Kobo and the Wishing Pictures. Dorothy Baruch

      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

      Kobo slipped out of his shoes. He placed them in Japanese fashion on the stone step outside his house. Then he stood there for a moment in the warm sunshine and wiggled his toes. This was the first day that they did not tingle with the cold.

      "Hai!" Kobo gulped in excitement. "Spring is in the air. I can smell it. And I can feel it, too. That means Wishing Day will soon be here." Kobo smiled to himself.

      Springtime meant wishing time: to pray for a good rice crop, to wish also for the one thing that one wanted most for oneself. Standing there a little longer and sniffing the sweet, fresh air, Kobo wondered: "What shall I wish?"

      It was something that he would have to think about.

      Inside, Kobo found his mother with Little Brother on her back. She, too, had felt the warmth of spring in the air, and she was changing the winter picture on the wall to the springtime picture. Kobo's younger sister Tako was arranging three plum branches dotted with their first opening buds.

      At the other side of the room, seated on the floor and wearing his brown kimono, was Kobo's father. He was an artist. His paints were laid out before him in splashes of brightness. He had just finished washing his brushes. They stood like little sprigs of bamboo in the pottery cups in which he kept them.

      This was his busiest time of the year. For with spring in the air, everyone would remember that in four days the Wishing Festival would be here. The people would then go to the shrine of the Rice Goddess, and they would take with them paintings of the things they wished for. They would pray to the Rice Goddess to grant their wishes. And they would hang their wishing pictures on the wall of the shrine as an offering and a reminder to the goddess not to forget them.

      "This year," Kobo thought, "I shall hang a picture of my own." He would ask his father to paint it for him. But first Kobo had an important decision to make. There were so many wishes crowding in his mind. Which one should he really wish?

      Just then, Father looked up for a moment. "Come, Elder Son," he said. "Come and help me."

      Quietly Kobo went over to where his father was working. On the floor were the small wooden plaques on which he painted the ema: the wishing pictures. With careful fingers Father was checking to see that the wood was smooth. Just as carefully, Kobo arranged the plaques in neat little piles. "Ichi, ni, san, shi, go," Kobo counted, whispering so as not to disturb Father's thinking. One, two, three, four, five little piles.

      "On one of these," thought Kobo, "Father will paint my picture, when I decide what my best wish is."

      But what should he wish? It was strange that he couldn't make up his mind. Yet not so strange, really. Because this was no ordinary wish. It had to be the very best, the very greatest thing that he could wish for. Perhaps if he listened carefully to what his father's customers wanted in their ema wishing pictures, it would help him decide on his own best wish.

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