Читать книгу Kobo and the Wishing Pictures - Dorothy Baruch - Страница 7

By Way of Introduction

In Japan there is a beautiful custom: in early spring old and young go to their shrine to pray for good crops and wish for things dear to their hearts. Many wishes concern the children for whom parents deeply want health and well-being. As offerings, they hang on the wall of the shrine small wooden hand-painted plaques that symbolize their wishes. These plaques are called ema. The most excellent artists in Japan paint them to order according to each individual's wants.

On a recent trip to Japan we were introduced to these ema by Ryokku Tanaka, the most eminent folklorist in Kyoto. He not only spent hours showing us his wonderful collection of reproductions of ema pictures and explaining their meanings, but he also sent us off with one of his original ema plaques. Our thanks are due him a thousandfold.

To our interpreter and friend, Kyofu Hamada of the United States Information Service, our thanks go also. He saw that we met Professor Tanaka. He searched out rare volumes of ema prints for us to take home. And he offered to check the final manuscript and to supply whatever additional materials we might need.

In this book there are many pictures of ema. We hope that the wishes shown with them, along with the story of Kobo and his family, will bridge customs and culture through our children's seeing that the children of Japan have the same human feelings of affection, of rivalry, of sadness and joy.

DOROTHY W. BARUCH