divine lottery). Available at temples and shrines throughout Japan, fortune seekers pay a small amount and then receive a shaker of sorts. Each of the fortunes available from that temple or shrine are numbered, and you give the shaker a rough tumble in your hands under a thin stick makes it way out from a narrow hole at the shaker’s end. On that stick is the number of your fortune.

These fortunes offer advice on everything from educational endeavors to matters of the hearts. And remember, whether you are happy with the received fortune or not, it is common to fold it and tie it to a special rack at the temple or shrine—although many people, myself included, tie fortunes to tree branches in the grounds of the temple of shrine. If your fortune is good, you tie it up to encourage the deities to honor it for you. If your fortune is bad, you tie it up in the hopes the deities will take it from you.

Don’t worry, though. A monk or shrine attendant will remove the fortunes on a regular basis and include them in burnt offerings.

There is one other form of divination, unique to Japan. Blood-type fortunes.

As an aside, when I opened the Japanese Wikipedia for more information of this unique practice, I burst out laughing. At the top of the page, in the first paragraph, it states: 化学的な根拠は全くない (kagakuteki na konkyo wa mattaku nai, there is absolutely [emphasis mine] no scientific basis (for blood-type fortunes)).

I admit, like my horoscope, I find these blood-type fortunes to be entertaining, though. Hiro, however, is never amused and never responds when I ask his blood type (I think it’s B? mine is O). He will, though, join me for a divine lottery.