You can see when it’s coming. In the bathroom there is an extra funk in the air; the sink drain releases new moisture; the dishes are still not dry after a whole night on the rack. Tsuyu (rainy season) has not officially arrived yet, but moisture is stuck everywhere: in your clothes, in the towels, between your ears.
Japan’s collective cultural identity clings, like moisture to hair, to the four seasons. Readers will surely have seen at least one hanging scroll or four-part photograph of the same tree or scene in spring, summer, fall, and winter. But as anyone who has spent an entire year in Japan knows, this is an aestheticized self-image that distorts reality, with the crucial setback of tsuyu, which usually strikes in June, and the turbulence of typhoon season, which peaks in September, is ignored.
Japan also uses an ancient Chinese calendar tradition of shorter, very specific seasons throughout the year, of which there are 24 main categories, such as keichitsuor ‘insect awakening’, in March and shōsho, or ‘little heat’, in July. The 24 are further divided into 72 microseasons, such as “kokumonosunawachiminoru“, or the ripening of rice, around September 2 to 6, or “sakenoomuragaru”, the end of the upstream salmon season, around December 16 to 20. As I write this, it is benibanasakauor ‘flowering safflowers’.
