Chanting and swishing a wooden wand, a Japanese priest on Saturday blessed a cat, a shiba inu and several Yorkshire terriers at a shrine in Tokyo, in a rite usually reserved for children.
The annual “Shichi-Go-San” festival, which literally means “Seven-Five-Three,” traditionally allows families to celebrate the growth of their children at those ages, but with Japan’s population in decline, more and more worshippers are bringing beloved animals to the event instead.
“I came here to pray for my pet’s healthy growth and well-being,” doctor Shoko Kodama said at the Ichigaya Kamegaoka Hachimangu, a Shinto shrine in the capital.
Photo: AF
She said she had spent two months hand-crafting a bespoke, bright-red kimono for her cat, a five-year-old British shorthair named Amber.
“This little one is like my child,” she said. “Just having her around makes all the unpleasant things in life melt away.”
Outside the shrine, other pet owners dressed their fluffy companions in colorful kimonos and posed them for photos to mark the special occasion. They then brought them into the inner sanctuary, where the priest, Kenji Kaji, performed a purification rite with a wand decorated with white paper streamers.
The role of pets in people’s lives had shifted as “the family structure has changed” in Japan, which is grappling with an aging population and a low birthrate, he said.
“I think the number of instances where people who don’t have children, or have finished raising them, and welcome a dog or cat as a member of the family has been increasing,” Kaji said.
His shrine has been accepting about 400 families for each festival since the early 2000s, due to demand from pet owners.
Miyu Shiro, who owns two Yorkshire terriers, said marking the event with her dogs “feels perfectly natural.”
“They’re part of our family,” she said, as she snapped photos of her pups, neatly combed and wearing flower-shaped hair clips.
Data in June showed that Japan’s fertility rate fell again last year to a record low, underscoring the demographic crisis gnawing at the world’s fourth-largest economy.
With a median age of 49.9 years, Japan also has the second-oldest population in the world after Monaco, the World Bank said.
Koichi Ohara who attended the festival with his wife and friends, said his three Chihuahuas gave him “unconditional love.”
“They’re more affectionate than human children. They listen to what we say, too,” he said, adding that he had three kids. “Just like us humans, I hope they can live long and in peace.”
CRACKED SCREEN: The problem is an embarrassing setback for Apple, which spent more than a decade developing the device and touted its durability The iPhone Duo, one of Apple’s biggest new products in years, is drawing a growing number of complaints from customers who say the foldable display cracked after just hours or days of use. In these cases, customers reported hearing a crunching sound when unfolding the phone, followed by a large crack forming along the center crease. Some users also experienced a white patch or other display malfunction on the right side of the screen. Reports of the problem first surfaced on Reddit and other social media platforms. Bloomberg News has since independently verified the issue with more than half a
Ethiopian online influencers are pushing for their government to invade neighboring Eritrea and seize access to the sea, following its success against rebel and Eritrean forces in the past few weeks. The Ethiopian army has advanced right up to the border after repelling an offensive by rebels in the northern Tigray State who were supported by Eritrean troops. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has repeatedly said that securing a base on the Red Sea is a vital national objective for Ethiopia, which lost its coastline when Eritrea gained independence in 1993. Some online influencers say that the opportunity to invade has arrived. “The time
When fall arrives and leaves start changing color, Mike Valladao, a systems engineer at a cybersecurity company, slips into his alter ego, “Farmer Mike,” also known as the “Picasso of Pumpkin Carvers.” Farmer Mike has been chiseling whimsical faces and comical creatures into big pumpkins for more than four decades. Wearing his trademark orange overalls and farmer hat, he has sculpted hundreds of gourds into ghoulish faces, seaside landscapes, witches, dragons and pop culture figures, such as Yoda and Charlie Brown. Valladao does not have any formal artistic training, but he is always looking for inspiration. He gets ideas from looking at
Beijing yesterday dismissed as “groundless speculation” a report that said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) was the target of a Chinese spy plot. The article by the New York Times, published on Thursday, said that US intelligence officials concluded that a Chinese executive linked to a Singapore-based data center company had been funneling information to Beijing. “The report in question is based on groundless speculation and is nothing more than an attempt to smear China,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) told a regular briefing. China is in a race for tech dominance with the US, which restricts the export
RSS