...Originally written in early June 2007
**
Sachiko says we are officially entering the rainy season next week. Officially on June 10th, she says. The rains usually arrive in Japan around June 6th and last through the 2nd or 3rd week of July-- so I suppose we are right on schedule.
Known as the "plum rains," the East Asian monsoon is a distinctive weather condition unique to southern China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. Pronounced "meiyu" in Chinese and "tsuyu" in Japanese, the rains received their name on account of the fact that they coincide just about the time when the plums are ripening and growing heavy in the trees. The rains can be so strong during this time that they literally drive the plums right off the branches.
For this reason, in East Asia the rains of summer have been associated with plums for at least 2000 years. In Japan, there are no holidays or events during this month-- something rare for Japan-- just rain, rain and more rain.
Arriving in conjunction with the 6th solar term boshu （芒種), or "the time of grain seeds," the message is clear: if you haven't done so already, you had better get those rice seedlings planted because the rains are here! The newly planted rice paddies depend entirely on the timely arrival of the rainy season, and so, as much as people complain, they know--all too well in fact--that if it doesn't rain, rice prices are going to go through the roof!
Monsoon conditions take various forms throughout Asia and Africa, and basically occur when warm, moist air from the ocean repeatedly bumps up against cooler continental air, producing tremendous amounts of rain clouds. The clouds are just specatacular-- huge towering, billowing monsters. For some reason, in Japan the monsoon can produce two very different kinds of rainy seasons--which I will call yin and yang. Actually, I only have heard this expression used once in Japan by a TV weatherman several years ago on Japanese TV, but I thought it was a perfect way to describe the two different types of rainy seasons we get in Japan, so I am going to borrow it here.
Most years, the rainy season comes in the form of cooler days where it rains almost everyday for several weeks. These yin rains keep everything outside gray and musty-- its cool, though, and does the trick as far as getting the needed water to the right place-- that is, out on those rice paddies. While yin is actually more typical, yang is the only rainy season worth describing.
The Yang rains. All day, you feel a slow but steady build-up in humidity-- and by the time early evening rolls around, you cannot help but feel that something has got to give. Usually the days are sunny-- though sometimes cloudy-- with an omninous buildup of rainclouds starting in the late afternoons. It just keeps getting more and more humid until finally-- the deluge! Called yudachi 夕立 in Japanese-- yudachi, means "evening thunder shower in summer." Yudachi showers are the kind of rain you typically associate in places like India, Thailand and Bali. Huge bucketloads of water that can rip the mascara right off your lashes without leaving even a trace.
There is nothing like a summer rain shower- it is life-giving and energy granting. There are classic pictures of children running ecstatically in the flooded streets in Delhi or Calcutta, or I remember a picture that really caught my attention when I was a child looking through a National Geographic of a woman in a brightly color sari who-- smiling ever so slightly-- had tilted her face up toward the heavens to let the rainwater wash over her, drenching her completely from head to toe.
Showers that powerful couldn't really last more than an hour or so, and when they blow over, they take the heat and humidity with them-, leaving everything cool and alive in their wake- Japan never looks as beautiful as after a summer rain shower.
Like, I said, the plum rains arrive every year in June-- but that is according to the Gregorian calendar. In ancient Japan, of course, they did not have any need for the western calendar, and, in fact, according to the koyomi 暦, the rains of summer actually arrived during the Fifth Month (otherwise known as "satsuki," the month of azaleas). As I wrote about in my Boys Day post, according to ancient Chinese philosophy and the ancient science of the calendar, the Fifth Month was a particular time of ill omen. From at least the time of the Han dynasty (226 BC-220 AD), on the Fifth Day of the Fifth Month, Chinese people would take to the hills, to picnic, commune with nature and above all to pick medicinal herbs (that could be infused in tea or added to food) to help boost their energy and health in what was thought to be a time of sickness and bad luck.
