I just came across this last night while I was browsing around while listening during the #pimp meeting.

A silver daruma! It doesn't give a weight, one of the comments says it's smaller than they expected, and it's from China which is infamous for putting out fakes (lots of fake silver coins, for instance), but that's a great design. It's only ¥2768 (≈$19) so I might risk it and order.

What is daruma? Glad you asked! This is daruma:

It's a round, hollow, paper-mache doll that is used more or less as a talisman of good luck. Typically you draw in one eye, make a wish or set a goal, then fill in the other eye when your wish or goal comes true. At the end of the year it is suppose to go back to the temple or shrine where it was bought where they will burn it in a special ceremony, but many people will skip that and just keep it. They are kind of expensive, after all!

The image on the daruma doll is a very very stylized picture of Bodhidharma, the Buddhist monk who brought Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism to China.

There are a number of very colorful myths about Bodhidharma. One of them says that after being spurned by the Chinese emperor, he went and meditated in a cave for nine years straight without moving a muscle. Due to this, his arms and legs fell off from atrophy. Hence the image on the daruma doll, that of a head and body only with no arms or legs.

Adding to the good luck of having a monk's head, his facial hair is drawn in such a way as to represent a crane and a tortoise. Use your imagination. In Japanese mythology a crane lives for 1000 years and a tortoise for 10,000 years, making both animals very lucky.

Anyway, back to the silver daruma. What could be luckier than a silver daruma? I think I'm going to risk ordering it. If you'd also like to risk it, order it here. But hurry! It says the sale is only for one more day.

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.