Japan Culture (Part 1)

As promised, in this new series of Japan Culture, I will relate some of interesting sightings when I was in Japan. In this posting, the first interesting sighting was found in Miyajima (an island off from Hiroshima). Almost every household will hang a rope across their main door with 4 white lanterns.

I attempted to find the answer for this rope thing but could not get an answer. My guess is either this will bring good luck to the household, if not this is used to prevent any bad energy from entering the house.