You will certainly know Chinese fortune cookies but perhaps you still don’t know that, despite their name, their origin is Japanese. And it is always from the Land of the Rising Sun that it comes the omikuji, also called mikuji, a note which, unlike those contained in biscuits, contains predictions of any nature, both positive and negative.
If fortune cookies are easily available, the same cannot be said of these prophetic notes, hidden inside numbered bamboo sticks, kept in boxes at Shinto and Buddhist temples.
To consult them, it’s not enough to have dinner at a restaurant, you have to go to the temple, make an offering, shake the box and turn it upside down while waiting for the ticket of destiny to come forward. Then you usually look for the number indicated on special drawers, where the omikuji with the prediction is kept. Elsewhere the omikuji is already in the box and in recent times real (more or less) lucky ticket vending machines have become widespread.
Once you have found your omikuji, you unroll it to read the response: the first part contains a blessing or a curse (more or less powerful), then you move on to a positive or negative prediction regarding various areas.
A positive omikuji must be held tightly, a negative note must be hung on the branch of a pine near the temple or knotted on special metal grids, to avoid bringing bad luck with you. Did you know this Japanese tradition?
SOURCES: Japan Wonder Travel Blog/Go!Go!Nihon
