Shortly after I acquired Sakura whose featured in my preceding blogging entries, I was struck by the beauty of yet another fortune cat with a distinctive hallmark of purple wisteria flowers on his body as illustrated on the website of Siri Paradise.
Although I told myself that Sakura would be the last kitty cat I would acquire for our home as I'm quite a neat freak myself & dislike cluttering, my resolution melted at the sight of this new cat ... I started rationalising my purchase in favour of this adorable & petite cat since he is smaller than Sakura in size, wouldn't take up much space, blah blah blah ...
And I was even more convinced that I was buying from the right seller as I had very positive vibes about Jacy, the owner of Siri Paradise just by receiving her first response via email for my enquiry about the new cat (which I did eventually purchase from her).
Jacy is very frank about the origin of the porcelain Maneki-neko 招き猫 I was enquiring about - I was a bit dumbfounded that she had been so generous in sharing her knowledge & expertise about Maneki-neko 招き猫 with a potential buyer (referring to myself) whose a total stranger to her. Such transparency coming from an entrepreneur is indeed a rarity today. And I am so grateful for making her acquaintance through Maneki-neko 招き猫.
As I was still nursing a swollen ankle, she had been kind enough to make a home delivery without imposing any extra charges for transportation. She had also been very polite in asking for permission to show me other items from Kimura Ohshido during her visit to my home. Non-obligatory as she's assured me ...
Now let's get our focus back on our newly acquired Maneki-neko 招き猫 from Siri Paradise. Although he is smaller in size as compared to Sakura, he too has sakura flowers but in a lighter shade of pink, long sprays of purple wisteria and other flowers adorning his white porcelain body. An emblem of good luck & wishes that came with the cat ...
You guys must be wondering why I referred this cat to a "he" and not a "she" since flowers are always associated with femininity. Well, my interpretation is such that since his head isn't decorated with flowers, then he could be a he-cat. A little brother to Sakura.
After much contemplation, I decided to name him Le-Petit, which is the masculine version of La Petit in French.
The photographs attached below shows logos & "trademarks" on Le-Petit :
Apart from the Japanese wordings that are engraved on the side of Le-Petit, the gold-tone bell with heart-shaped holes in the form of an opening at the bottom shaped like a double-edged oar is another signature accessory that came with him :
The Photograph attached below shows a photo-shot of Le-Petit with details of Kimura Ohshido's history & Japanese crafts printed in Japanese language on the reverse of Siri Paradise's name card.
Le-Petit is in fact a snow white & light coloured cat when seen in real person. The photographs below would show him in his coat of pristine white porcelain, adorned with floral themed intricacies. And associated with femininity.
Perhaps the creator of this style of cat had refrained from placing flowers on top of its head like in Sakura's case as it'll be overdone up since its body is already embellished with plenty of flowers.
However, I'm sticking to my guns and calling Le-Petit a male cat. Hah! :)
Here are more photographs of Le-Petit, beautified further with the use of our camera and pilxr.com's editing tools :
As the saying goes that old habits die hard, I hate to admit that I'm currently obsessed with fortune cats and got myself other Maneki-neko 招き猫 products from Jacy of Siri Paradise ... much to the resignation of Hubby Dearest even though he was equally in love with our brood of fortune cats.
So stay tuned for my other upcoming blogging entries on Maneki-neko 招き猫 ...
さようなら (Sayonara) for now!
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