Uniquely Japanese way to beat the heat

Japan has a bunch of associations with seasons that most westerns just don't happen to make. Yes spring means flowers and growing, summer is hot, winter is cold and autumn means the leaves fall. But Japanese have far more specific associations than the observable climate. One of these associations is summertime and scary stories. I noticed this the first weeks I spent in Japan. Before my study abroad program had even started I came early to stay with my friend and her family. We watch a ton of tv those two weeks and I understood about 10 percent of what was going on on the television. What I did understand was that Japanese love their scary stories. Every other channel had something about being scared or creeped out whether it was a marathon of short stories about yokai, Japanese ghost stories, or celebrities being scared out of their wits on the variety shows. When I brought up how there were so many scary things on tv with my friend she just laughed and said, “yeah, it's summer.” But what does summer have to do with being scared? Then for a while, I didn’t think about it. That was until I saw this display at my local library.

During Christmas it was all Christmas books, Valentine’s was love stories, and the most recent, father’s day was stories about daddy’s. Now that the weather is hot and summer is in full swing they have a collection of creepy cute and classic ghost stories for kids to read. It reminded me about japans association with summertime and being creeped out and so I asked about it. Why the scary stuff in summer? Obvious to everyone except me, being scared makes one feel cold. Just like having a cool breeze blow, getting creeped out causes shivers down the spine and goosebumps. All the things a good spoke should give. Wanna break out in a cold sweat instead of just dripping from the humid heat outside, watch a creepy show on tv. If you cant get physically cooler then have a mental chill out and share some scary stories with your kids. What a way to beat the heat.