{"id":2011,"date":"2009-03-02T12:44:48","date_gmt":"2009-03-02T03:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2009-03-02T12:48:05","modified_gmt":"2009-03-02T03:48:05","slug":"%e8%8a%b1%e7%b2%89%e7%97%87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2009\/03\/02\/%e8%8a%b1%e7%b2%89%e7%97%87\/","title":{"rendered":"\u82b1\u7c89\u75c7"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I first arrived to Tokyo, I noticed that, come the end of winter, weather forecast screens (in trains, on TV, wherever&#8230;) would start adding an extra line under the main sun\/cloud\/water-drop pictograms. Since the new icons usually depicted lovely little pink flowers or trees blowing in the wind, I naively assumed that this had something to do with upcoming <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cherry_blossom\">sakura blossom<\/a> (which wasn&#8217;t completely far off, considering most local newscast <em>do<\/em> have an official daily progress report around sakura season).<\/p>\n<p>It is only a couple years later that I finally understood what this seasonal indicator actually referred to. The infinitely less enjoyable season of eye-puffing, nostril-irritating, headache-inducing, <a href=\"http:\/\/ja.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/\u82b1\u7c89\u75c7\">Japanese hay fever<\/a>. The main reason behind these infamous surgical masks you see people wearing in every damn last &#8220;Nippon culture&#8221; TV reports.<\/p>\n<p>However, it wasn&#8217;t until I moved to the Kansai countryside last month, that I started experiencing for myself what it might feel like. Apparently, my city-dwelling organism was sufficiently immune to Tokyo&#8217;s own brand of pollution-laden pollen to go through Kafunsh\u014d season unharmed, but much less happy about living in the middle of the woods. Woods no doubt entirely planted with <a href=\"http:\/\/search.japantimes.co.jp\/cgi-bin\/nn20080213i1.html\">deadly cypress and cedar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you happen to be walking in the hilly area surrounding Kyodai&#8217;s research campus in \u014cbaku, these days, and spot a gaijin with puffy red eyes on the verge of tears, rest assured it does not [yet] have anything to do with feelings of sadness or elation at living more than 20 minutes away from the closest place selling proper balsamic vinegar or non-ersatz chocolate, it&#8217;s just the damn neighbouring conifers trying to copulate with my mucous membranes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I first arrived to Tokyo, I noticed that, come the end of winter, weather forecast screens (in trains, on TV, wherever&#8230;) would start adding an extra line under the main sun\/cloud\/water-drop pictograms. Since the new icons usually depicted lovely little pink flowers or trees blowing in the wind, I naively assumed that this had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insignificant-details","category-life","category-only-in-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2015,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/2015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}