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Those who have been to Japan in summer must know how hot and humid Japanese summer is; it sometimes feels as if you were in a sauna room, and you would find yourself so much in love with shower!  Scary thing is that it feels like it is getting hotter and hotter every year (><).  Today, I would like to introduce an article about how Japanese people traditionally try to feel cooler.

When it’s very hot and humid in Japan, nothing can be of great help from the heat but an electric fan and air conditioner.  However, electric fans and air conditioners are relatively new inventions, and there are Japanese traditional ways to feel cooler.

"Hiroshima University Campus Scape" some rights reserved. flickr

Keys are almost all common features in the summer time; Uchiwa or hand held fan, yukata outfit, sudare blind, green shade made with morning glory and other summer plants etc. etc…

You see that none of them doesn’t really make you feel cooler immediately, so if you are not Japanese they may not work for you, but they are out traditional cooling method, which have been handed down since Edo Period.  All items I listed up above are items which bring cooler feeling to us.  Starting from relatively obvious ones, Uchiwa creates wind, and sudare blind/ green shade help avoid having direct sunlight.  But I wonder if furin or wind bell brings you cooler feeling as Japanese people appreciate??

I believe this is a good example how we try to feel cooler in hot and humid Japanese summer using our imagination rather than just relying on actual physical feeling.

Yes, furin wind bell looks cute, but it does not physically make you feel cooler. What it does is it makes noise when wind blows. When it rings, there is a breeze even it is a very hot day. And Japanese people now automatically feel a bit cooler when they hear light, freshening and rhythmical wind bell ringing. So when we hear the sound of wind bell far away, even if we don’t actually feel cool breeze, it helps us to imagine cooler temperature with a bit of cool breeze, and that helps us to feel cooler!

Yes, so the traditionally we use our unique imaginary way of thinking to try feeling cooler. I personally use sudare blind, uchiwa fan and wind bells. Even they don’t directly help lowering actual temperature, but you can feel a lot cooler as if they are magic temperature lowering tools. I wonder how people from other hot area are coping with heat?? If you have your country’s specific way to keep yourself cooler, please let me know.  I will be interested to hear from you 🙂

What do you think about today’s article?

Please let me know what you think!

Source: web R25

This is JAPAN Style!