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Oct 7, 2021

Welcome changes? Autumn in Japan [EDITORIAL]

Welcome changes? Autumn in Japan [EDITORIAL] photo


How times have changed. During childhood back home it used to be that the transition from summer to autumn would bring with it a sense of stomach-wrenching dread, captured by that awful marketing phrase, “back to school.” It also meant a switch from dreamy, drawn-out summer evenings to bleak weather and starting / ending the day at work in the dark. 


It’s perhaps one of my favorite things about Japan then, that the seasons here come and go with such clockwork precision and clarity that even if you don’t like one, you can be assured that it will end on time and the next (better?) season will take its place.


In the case of autumn in Japan though, it has probably become my favorite season. After the stifling summer, autumn literally is a breath of fresh air, for me a least. The days don’t draw in that much either and never did I think I would look forward to slipping into something with long sleeves so much. (Although we’re still not doing that regularly here in the capital just yet.) 


There appears, also, a spring in the nation’s collective step at the onset of autumn.  


I’m writing this from my suburban apartment. The elementary school nearby recently launched into preparations for its sports day extravaganza so the soundtrack for the neighborhood over the last few days has come courtesy of Korean heartthrobs BTS. The mood feels lifted. “Dynamite,” even. The lunchtime run to the convenience store, no longer a sweaty slog. 


Autumn in Japan has also brought with it a new Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida. According to news reports, the Hiroshima native likes a drink and is a fan of his home city’s baseball team Hiroshima Toyo Carp. He’s also thought to be a nice guy. Certainly Kishida’s ideas of reducing the wealth gap and pledges of support to economically vulnerable people sound nice. The Japanese partner thinks this is still very much Abe’s government though, perhaps symbolized by producer-of-inexplicable-soundbites Taro Aso retaining his seat as deputy to the PM.  


What could be more daily life changing though than mother nature’s seasonal redecoration, or a new political leader? The lifting of the virus state of emergency, perhaps? 


On October 1 we woke up to a state of non emergency - the first time that non of Japan’s 47 prefectures had been subject to an “emergency” or kind of preemptive state-of-emergency strike (referring to the manen-boshi / まん延防止) since April.


Authorities may have breathed something of a sigh of relief that Typhoon Mindulle came along just in time to dampen much of the nation’s hopes of an immediate post-emergency day out. By the Sunday though, Mindulle had mostly cleared off and popular weekend leisure spots were reporting visitor numbers up by as much as 40 percent. The next day Tokyo would report new coronavirus cases at below 100 - the first time since November last year. 


Has autumn brought with it a turning of a corner in efforts to bring the novel coronavirus under control? I for one hope so, though I can only speculate as to whether or not such hope is well or misplaced. But it’s OK to feel some sense of hope, isn’t it, however cautious? To dream or even to start compiling some semblance of a plan for the not-too-distant future, maybe? 


In the meantime the “Feeling the Fall - Autumn in Japan” blogging theme on City-Cost can hopefully serve as an avenue through which we can dare to dream and to share and deliver some sense of hope, carefully.  


Through the theme maybe we can also bask, some more, in the fresh air of the season, so to speak, and celebrate coming out of the Japan summer slumber.  


We’re off to a fine start!


Editor


Top image: Autumn leaves around the Goshikinuma ponds, Urabandai region of Fukushima Prefecture, taken in Nov. 2020.


Posts from the theme will be displayed here over the coming weeks:





City-Cost

City-Cost

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