2020/4/21

Web design firm and Japan temple team up on carp streamer offering to beat back virus - The Mainichi

Japan's National Daily Since 1922

Web design firm and Japan temple
team up on carp streamer offering tobeat back virus
April 18, 2020 (Mainichi Japan)

Office Gluee! Co. President Gaku Kubono (second from left, holding a carp streamer) and Sohaku Matsushita, chiefmonk of Chokoji temple (second from right) are seen at the temple in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture, on April 16,
2020. (Mainichi/Hiroshi Ishikawa)

NUMAZU, Shizuoka -- Event cancellations due to the novel coronavirus have set the stage for anunlikely partnership between a temple and a web design firm to get a child-pleasing "koi" carp
streamer into the air in this central Japanese city.
Local firm Office Gluee! Co. made the ritual offering of the 90-centimeter-long koi streamer to theChokoji Zen temple on April 16. The streamers are traditionally flown in the weeks leading up toChildren's Day on May 5. Those made by Office Gluee are known for their unique designs, and theone the company offered on April 16 was illustrated with a yokai -- monsters, demons and spirits fromJapanese folklore -- called an amabie, said to ward off plagues. The offering was followed by a prayer
ritual at the temple to drive away the novel coronavirus.
The streamer with a pink-faced amabie with twinklingeyes was originally set to be displayed at a carp
streamer festival in Numazu that was eventuallycancelled due to coronavirus concerns. Meanwhile
Chokoji temple is well known for its annual "cryingsumo" matches, in which infants compete in ritual
weeping contests said to promote babies' well-being,A carp streamer featuring an illustration of anamabie yokai is seen at Chokoji temple inNumazu, Shizuoka Prefecture, on April 16,2020. (Mainichi/Hiroshi Ishikawa)but this too was called off this year. Office Gluee
President Gaku Kubono, 49, decided to offer the carp
streamer to the temple as both events were themed on
wishing for children's good health.

The temple's chief monk Sohaku Matsushita, 71, offered the streamer to deities in a ritual where herecited sutras passed down at the temple for driving off epidemics while pounding a drum.
President Kubono commented on the offering, "We wished to offer something that only our company
could make."Matsushita said, "With no remedy for the coronavirus available yet, things are exactly the same as
during the Edo period (1603-1868), when people relied only on the amabie for curing smallpox andcholera. I made the ritual offering in the hope that the coronavirus will come to an end as we join
together as one."https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200418/p2a/00m/0na/036000c?mode=print

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2020/4/21

Web design firm and Japan temple team up on carp streamer offering to beat back virus - The Mainichi(Japanese original by Hiroshi Ishikawa, NumazuBureau)

Chokoji temple chief monk Sohaku Matsushita
beats a drum as he offers prayers to drive away
epidemics, at the temple in Numazu, Shizuoka
Prefecture, on April 16, 2020.
(Mainichi/Hiroshi Ishikawa)

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