Acknowledging the Unacknowledged in Japan
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 04.22.02 | 7:42 PM ET
While working in Japan, Peggy Orenstein suffered a miscarriage—something most Americans don’t like to talk about. But in Japan Orenstein found a culture far more open about such things. In Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, she explores the two countries’ differing views, and she recalls her visit to Zozo-ji, a Buddhist temple in Tokyo filled with small statues of infants.
“The statues were offerings to Jizo, a bodhisattva, or enlightened being, who (among other tasks) watches over miscarried and aborted fetuses,” she writes. “With their hands clasped in prayer, their closed eyes and serene faces, they are both child and monk, both human and deity. I had seen Jizo shrines many times before. They’re all over Japan, festive and not a little creepy. But this was different. I hadn’t come as a tourist. I was here as a supplicant, my purse filled with toys, ready to make an offering on behalf of my own lost dream.”
Email to friend
Twitter
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz
Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
