Approximately 79,000 Japanese tourists visited Taiwan this past April, a three percent drop over April of a year ago. News was recently released that the Taipei

 

City Government has invested some NT$10 million (US$300,000) in new tour promotional packages again aimed at the Japanese market. The new promotional

 

packages tout a list of Taipei temples, and urge people in Japan to jump on a plane and fly to Taiwan for temple hopping that will supposedly lead to good luck

 

in life. The promoters are waving a litany of blessings in the air that several temples are claiming to offer to their adherents. I have heard of entertainment

 

tourism. I have heard of eco-tourism, medical tourism, and educational tourism. Why not make room now for blessing tourism? The promotional blurbs urge

 

Japanese travelers in need of high grades for examinations to bow heads and light incense at Taipei's Confucius Temple. The Great Teacher is waiting for an

 

opportunity to shower rewards on scholars under stress. Our would-be Japanese guests surely know the difference between puffery and truth. There is no

 

need to get too worked up about this imaginative, if somewhat comically designed sales strategy. The question that remains, however, is what such sales

 

pitches do to the image of a country I dearly love.