May 25, 2010 in Sekaione Press, e-magazine by adminsekaione

e-Mag: June event in Japan

Teru teru Bozu???? ???
Teru teru bozu is a very simple white doll, made of white tissue paper or white cloth. It consists of just a small head and body without hair, nose, mouth, eyes, or limbs, and it is hung outside windows or from the eaves to wish for sunny days. Children often hang one when they are hoping for fine weather the next day, and they sing a song of teru teru bozu. This custom was brought to Japan from China many years ago.

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Koromogae???
Summer is hot and humid, so all who wear uniforms change their clothes to summer-weight uniforms. Many students wear white shirts with short sleeves. Today some of the uniforms of office workers or schools are designed by famous fashion designers, so they are more refined and tasteful than before.
At home, when the weather is sunny and dry, winter clothes are put out to air, and summer clothes replace them in the closet.

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Baiu Zensen????
Baiu zensen (the seasonal rain front) is a stationary front which occurs between the Okhotsk air mass and the Ogasawara air mass. Generally, the rainy season moves up Japan from the west to the northeast. There are two characteristic types of rainy season besides the normal rainy season. One is a “dry” rainy season called kara-tsuyu.
This happens when the seasonal rain front brings hardly any rain. The kara-tsuyu causes bad crops, poor harvest and a shortage of water. The other is a long rainy season called naga-tsuyu. It is a long lasting rainy season, which is highly unpleasant.

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Rainfall in Japan ???????
The average annual rainfall in Japan reaches 1600mm. The amount of rain increases in June and September. The rainy season in June brings a lot of rain, but less than typhoon season in September.
In eastern Japan, where the capital city Tokyo is situated, a season wind blows from south to east in summer, and the weather becomes sultry and rainfall is frequent. In winter a seasonal wind blows from the northwest, and the weather is dry and fine with sunshine.

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The Bonus System????
A bonus was originally a kind of supplementary profit-sharing, but today a bonus is an integral part of a Japanese salaried worker’s earnings. Two bonuses are paid, one in summer and one at year’s end. The amount of bonus depends on the company and on the length of employment.

Government official’s bonuses are paid in June and December. People receive a total bonus of about 5 months’ salary every year and they often use it to make a big purchase, or for travelling and so on.

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The Japanese and Rice ?????
Rice is closely tied to the Japanese diet and culture. Rice was once used for payment of taxes and salaries. There for landlords were responsible for making offerings to the gods to ensure an ample rice harvest, and great ritualistic rice festivals were held as official ceremonies in Japan. The importance of rice is decreasing little by little, because Japanese dietary life is changing toward a Western style, which means that people eat more bread, cereal or noodles than they used to. But rice is still Japan’s main agricultural product, and rice is still the staple food of the Japanese people.

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Rice Planting ???
Today mechanical planters and planting tractors are used at rice planting season.
Rice amounts to about 39% of the planted acreage of Japan’s agriculture products. In 1990 the rice crop reached about 1 million tons, about 30% of Japan’s total agricultural output, down from 52% in 1955. But it isn’t that the rice crop has decreased, it’s that Japan’s output of vegetables, fruits, and livestock products has increased.
A kind of rice-planting ceremony to pray for a bountiful harvest of rice is still held today.

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Brands of Rice ???
Consumers are eager to buy gourmet rice. Each prefecture competes to produce rice with attractive brand names.
Here are the names of Japanese brands of rice and their main producing districts.