Seasons in Japan series

Seasons in Japan series

Nov 29, 2021

Autumn is my favorite season in Japan. The temperature outside is cool enough, sun is warm enough, the sky changes into brilliant colors and ofcourse, the trees!! The carpet of yellow Ginko leaves and crunchy red / orange/ brown leaves is almost everyones favorite.

After that exciting bright color season, entire city gets whitewashed in snow. I experienced snow for the first time in Japan. It felt like dandruff on my coat at first. The huge, soft, fluffy piles of snow are always so inviting, to jump on them. My friends tell me that my excitement for snow is same as that of a three year old kid. I love that. I hope it stays so for as long as it can.

It took me a while to get used to the hype around Spring season in Japan. Spring = Sakura = new things. Sakura is everywhere, from parks to starbucks. I loved the tiny, soft, pale pink flowers, but under every full bloom tree I would find atleast 10 people posing and clicking picture. It took me 3 years in Japan, to understand what Spring meant as a culture. The start of new things. New year is also start of new things, but it felt like New year is mostly digesting the past and in these three months, Jan-Feb-March, we warm up to the idea of letting go of the past and finally as the sakura blooms, we finally open up to a new beginning. But that is solely my interpretation of it. Through it, I have come to enjoy the freezing months of Jan-Feb and start looking forward to Spring, not sakura per se, but the idea of new things.

Summer in Japan is not watermelon(for me atleast, it is soooo expensive and not as sweet). I had to form new associations with the word summer when I moved to Japan. It didn't take much time. Sound of the cicadas = ultimate Japanese summer cliche. Once they start chirping, everyone has a new small talk topic - it is finally summer/ it is getting hotter everyday/ today the temperature is .... Well, weather as a small talk is the norm in Japan but there is something poetic about how a salaryman after working 10-12 hours on weekdays, goes for a walk on Saturday afternoon and finally notices the season through the chirping of many cicadas, makes a gentle statement to his coworkers about how summer is here.

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