JAPAN. Daruma festival in MIHARU town (Fukushima). January 15th, 2012.
Daruma is a roly-poly papier-mache doll modeled after the Indian Buddhist monk Bodhidarma who founded Zen Buddhism.
It is a very popular ornament shaped like egg with a human face and no hands or legs. Because of its ovoid shape, the figurine of Daruma always rises up.
The famous proverb " Fall down seven times, get up eight " came from this well known and respected figure.
Amid the triple-whammy tragedy unfolding in Japan, it became very sensitive symbol that marks the sensibility of Japanese society now more than ever.
Since three years, Sokyu GENYU, 55 year-old Buddhist priest from Fukujyu temple in Miharu town (just 45 km from west of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeast Japan), was asked by city officials to write a "letter of hope" on the statue of Daruma during the New Year's festival.
This year, he choosed the kanji " Kou " as the character to represent the year to come. The character evokes various meanings revolving around the idea of: overcoming, building collectively, not dispersing and gathering.
In April 2011, he was nominated as a member of a government panel to come up with a blueprint for rebuilding after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami [The Reconstruction Design Council in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake]. 55 year-old Buddhist priest is also known as award-winning novelist (two books has already been translated in French), his latest book is entitled "Living in Fukushima" [Fukushima ni Ikiru] (Tokyo: Futaba Shinsho, 2011).