The summer is just finished ! - Japan and her weather

The summer is horrible in Japan. Many Japanese go out of Japan during summer holidays. When I first landed in Japan it was too cold and could not imagine the weather can turn exactly opposite !

In our Japanese language class also teaher used to say 'Nihon no natsu wa atsui desu'. Japanese summers are hot. The weather is a suitable topic for coversation for foreigners to start with Japanese people. The differences between the seasons in Japan are distinguishable. Spring and Autumn are the most convenient and pleasant. Spring is associated with cherry blossom popularly known as Sakura in Japan. O'hanami parties are very famous in Japan.

Autumn is another best season in Japan. It is associated with the autumn leaves known as momiji in Japan. I had a visitor to this blog from Japan who suggested me to put the photos of autum leaves in my blog. Her name is Momiji. She did not disclose that her name has the meaning of autumn leaves! I searched in the internet for momiji and from a Japanese site, I got the meaning and photos of momiji. It looked wonderful for me.

Foreign people can start conversation with seasonal changes. The Japanese summer is less pleasant as first the rainy season will start in June followed by a hot and humid August and September first half. Summer and early autumn coincide the typhoon season. The winter is short and mild in the south of Japan but grows longer and more severe at North of Japan.

The change in seasons are always mingled with festivals. Each area has its own festival in Japan. The major yearly festival is at the beginning of the year and in mid of August. At New Year everyone has about a week off, which would traditionally be spent at home, with visits to relatives home. Japanese people visit to their temples at this season. I have heard from friends that they go to temple only once in a year that is at New year !

Japan have Shinto temples and Buddhist temples. At new year children will get gifts of money in small envelopes, from their parents and visitors to home and from those whom they go to visit. April is the month for Cherry blossom. Schools will be starting at this month. My daughter will attend her LKG this coming April in one of the Indian school in Japan.

At the end of April or beginning of May there is a Golden week festival. It is a ten day holiday. This is the time for Japanese people to visit their ancestral home and visit their family graves. Increasingly it too is being used as an ordinary holiday. Generally Japanese companies distribute bonus during June and December.

The summer gifts are known as 'o-chugen' in Japanese language and the winter gifts are o-seibo. The contents of the gifts will be same, generally gift-wrapped boxes of towels, soap, tinned food, whisky etc, which are not handed over personally but delivered by the store from where Japanese people will purchase those gifts.