Tsuyu
Rice planting has begun, green shoots struggling to find their way above the flooded waters of the paddies. Tsuyu (Rainy Season) is here and I find myself sweating without moving a muscle, feeling that the air is a solid thing trying to crush me, squeezing at my head. Skies become grey and overcast, smothering the tops of the mountains and spreading themselves out in a makeshift ceiling, trapping and pushing down the air.Spurts of rain come unexpectedly and Kyoto's dull urban streets erupt in green, reminding us all that no matter how many times the government mutilates the trees they continue to thrive. Nowadays rice fields squeeze themselves into the urban landscape, standing still while houses are constructed around them and roads cut through their dried-up neighbours. Their unique survival has a lot to do with the massive subsidies farmers from the government.
As Tsuyu sweeps up from Okinawa, June heralds in the humidity that is a formidable feature of Japanese Summers, infusing July and August with a breathless, tropical heat rarely felt to such an extent in Europe. As Big Ben stops under a day of freakish heat in London (where temperatures reached 31 degrees), spare a thought that this will be a cool day in Kyoto in less than a few weeks time.
