Saturday, March 15, 2008

Green Frog from Kyoto

Before heading out for the laundromat this morning, I sorted through some piles on the kitchen table. In one, I found a small plastic bag with a tiny porcelain frog figurine inside. We're talking smaller than your fingernail. I've had this for years and never really looked at it closely -- always figured it was a knickknack too small to display anywhere. But this morning I opened it up and found this little slip of paper:

GREEN FROG from KYOTO

In Japanese, the word "kaeru" means both "frog" and "return." It is said that anyone carrying this frog in a coin purse will have the good fortune of having his money returned to him.


The thing has utility! So we dropped it in my coin purse, a yellow Puwawa coin purse from Sanrio, oddly enough.

Do you have any talismans that you carry with you? Does anyone know anything more about this green frog from Kyoto?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have the green frog from kyoto (with the same description on a peice of paper that I carry in my wallet, too) in the coin purse of my wallet.