Japanese tailors' needles find soft grave in tofu

By Sophie Hardach

TOKYO (Reuters) - Kimono-makers laid their old needles to rest during the "hari-kuyo" needle festival at Buddhist temples all over Japan on Thursday, sticking them into soft chunks of tofu bean curd to thank them for their hard work.

Japan's throwaway culture can rival that of any Western country, but at the Sensoji temple in central Tokyo, dozens of women in jewel-coloured kimonos honoured their broken tools with the 400-year-old rite.

"I came here to say thank you," said Keiko Kurukata, a 73-year-old kimono-maker surrounded by her four apprentices.

"We prayed to improve our kimono-making skills," one of the apprentices added.

Women crowded around a big slab of tofu spiked with a multitude of colourful pins in front of the temple, purifying themselves with incense, praying and carefully adding their own needles as a group of monks chanted in the background.

Hari-kuyo is one of the many festivals where animist beliefs rooted in Japan's Shinto religion merge with Buddhist rites.

"It's the end of the (Japanese) new year celebrations and the real work is about to start, including farming, so on this day you don't do any household chores such as needlework, and that's the origin of the festival," said Ryojo Shioiri, a monk at the temple.

Sticking the broken needles into soft materials such as tofu or jelly is a way of thanking them, reflecting the Shinto belief that all living beings and objects have a soul and spirit.