入道雲と蝉時雨

By Lisa Vogt

　梅雨が明けて、夏本番を迎えました。日本には、それを見ればすぐに「夏」と想起させるものがたくさんあります。リサさんは今回、日本の夏のシンボルとして、入道雲と蝉時雨に注目しました。

　"Japan has four seasons," I often hear Japanese people say. This always brings a smile to my face because I can't help saying to myself "Yes, true … but that's hardly unique to Japan." Unless you live near the poles or the equator, you'll usually find that there are four seasons!

　The often-heard comment about Japan having four seasons makes me think about how tuned in the average Japanese person is to nature and the seasons. The colorful Japanese language reflects this sensitivity most Japanese have toward everyday sights and sounds in nature.

　Since it's summertime now, take for example the word semi shigure. Shigure means shower, so a chorus of loudly singing cicadas is compared to a rainfall of sounds. How poetic!

　Back when I was a university student, I once took a Japanese cinema class. We studied Akira Kurosawa's movies from many angles and one of the things that I vividly remember was the symbolism scattered throughout his films.

　For example, there would be a quick two-second shot of the clouds in the sky. It was such a short segment that most of us didn't catch it, i.e., it didn't register on our consciousness radar.

　Our professor would rewind the film and freeze-frame the shot. We then for the first time "saw" the cloud. She would then ask us what kind of cloud it was. Most students, myself included, had no idea. She would then enlighten us that that particular cloud usually appears at the end of summer and means that rain is approaching.

　In the highlighted scene, this foreshadowed that something unpleasant was about to happen. The professor would point out the way the rain was coming down in that particular scene and explain to us that this rain symbolized chaos and a muddling of something, but the rain in that scene meant a cleansing of something dirty.

　Min min min, jee jee jee, kana kana kana, sha sha sha, tsuku tsuku hoshi … ask just about any Japanese person on the street what kind of cicada is crying at that moment and they will tell you that that sound is from a minminzemi, aburazemi, higurashi, kumazemi or tsuku tsuku hoshi.

　I'm always amazed that everyone knows these things!

　Cicada cries in the background of many Japanese movies set a tone. Various cicada cries can tell us the temperature or time of day, and create certain feelings within us. For example, a higurashi in the evening can evoke a sad or lonely emotion. As with the Japanese reverence for the sakura, the cicada's life at its best (at least as we humans see it) is short and fleeting therefore precious. The cicada is symbolic of seasons and the passing nature of things.

　Cicadas come out and sing in the summer, and just about every Japanese film that takes place during the hot months includes cicada sounds in the background. It's so natural that most Japanese people don't even take notice of it.

　When Japanese movies (animations, too) are exported and dubbed in a foreign language, these background cicada cries are often cut from the reel because they don't hold any "subliminal" meaning to a non-Japanese audience. If anything the sound could be distracting because it might be mistaken for static.

　It stands to reason that the opposite happens too: certain things are removed from foreign movies in Japan because it wouldn't have meaning or it could be confusing or irritating to Japanese viewers.

　When I tell my Japanese friends that I think they are so connected to nature that they just intuitively feel these nature and seasonal things, they tell me that they've never really thought about it. Well then, I guess it's the truth -- and so it is!