Saturday was a public holiday in Japan - for a day of national significance and of course the utmost importance to the country at large.
The vernal equinox. The coming of spring. I know why it is a holiday, too: everyone has to spend a few hours packing up their kerosene heaters and kotatsus (coffee table heaters - a great invention), putting them in boxes and storing them away until next winter. This of course must be done precisely on this day, because to pack up beforehand would be extremely rebellious and foolhardy, while to leave heaters out after the equinox is simply lazy, and obviously silly because it has become spring, so no one would need to use the heaters anymore. This system was explained to me by my host family when I was here four years ago, but thankfully at RAYs we have reverse cycle air conditioners (and common sense).
Oh, yes, it snowed on Saturday too, for the first time in about a month - big fat snowflakes about the size of a 20 cent coin, and in big clumps. Temperature didnt get above 4｡ all day. Sunday was at least fine, but still cold, and all day yesterday it poured with rain and hovered around the 2｡ mark. Here at RAYs we smiled, and cranked the heaters up, while I am convinced there are millions of people across the country who are wearing five layers of clothes to keep warm, but physically unable to get their heaters back out and turn on, because 'its spring...'.
To their credit, young people are less fixed in this system and are actually likely to have a heater on today, given that its only slightly above freezing.
Its also raining right now, but drizzling slightly. The Japanese take a purely binary view of rain- it is either raining or it isnt. When their is no rain, no problem, but the moment a drop or two falls it is declared to be raining, and no amount of talking, pushing, encouraging, cajoling, forcing nor shoving will convince anyone to step outside without an umbrella. Right now, for instance, while it is technically raining, one would have to be outside for at least ten minutes before one became noticeably wet. There is a vending machine across the road from RAYs, a fifteen second round trip including time to stop and buy a coffee (or orange juice, or green tea, whatever cranks your tractor), so you would get only slightly splattered with water, and not enough to consider being wet. The simple act of my going out in the 'rain' to go to the vending machine without taking an umbrella with me almost caused four students here to retreat into a coma with shock.
The little bloke in the Tonkatsu shop (pork) down the street was similarly startled when I called in there to eat tonight (I was going to go into the busy area and find something, but it was cold and raining, so I went to tonkatsu because it was close). This time it was actually raining a considerable amount, but instead of an umbrella I was wearing a rain jacket. The poor little man couldnt believe I was outside without an umbrella, and the function of a rain jacket seemed a tad outside his sphere of reference.
Still not sure why it is snowing in Spring anyway... but it definitely caused severe concern for just about everyone I met since Saturday. But concern over their heaters, now sitting in boxes? No. Concern over their children's health and well being? No. The concern was about the cherry blossoms. The cherry blossoms here are expected to bloom two days after the equinox (companies and organisations plan for this months in advance) and people are supposed to be sitting under groves of cherry trees, sipping sake, taking photos, and looking at the cherry blossoms. That it has actually been too cold for the blossoms to .. er.. blossom, has caused stress across Tokyo, and forced countless organisations to re-schedule Cherry Blossom Viewing parties, which has sadly broken the 'wa'. Still, I have had just about every person Ive spoken to rave about how beautiful the cherry blossoms are here, and point out the best places to go and look at them. (Mind you, most of these places are either a couple of hours away on the shinkansen, or will be packed with more people than petals). I tell them that I was able to look out the window at home and see cherry blossoms in Australia, and I usually get one of two responses. The first, rarer response is utter disbelief: Cherry trees are apparently unique to Japan and do not exist anywhere else.... The other response is sheer wonderment and envy, usually followed up by asking if I go and sit underneath my cherry tree, drink sake, and take photos, while looking at the cherry blossoms.
Much as I would like to tell them that that is when we sacrifice water buffalo on the altar to Zeus, I generally just tell them 'no'.
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