Yuri to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito

A Shoujo ai centred Weblog

Living in Japan #4 – Autumn

Posted on | December 9, 2009 | 2 Comments |

Well, as I write this, the autumn here is quickly turning into winter, but since nothing particularly exciting happens in winter, let’s talk about autumn instead…

The Japanese have a particular way of celebrating times of year. In just the same way we in England complain at the bad things at different times of year – In the spring it’s too rainy to go out, in the summer it’s too hot and sticky on the tube, in the autumn its rainy and there’s wet leaves everywhere and in winter the ice make the trains run hours late; Japan likes to celebrate the good things about each season. It’s probably because they have better weather.

In spring – it’s the countdown till the cherry blossoms come out (and the other flowers as well, but the cherry trees have their own particular forecast), in summer it gets dark late, so they have summer festivals, fireworks and get drunk in yukatas, in winter there’s not a whole lot, but there’s New Year’s and visiting the family in the hometown and in autumn there’s watching the leaves.

Watching the leaves turn (kouyou – literally “crimson leaves”) is as much a national pastime as hanami (cherry blossom viewing). The trees (especially the Japanese maple) have leaf turnning forecasts and city-ites commute to the countrysinde in droves (or their nearest tree containing open space) in order to sit under trees, drink amazake and take photos of the same thing they take photos of every year. Oh, and get drunk in the middle of the day. This season is helped by the fact that the weather is seasonably milder in the autumn months than at other times of the year – not as hot as summer, past the August/September monsoon season and not as cold as winter…

The colours Japanese trees turn is also beautiful. The only trees that turn red are the Japanese maples, but the other trees turn different shades of yellow and brown (though much less brown than in England thankfully) and forests are punctuated with swathes of different colours that somehow seem more romantic than a similar view back home…

The foods also change according to the season. in autumn it’s time for the yakiimo (baked sweet potato) served steaming hot and ridiculously expensively from mobile vans in the street, but also taiyaki (fish shaped pancakes with bean jam), various types of kinoko (mushroom), kuri (small sweet chestnuts) and pumpkins (kabocha). Amazake is a sweet lumpy rice pudding made from the sweetened rice pulp that is left over when they make sake (and is non-alcoholic). Convenience stores dust off their oden warmers and soon the faintly sickly smell of various fish mince boiling slowly in broth is a staple of life. (Incidentally, the best thing in oden is the little sacks of tofu with mochi – pounded rice inside…and I still don’t know what the puffy things that look like marshmallows taste like.) Shabu-shabu (sort of like “cook your own stew”) restaurants start collecting more and more chilly customers…

Here are a few more things in the I Spy guide to Japanese autumn:

- Chilly primary schoolboys in their cute officer’s hats STILL wearing shorts in temperatures below 10 degrees.
- Bakeries trying their best to incorporate all the autumn flavours into bread – baked sweet potato shaped bread anyone?
- Christmas sales – the opposite of everywhere else in the world, Japan just sees the Christmas season as another excuse to have a money off sale.
- Shinjuku and all the big shopping districts lit up with surprisingly tasteful lights.
- Little boys and girls dressed up in kimonos carrying long bags of candy on Shichigosan
- Schoolgirls STILL showing off their knees…maybe they think it’s alluring?

Hmm, I might add more to this list later…

Category: Comment

Comments

2 Responses to “Living in Japan #4 – Autumn”

  1. Akakori
    December 12th, 2009 @ 10:54 am

    Working in a Japanese school I can tell you that most of schoolgirls will wear exactly what they wore in summer all through winter. No tights, and no longer skirts. I swear the skin on their legs is immune to cold. A lot of them do wear shorts under their skirts on their way to school (on their bikes or mopeds), but take them off before they go inside cos the teachers go mental over that.

    And when I went to Hokkaido in February it was fricking freezing – I was wrapped up in multiple layers – and I still saw some schoolgirls with their skirts short and just the usual socks O.O

    Oh yeah, “leaves” is the main topic… Hmm, 2 years here and I still haven’t been to Nikko.

  2. Chris K.
    December 30th, 2009 @ 3:45 am

    Hey, I’m a single guy and I always find girls showing off their legs and knees alluring no matter what season it it. Skin to win is my rule.

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