Japan: Weather you like it or not

Japan is an area of interest for me. I am interested in the philosophy and culture of the East, as well as the karate aspects. Japan is somewhere quite different. I have a friend and colleague from Japan who sits behind me, and it is always fascinating to talk to him.

My friend, Hana (see Blog link on the left) has a website where his aim is to talk to people in the West about the culture and events in Japan. Hana is in the UK for 3 years, so he is in a great position to judge the Western perception of Japan - and his website is an effort to correct some of the many false perceptions we have.

One thing we talked about was WEATHER. Hana says that we in the UK have no concept at all of weather. It is not too hot here, it is not too cold, and, when it comes to wind - WE DON'T HAVE ANY!!! Compared to Japan. In Japanese terms, the last time we had any kind of weather at all was October 1987! I guess this is true of England. Might be a different story in some of our remote areas, but the South East - yep - fair cop. So - it's quite often like a scene from Crocodile Dundee here - you know the one with the knife "ooh - look at that bad weather", and Hana says "that's not bad weather" (pulling up image of storm-swept Japan) "THAT'S bad weather!". Yeah, OK.

So - when it comes to serious weather, we in Hertfordshire at least, probably don't know we're born. Do we want more drama and excitement in our weather. A bit more violence and pyrotechnics? I don't think so - maybe I'm too English. ;)