Fortune Comes To Those Who Smile

笑う門には福来る (warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru): fortune comes to the gate that laughs. The gate stands for the house and the family behind it, and fortune arrives as a visitor, the god of fortune at the door. The line was already a proverb in a kyōgen comedy of the early Edo period, where two farmers try to make a sour official laugh because fortune is promised to the gate that laughs. In 1829 the scholar Hirata Atsutane used it to explain the smiling okame mask hung in doorways, and the Kamigata iroha cards picture it with a grinning god of fortune. The laugh meant is the innocent kind, from the belly; 笑う is both laugh and smile, and the title chose smile.