July 4, 2012
For months now many people have been warning (threatening) us that summer is coming and we will not be able to stand the heat. June was supposed to be the rainy season and did not really live up to expectations. Late June summer officially began, but today it has begun to feel like summer. It has been 32°C in the house today and the humidity is about 80%. It has rained quite a bit since July began. But nothing like Kyushu. They might as well be measuring precipitation in meters. It has rained close to or more than two meters (80 inches) in the last little while. The effects in a number of areas is almost as devastating as the tsunami that hit Fukushima in March of last year.
But back to the heat. Japanese nervous systems must be wired differently than foreigners. A study was demonstrated on NHK television here where foreigners and Japanese people were exposed to the sound of bells (furin) that are frequently hung under the eaves of a house as an indicator of the presence of breezes. The Japanese people reacted to the sound of the chimes as though a breeze had just passed by. The foreigners had a variety of reactions, but essentially they had little or negative reactions to the chimes. Japanese people felt cooler and foreigners in some cases felt hotter.
Give me a frozen azuki bean popsicle and I will feel cooler. Oishi - delicious!
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