On Hopes and Desires in Japan

Disney films like Pinnochio, Snow White, Cinderella, and so on are famous for hammering out rhymed lines like, "A dream is a wish your heart makes," phrases which are repeated incessantly in the songs of nighttime parades in Disney themes parks, touting the importance of dreaming, believing, wishing, and the like. The wish has a "magical" appeal to it, and, given its prevalence in the discourse of Disney (as well, to be sure, of many other films/non-film narratives) and the popularity thereof, it would seem safe to say that "wishing" is a concept of which we can't get enough. We wish by blowing out birthday candles, and tossing our money into wells and fountains.

Snow White at her wishing well in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)

(In Japan, a similar practice is used in prayer before Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples by tossing coins into a large wooden box--it doubles not only as prayer, but also as a contribution to the temple funds. See example thereof below, at Kiyomizudera in Kyoto.)

The interesting thing about wishes in Japanese culture is that they are, in a literal sense, visible. But perhaps, after all, "wish" is the wrong word. While "wish" holds a trivial connotation, "hope," or rather "prayer" is more appropriate. At any rate, one can see and touch these prayers across Japan, most commonly seen in the form of 絵馬 (ema), or small wooden plaques purchased and hung at Shinto shrines. On the surface of these plaques, the prayers/wishes of the visitors are written, who offer them at the shrine, that their wishes might be heard (and granted) by the local kami, or god of the shrine. "The motifs depicted on ema show broad diversity in accordance with the nature of the devotee's wish, and today they increasingly tend to be emblems distributed by shrines to devotees" (source). Ema are often purchased at New Years and hung within a house to protect it until the following New Year, when it will be replaced.
With the opposite aim, one also often finds strings garlanded with knots of paper at Shinto shrines. On these slips of paper are printed bad fortunes, previously drawn at the shrine by visitors. Upon receiving a bad fortune, visitors knot their paper like laundry on a series of strings, in order to leave their bad fortune behind at the shrine, tethered in place.

Shrine in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture, December 2010

Other physical wishes/prayers can be seen at traditional Japanese holidays, such as 七夕(tanabata; "The Seventh Evening"), a star festival which occurs annually on the seventh day of the seventh month (by today's calendar, this is usually July 7th). On Tanabata, people's hopes and wishes are written on rectangular strips of paper and then tied with string to a stalk of bamboo. At the end of the festivities, depending on region and local practice, the wishes are then either burned or set afloat on a river, sending the prayers away in the hope that they will be fulfilled.

Offerings & prayers for the recovery of post-3/11/2011 tsunami Japan, during Tanabata 2011 at the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon.

Other wishes and prayers are made into physical form in Japan through origami: in the image above, a vast number of origami cranes are visible strung alongside the paper wishes. Though written words are not used in their making, these cranes serve much the same purpose; in this case, wishes for a swift recovery to the Tohoku region of Japan hit hardest by the earthquake and tsunami in the spring. Their purpose, however, can vary from support to a baseball team aiming for entrance to the famous tournament at Kourien to support for a relative's fight against cancer, in the case of one friend of mine.
Many high school students can also been seen toting their wishes for success in entrance exams--if not on their sleeves--tied the straps of bags. These small cloth talismans are also purchased at shrines.
Whether acquired for a small fee at a shrine or home-made, like Tanabata paper or origami cranes, these items are all part of a Japanese culture of tangible wishes or prayers. Though such practices are not entirely unique to Japan, and some similar to the tree tied with wishes can be seen as far away as Scotland, in Japan, they seem to permeate the landscape of rural areas and cities alike, carried on one's person or affixed to a tree or small structure.
They come in many forms, depending on the wish and the occasion, and can be found even in such a remote place as a windswept clifftop on the shore of Eastern Japan, whose top is only reachable through a near-vertical ascent by ski lift (pictured below, for reference).

Even in such a remote place, every last inch of guardrail was hung with thousands of cell phone straps and metal locks left as prayers by lovers.

Japan is a country full of hopes; but you don't need me to tell you so: you need only look around, and you'll see them everywhere.