Anyway, Tokyo region “officially” entered the rainy season (what we call TSUYU here) last Friday, and so we had a very rainy Sunday yesterday. I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain so much.
Rainy season for me is really more than enough nuisance. Really brings me down.
I used to live on the second floor (“second” in the Japanese sense which I think “first” in many European cultures? I’m not too sure) before and the rainy season wasn’t that big of an event at that time, but now I live on the first floor (ground floor) and for the first time I realized how much difference it can make. Since it’s solid ground underneath the flooring of my room, I can actually feel the moisture from beneath.
Besides I can feel the wetness in the air with my skin, I can see adverse influences in other aspects.
First of all, a lot of things get moldy. This was really shocked when I first realized this.
Come to think of it, I never really knew humidity before I came to Tokyo. Like I said just before, I lived on a breezy second floor before I came here, and I’m originally from Kagawa, the prefecture with the least rainfall in the country where the dam dries up literally every summer.
And what’s this!? I left a piece of bread out for a day and it’s got mold!
The worst part is that, like I wrote, the humidity comes from beneath, from the smallest gap of the house. It rises from the floor and sneaks in from beneath the doors and windows. Closing the windows on rainy days hardly makes life better this season. My room gets stuffy and moldy anyway. Ugh.
Well, for this humidity Japanese people from the ancient days have squeezed their brains and invented all kinds of things and ways to live through this season. For instance, the architectural materials used for many of the old Japanese houses are kinds like clay wall and plaster in which at humid times absorb moisture and release moisture at dry days. The roof tiles were placed so that there were gaps in between each tile to release moisture outside naturally.
Japanese houses are the crown of knowledge, technique and labor of Japan to live in Japan.
But sadly, the day I’ll have such house seems pretty far from now.
I guess I’ll have to live with the small and enclosed cement compartment…
Next time I move, I know I’m not moving into a room on the first floor.
The picture is of hydrangea, a flower you’ll see across Japan this time of year.
One of the very few pleasures of this season, huh?
Perhaps the next volume of origami on Japan Mode would be this flower, ajisai :-)
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