Did you know that if it rains more than 15 days in a month it means that angels are drowning in heaven. Sad, but horrifically true.

It’s time for plums to rain from the sky. Well, it would be if you decided to use a crappy internet site to translate Japanese. 梅雨 (tsuyu, plum rain) is the rainy season in Japan. In Kansai it generally starts around nowish and lasts for around a month.

When someone says that it’s the rainy season, people might imagine something similar to a monsoon. You must realize that these images are planted in your head by malevolent forces and you must resist them as much as possible; if you don’t do this you will never realize the true power what people are trying to convey when they tell you about the Japanese rainy season.

Pictured: Not Japan.

Rainy season in Japan doesn’t mean that everything is flooded and you see salarymen with their suit pants rolled up to their knees. All it really means is that you carry an umbrella for a month and deal with insane humidity (like, 156% or thereabouts, man). Even if you don’t pay attention to the news/tv/radio you’ll still realize when the rainy season starts because pretty much everyone you see will be holding an umbrella or stashing a tiny one in their purse/mansack.

If you didn’t plan and you’re left without your sky catcher you can go to any convenience store (a rarity in Japan) and buy one. If you hate anything that costs over 105 yen then you can get an even cheaper and crappier plastic umbrella from a 100 yen shop. These cheap umbrellas are usually transparent, which is great for flaunting the law as using a phone or holding an umbrella is technically a finable offense even if you never see anyone ever get reprimanded for either of these. The legal solution is to use an umbrella holder but no one would be caught dead with those except for the undead.

Like all Japanese people, she’s thinking very nihilistically right now. Very common.

Of course it’s not just the number of rainy days that increases during the rainy season, sometimes the sky just ceaselessly craps a barrage of water and makes you wonder if someone didn’t accidentally move a waterfall over top of Japan. During these times you might as well pretend you didn’t have an umbrella because you’re going to be soaked no matter what (unless if you stay inside… maybe).

Japan after rainy season.

By the time you feel you’re used to rainy season and you enjoy the (occasional) cooler temperatures it’s already mid-July and all you’ll get is heat, humidity, and sweaty chikan. And you thought that Indians had it bad? What do you do when you have to ride your bicycle to work and hold a clear plastic umbrella while texting your friends? No one else understands our pain, ESPECIALLY NOT AFRICA.

So miss, what’s your thoughts on the new PM?