This custom was taken as-is from China and during the Nara and Heian dynasties, the Fifth Day of the Fifth Month was a day where the court aristocrats would take to the hills and fields to "gather medicine" (薬狩り）. Iris and yomogi (mugwort) were especially valued as medicinal herbs. The court ladies took great delight in making sachets full of iris and mugwort to hang from the eaves of their homes and to place under their pillows. They believed these herbs could ward away sickness, bad luck and fire. Amazingly, some 1000 years later, Japanese people still put iris leaves in their baths on the 5th of May and and make yomogi mochi (or kusa mochi) during the month of May.
Our neighbor, Grandmother Kurokawa was tapping on our backdoor one early Sunday morning in May. I would have been slightly annoyed since it was still just past 8am but she had a plate full of kusamochi! She had sent her husband off to the hills to gather the yomogi and then pounded, pounded, pounded the grass into the mochi! This morning, when I was out watering my lawn, she came out and I complimented her again on her delicious kusamochi, and I think she may have been worried that I was hinting for more mochi because she grew very concerned looking and said, "But, it is no longer May."
***
The rainy season-- it is a time of long, long rains, that are sometimes called the rains of longing. That is because the depression of the busy spring season (5th Month Blues, as they are called in Japanese), can turn into long days stuck indoors-- watching the rain pour down and feeling like your life is wasting away. It is a time when medicinal herbs and grasses are sprouting up wherever you look and Japan truly becomes the "Land of Water"-- the Japanese, of course, are very proud of their water, and in reality their hot springs and fresh spring water bubbling up all over the place is a blessing to these people with no real resources (oil, etc.) to speak of.
The rains have so many names in Japan, that I have an entire 150 page book that is completely taken up with their names. There are the plum rains （梅雨）, the azalea rains （皐月雨）, the happy rains（喜雨）, the long rains that wither the Deutzia flowers （卯の花腐たし）, and the gods standing rains (神立). In addition to the rains of the Fifth Month (samidare), picking herbs, the tea harvest, rice planting, the hyrangea and fireflies all coincide to make this month of long rains the most lyrical and beautiful season of all in Japan.
A long time ago-- or so it feels-- this used to be my favorite time of the year here. The rains made me feel alive-- or rather, the rains made me feel re-born. And the hydrangea, of course, are my favorite flower. Lately, though, this time has meant an increased burden. The rainy season is without a doubt the most labor-intensive time of year for a Japanese housewife. First, you have to entertain children who can become bored when they are cooped up for hours on end in the house. But, more than that, it is the household work that becomes almost too much and it is all anyone talks about. How to dry the laundry, how to clean the mold, have you taken your summer wadrobe out of storage?
Until very recently, no one in Japan had a drier. The laundry is aired outside. In a month of rain, you are forced to air your wet clothes indoors and the rooms therefore become moldy, musty and very, very damp. Even with a drier, it doesn't do the trick since the driers are electric, it takes maybe 4 hours to dry half a load-- if that. With the rains comes intense mold. So, fighting mold, dealing with wet towels and dirty mud-tracked entrance halls and the futons (no, I am not even going to go there!) And did I mention that the official changing of wardrobe (koromogae) from winter clothes to summer is set by the government to take place on June 1.
So, regardless of the actual temperature, children and workers all change their winter uniforms for their summer uniforms and housewives are very busy, frantically washing their summer clothes (which have been in boxes since last year) and getting the winter clothes ready for storage. It is back breaking work. To lug all the sweaters to the dry cleaners, wash all those clothes (in the middle of the rainy season!) and air out the drawers and storage boxes (placing special drying chemicals and bug repellents in so that mold or bugs don't attack the clothes in storage.
Yes, you get the picture. Like all Japanese housewives, I have come to hate the rainy season. What a shame, though. I mean, I fell in love with this season on first sight when I arrived here 17 years ago and with an undying love of Japanese literaure-- it almost seems sacrireligious not to love this season of fireflies and frogs singing at night; beautiful hydrangea said to change colors some 7 times as they are transformed by the rain and all the wildflowers and little green shoots that are sprouting up wherever you look.
So often, I feel so lost. Whatever this may mean, even recalling how I used to once love the plum rains-- just remembering that fact, in some strange way brings me a sense of ease. And that perhaps is my main aim in all these writings -- to somehow recall who I used to be, and maybe even find a way back to being that person again.
(Painting by Van Gogh)
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