Teru Teru Bozu

Posted: May 23, 2011 | Author: Doug 陀愚 | Filed under: Japan | Leave a comment »

As the weather has been especially miserable this year in Seattle, my wife and daughter decided one afternoon to make some teru teru bōzu to make the rain go away:

Teru Teru Bozu are very easy to make: take one piece of paper (we used paper towel) and make it into a ball. Take another and wrap around it like shown below, and tie it with a string, then draw a happy face on it:

You can then hang them up on a window, or rooftop and tradition states that they’ll make the rain go away. Rainy season in Japan, or tsuyu (梅雨) doesn’t actually start until June, but Seattle’s rain and cloudy weather are unusually bad this year, so we’re starting early.

The name “teru teru bozu” comes from the word teru (照る), which means to shine. The word bōzu (坊主) is one of many words in Japanese to refer to a Buddhist monk.¹ The idea is that the bald head of a monk is shiny, like a sunny day.

One rule my wife mentioned is to make sure that you hang the Teru Teru Bozu upright, or it will bring more rain.

Also, here’s a cute song associated with Teru Teru Bozu (the words are listed in full on Wikipedia):

This one is especially cute because she gets the words wrong: it’s supposed to be 天気にしておくれ (tenki ni shite okure, “Make it fine weather”), not げんきにしておくれ (genki ni shite okure, “Make it well/fine”).

So does it work? Well good question. The first day after we hung them up, it still rained a lot. My daughter shook the Teru Teru Bozu that morning and said “wake up”! Then her and Mommy made more. The day after the weather finally got better and remained sunny all week. Coincidence? Probably but it is a nice, fun tradition for the kids.

P.S. The “ugly” Teru Teru Bozu on the upper-left was drawn by me. It’s an old, OLD inside-joke between my wife and I from our college days together.

¹ Just as in English we have many words for “priest”: father, bishop, friar, minister, reverend, rabbi, etc, etc. Japanese has quite a few words for a Buddhist priest depending on his role in the temple, or just more general terms too.

---