おちょこにされる


Japan's rainy season, or tsuyu, generally happens between May and July. Japanese are very particular about getting rained on, and umbrellas go up at the slightest hint of droplets in the air. The past three or four days have also been quite gusty, meaning the sight of umbrellas - especially the 500 yen, convenience store, variety - turned inside out is a common one. There is even a special word for the phenomenon: ochako ni naru, or ochako ni sareru.

An ochako is a small sake cup, the two characters for the word being "boar" and "mouth" 猪口　- a combination that, nevertheless, is believed to be substitute characters used phonetically, not etymologically. (However, it is usually written using only hiragana.) The word is also used to mean "cup-shaped."

Thus, having your umbrella turned inside out is to have it made cup-shaped: the typically small circle of a base, under which you are haplessly standing, flaring out upwards on now ramrod-straight ribs towards a large-diameter rim.

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アジサイ　紫陽花

The quintessential rainy season flower in Japan is the hydrangea - ajisai in Japanese.



Appearing in gardens and temples throughout Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, the hydrangea is at its best in mid-June. The stems should be trimmed in the fall to ensure strong growth.



A number of temple and shrine gardens are well-known for their hydrangeas including Meigetsu-in in Kamakura, Fujimori Jinja Shrine in Fushimi in Kyoto and Tofukuji also in south east Kyoto.

The hydrangea is native to south and east Asia (China, Korea, Japan, the Himalaya region and Indonesia) as well as North and South America. There are over 70 species. The leaves are toxic if eaten and there have been a number of cases of Japanese restaurants serving the leaves as a garnish and unwittingly poisoning their customers!


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梅雨

Japanese are fond of pointing out to foreigners that "we have four seasons （四季、shiki）in Japan."

The eye-rolling banality of this comment notwithstanding, it is also not quite true.

In addition to the usual quartet of spring （春、haru）, summer（夏、natsu）, fall （秋、aki）, and winter（冬、fuyu）, Japan also has a six-week rainy season（梅雨、tsuyu）.

And it just started in Honshu（本州、honshu), the largest of the islands in the Japanese archipelago.

In addition to the rain （雨、ame）that is necessary for the newly planted rice fields（田んぼ、tanbo）, the "season" also brings with it other distinctive features.

First, on the pleasant side, are flowers. The hydrangea （紫陽花、ajisai）- which come in white（白い、shiroi）, blue（青い、aoi）, pink（ピンク、pink）, and a purple（紫、murasaki）- is the flower most associated with the season.

Also, though it is not apparent to non-botanists, it is the time of year when the fruit of the plum trees blossom. The name 梅雨 (tsuyu) combines the characters for "plum" and "rain," implying as much.

Aside however from the occasional blue-sky day, the period is sticky （むしむし、mushi mushi）and miserable.

The rains bring out the bugs（虫、mushi）and snakes（蛇、hebi）. In a dense park in our Kyoto neighborhood, it is a veritable zoo（動物園、dobutsuen）. The season brings dreaded poisonous centipedes（ムカデ、mukade）, non-poisonous rat-eating snakes （青代将、aoi dasho）that are beloved by farmers and can reach up to five feet in length, mountain leeches（蛭、hiru）the color of surgical gloves that are 1-2 feet long and thin as string, lots of spiders （蜘蛛、kumo）, and of course gazillions of other buzzing biting bugs.

Thank goodness for mosquito coils（蚊取り線香、katori senko）!

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