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The (good fortune) beckoning cat... Maybe you've seen them? A ceramic cat with a waving paw, typically in the store front or near a cash register of an Asian store. My research found several different versions of fateful legends involving cats, but I'll only blog two versions. The first is the Japanese name Maneki Neko that translates to 'beckoning' cat and it's folklore says... a loyal courtier of the emperor was summoned to the offices of a certain nobleman. On his way there, he noticed a cat that seemed to be beckoning to him. Curious, he turned off the road to go and see what the cat wanted, stopping for a moment to scratch its ears. Some noise made him turn back toward the road, and he noticed that he had been about to walk into a trap that the evil nobleman had set to kill him. Had he not stepped off the path, he would have been killed. The wise courtier saw that the cat had saved him by revealing the nobleman’s treachery. He probably saved the emperor too. So, he ordered the first Maneki Neko statue to be made, and it brought him luck for the rest of his life. The second version (and the one I like most) was about a shopkeeper who wasn't doing very well in business. A starving cat came along and out of kindness, he fed the cat. To his surprise, very shortly thereafter, his business started picking up inexplicably. He noticed the cat was sitting in the shop window beckoning (waving) to people to come inside. Ever since then it's been good luck to have a waving cat in a Chinese (Asian) business. Maneki Neko, beckoning cat, lucky cat, waving cat, Feng Shui Cat... whatever you call it, it's said to bring good fortune. . . 
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