The 15th September issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article about a ceremony to pray for safety during the construction of a hotel. Such ceremonies are common, but it is less common for there to be an article about them. This ceremony, however, took place in Thailand.
This was connected to Sriracha Okuni Jinja, about which I have written before. I said then that I did not think it had a resident priest, and this article confirms this impression, because the matsuri was carried out by priests from Okuni Jinja in Japan: the chief priest, two other priests, and a miko.
The matsuri itself was a standard matsuri, although it does not seem to have been a standard jichinsai (地鎮祭). The article is not explicit, but I think this may have been because the matsuri was conducted at the jinja, rather than on the building site. The site for the hotel is next to the site of the jinja, and the matsuri included a purification of the construction site, as well as a norito asking for a safe process and success for the hotel complex, but the description and photographs suggest a matsuri at the jinja. (There was also miko-mai (巫女舞), sacred dance, but that took place after the purification, so I am not entirely sure where that happened.)
The resort hotel that is being built is a joint project between a Thai company, Saha Group, and Tokyu Corporation, run by Saha Tokyu Corporation. Both of these are large companies — Saha Group seems to be one of the largest corporate groups in Thailand, and Tokyu is a major railway and real estate company in western Tokyo and Kanagawa — it owns Shibuya, to simplify slightly.
Somebody involved must have really wanted to have the Shinto ceremony performed, because getting the chief priest of Okuni Jinja, who is also the head of the Shinto Political League (神道政治連盟), to bring two priests and a miko would not be trivial. It makes me think that someone with strong connections in the Shinto world is determined to have the Thai jinja succeed, and this was a good reason to have another matsuri performed there. I do wonder whether they might actually try to hire a priest for it in the near future.
In any case, it is now clear that someone is taking this jinja project very seriously, and that it is rather more than just a “cool Japanese thing” in the retail park. I wonder whether we will hear more about it.
As an interesting side note, while I was in Kazakhstan we met a Buddhist delegation from Thailand, and they asked whether there were any Shinto jinja in Thailand. We were all about to say “no”, but then I remembered this one, so we were able to mention it. I wonder whether they will look it up.