He had seen a statue of Hotei many years before he knew who or what it meant. As a child, I was often dropped off at Grandma’s house for babysitting, and since her husband had served in World War II for the Navy in the battles for Japan, he became familiar with the culture and art Japanese; and so he brought several large statues of Buddha which he laughs to decorate his house. They were golden and very pretty. At that time he was not familiar with who the Buddha was and only saw them as silly decorations.
I think my second encounter with a Hotei statue was when I was a pre-teen, at the age of 13, when I was at a Chinese restaurant that my parents loved to frequent. Once again, I never paid attention to the Laughing Buddha statue and thought it was a cultural decorative piece.
Then, as an adult, I saw a statue of Hotei in an uptown clothing store where my friend was the manager. I asked him why they had a Buddha near his cash register. He explained to me that it was the owner’s idea and that it was placed there to bring good luck to the business.
When I did some research on the Internet, I was able to confirm this tradition of placing a statue of Hotei in a place of business for good luck. Some may be an application of Feng Shui. Feng Shui is a complex body of knowledge that reveals how to balance the energies of any space to ensure the health and good fortune of the people who inhabit it.
What surprised me the most was that the Hotei or Laughing Buddha is considered a “patron saint” of restaurateurs and bartenders. How is it that a Buddhist monk [Budaishi (d. 917)] gets accolades with the Christian terminology “Patron Saint” and who is that “Christian term that is applied as a blessing to the work of bartenders? Ha! Now that’s kind of mind-boggling.
We haven’t touched the serious facts or details about a statue of Hotei and the lore about him yet, but I like the backstory of how the Laughing Buddha became famous. “Budaishi; a Chinese monk is said to have spent his life feeding the hungry and poor with his cloth bag. In fact, when directly translated as “cloth bag” it literally means “Hotei”. What makes this Hotei so special? a Buddha then? It must be that his big cloth sack, it was said, never to run out of goodies…making it magical and “like walking with the Divine.”
One thing is for sure… this article has only scratched the surface of the complexities and symbolism present when researching or discussing a Hotei statue.
