amabie

I learned about Amabie (ah-mah-bee-eh) from Letterpress Meiko , a small business in Osaka that makes relief style business cards the old school way with a printing press, ink, paper and movable type blocks.

(When I saw a piece about this shop on television, it brought back memories of when I took a graphic design class in high school and used a printing press to make cards)

According to Japanese folk lore, a mysterious green light was spotted in the water by villagers.

The green light turned out to be a green creature that had fish scales, long hair, three legs and a beak.

It was called Amabie and it told the villagers that two things would happen...a rich harvest would bless Japan for the next 6 years and a pandemic would ravage the country.

The Amabie said that in order to fend off the pandemic they should draw an image of it (Amabie) and share the image with as many people as possible.

Who knew memes were even around back then?!

Until this recent pandemic, Amabie was forgotten and over the past couple of months has recently taken Japanese social media by storm.

Hoping this pandemic will be controlled soon.