Explore everyday life in Japan
When we talk about seasons, we typically say there are only four—spring, summer, fall, and winter—but in Japan, it seems to me, that a year is divided into many more than just four seasons. There is a short cherry blossom season, an end of the school year season that is quickly followed by a beginning of the school year season, a rice planting season, a tulip season, a rainy season, a sale season, a firefly season, a festival season, a sticky, humid, dog days of summer season, a typhoon season, a dragonfly season, a rice harvesting season, an oden season, the ginkgo tree's golden foliage season, a brilliant red maple season, a chrysanthemum season, a snowy season, a nabe season, and many, many more. Each of the four main seasons is divided into micro-seasons. These micro-seasons tend to last anywhere from two to four weeks, and each of them tends to be celebrated/appreciated in a particular way.
Based on the calendar, summer has turned to autumn. In reality, however, much of Japan is enjoying an annual second summer, where the hot temperatures and humidity of high summer have subsided and left us with hot dry days and cool nights. It is also cosmos season.
Japanese culture tends to really celebrate and appreciate seasonal flowers. Fields, gardens, and park spaces are often planted entirely in a single flower, and people come from all around to walk through these floral spaces, take pictures, have picnics, and barbecue nearby. Perhaps it is because life here tends to be very busy.
Many peoples’ schedules are continuously full. It is not uncommon for people to always have a scheduling book on their person. In fact, I think it is probably unusual for someone not to carry this sort of planner and for it not to be mostly filled out a month in advance. I have found that Japanese people have an uncanny ability to know which day of the week a specific date is weeks in advance, and I have met many people who begin making plans for their days off the minute they get their monthly work schedule. In a place where work weeks are often six days long and overtime is abundant, it is not hard to imagine why people would want to spend their free time near the beauty of flowers and close to nature.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting daily updates about life in Japan, please consider following me. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.