My Hiroshima correspondent sent a dispatch after she was accosted by the downtown sights and sales of the annual Yebisu Festival.
As she tells it, this photograph was taken at the intersection of Yebisu Dori and Chuo Dori the instant the crosswalk turned green.
Green — economic if not chromatic — is what adorns the celebration, Yebisu being the resident god of commerce. "Trying to earn a little financial luck in the year to come," I am told, "everyone goes out and buys little ceremonial rakes." Why? "Because apparently you can't 'rake it in' if you don't have one." Craftsmen and merchants, one surmises, are among the devout.