Camellia Tea Ceremony🌈🌦️ALL SORTS OF RAIN🌧️🌂
Not all rain is the same.
There are numerous words and phrases to describe the different conditions found around this time of year...
☔️'Hashiri-zuyu' (走り梅雨) expresses the unstable weather preceding the rainy season.
☔️'Samidare' (五月雨 '5th Month Rain'), 'Ryokū' (緑雨 'Verdant Rain'), 'Bakū' (麦雨 'Barley Rain'), 'Nagaame' (長雨 'Long Rain') and 'Unohana-kutashi' (卯の花腐し 'Deutzia Decay') all refer to early summer rain, but can also be used for more specific times during rainy season.
A straw 'mino' raincoat (蓑) hangs beside the door at 'Rakushisha' (落柿舎), indicating that the host is home.
The small cottage was home to Mukai Kyorai (向井去来 1651-1704), chief disciple of Matsuo Bashō. It was here that Bashō composed 'Saga Nikki' (嵯峨日記) in 1691.
Before synthetic materials, those traveling or working outside in the rain would wear mino (蓑), rain coats made of straw.
Traditional mino covered the entire body, but straw capes and skirts were also used. Cheap, light and readily available, rice straw is mostly water repellant.
#mino #raincoat #蓑
☔️🥶'Tsuyuzamu' (梅雨寒) are sudden chilly days during rainy season.
speaking truth
the rainy season's crack
of thunder
正直に入梅雷の一ッかな
-Kobayashi Issa (小林一茶), 1820.
Tr. David G. Lanoue.
#梅雨 #rainyseason #Japan #Kyoto #京都 #plumrains #Arashiyama #嵐山
Kyōkadō Toshiyasu's (京華堂利保) famed 'shigure-gasa' (しぐれ傘 'umbrella for a brief downpour') would have been the perfect rainy season sweet, but sadly the store closed for good a few years ago.
The cake is (was😭) branded on top to look like an open umbrella.
The sweet is named after a famous poem by Yosa Buson (与謝蕪村 1716-84). Caught in a downpour on his way to the city, he borrowed an umbrella at Konpuku-ji (金福寺)...
it may transform itself,
this umbrella lent by a temple,
in the winter rain
化けそうな傘借す寺の時雨かな
(Trans. Blyth)
#haiku #poem #umbrella #rain
Rather than a ghost, Yosa is referencing a 'kasa-obake' (傘おばけ), an umbrella that has obtained a soul thanks to its old age.
Inspired by the poem, Kyōkadō Toshiyasu created this 'haiku sweet' in 1903. There are hopes the cake will be revived by another store in the future.
☔️🍂When the rain in June carries on for days without a break you will sometimes hear the phrase 'unohana-kudashi' (卯の花腐し), a rather exaggerated concern that the newly emerging deutzia flowers will rot in the unyielding rain.
☔️🧑🤝🧑👫👭'Ame-onna' (雨女) and 'Ame-otoko' (雨男)...a woman or man who always seems to bring rain with them when they go out (especially when meeting friends).
If you don't know who it is in your friend group, it's you!😂
There are also 'fair weather' men and women (晴れ男/晴れ女).
#雨男 #雨女 #Japan
🌬️The wind that ushers in the rainy season in Japan is known as 'Kuroha-e' (黒南風 lit. 'Black Southerly Wind'), and the wind that arrives at its end is called 'Shiroha-e' (白南風 'White Southerly Wind'). Both are warm and moist, but indicate a dramatic change in the seasons.
abhijith@camelliakyoto@mastodon.social We used palm leaves to weave something like a hat with an extension that covered the back in our village. Far from a rain coat but better that regular hats. Can't find any image but my grand mother's sister in law used it while working in the paddy fields. She wove it herself and was more convinient that umbrellas.