Hatsumōde is the largest recurring religious event in Japan and possibly the largest in the world by proportion of a national population. Around three-quarters of Japanese people make a shrine or temple visit in the first days of January; Meiji Jingū in Tokyo receives roughly three million people over three days, Naritasan and Fushimi Inari comparable numbers, with police managing the queues. What people do there is a transaction and a reset: throw a coin, ring the bell to announce yourself, two deep bows, two claps, state the year's request, one deep bow. Then the previous year's charms and arrows are handed in to be burned, new ones bought, and a paper fortune drawn. The custom in its mass form is modern — it was substantially shaped by railway companies in the Meiji and Taisho periods competing to sell tickets to particular shrines, which is a useful corrective to assumptions about how old traditions are. Almost none of the participants would describe themselves as religious.