The respondents to Jinja Shinpō’s hatsumōdë survey also touched on a range of other issues.
One was money. The need to accept digital money has become more obvious, with many more jinja looking positively at introducing it even than last year. There are still voices of caution, and people asking for guidance from Jinja Honchō. In this case, they are going to get some in the fairly near future — Jinja Honchō has been a bit slower than would have been ideal, but it is not too bad.
The service charges for depositing coins also came up again. Some priests have asked people to stop donating small coins, with positive results, while others have found the offering boxes full of even more one yen coins (which, after charges, cost money to use) than before. Some jinja had been exchanging the coins for notes with local shops, which used the coins as change, but one priest reported that local people had criticised the shop for being disrespectful in using offerings in that way. One has to wonder what they thought happened to the money before.
There were several comments about goshuin, the red stamps that people collect to mark their visits to jinja. Apparently more people are asking for them, and that includes more men (it used to be a predominantly female activity). Indeed, at some jinja, so many people are asking for them that they have trouble keeping up with demand. One priest said that they ask people to offer exact money, rather than asking for change, because this is not a purchase, but an offering to the kami. Apparently, people are generally sympathetic to this.
Another priest was quoted at length, on the subject of jinja that accept postal applications for goshuin. They think that, as goshuin are records of your visit to the jinja, this is fundamentally inappropriate. They can understand why some jinja might have done this during the pandemic, in return for a promise to conduct distant reverence, but they say that a lot of such jinja are still doing it now. This makes things difficult for jinja that don’t, because people get the impression that they are being unreasonable about it. The priest would like Jinja Honchō to say something. In this case, I agree with the priest. I am strongly in favour of working out ways to get ofuda and omamori remotely, but goshuin should be linked to an actual visit.
The rising prices in Japan are naturally also affecting jinja. Some are revising the recommended offerings for omamori and ofuda, but others have found that people comment favourably on the fact that they have not changed, and thus are leaving them the same for the moment.
Finally, there were comments on the workload on people at the jinja. One priest reported that they had shortened the hours that the office was open, and the times when they were accepting bookings for prayers. Another said that, given the costs for security guards, the need to find staff for the office, and the age of the priests, they would have to think hard about how to deal with midnight reverence on New Year’s Day.
As I have mentioned before, that custom is more recent than many people think. Practical considerations may, perhaps, lead to another change in the customs of hatsumōdë.