Umbrellas . . . . .~~~!~~~

When I started for the office last friday, it was slightly drizziling and it flashed to me that my precious umbrella is in the office itself.
Precious umbrella?
Yeah, Umbrella is a priced possession in Japan; It rains every other day and you can always expect your day to start with a bright sunny morning and end up totally wet and messy.The seasons winter, spring, summer and autumn come and go but rain (ami in Jap.) persists forever.
As most of the Japanese population commutes through trains and walks to their homes and offices from the stations, Umbrellas become a must; You can only find newspaper boys and postmen in raincoats.
Umbrella is indeed a priced possesion and it also plays the role of being a status symbol. It reflects your personality and you can always convey a fashion statement to the world through your umbrella.Most of the men have black umbrellas while the women (as in all other cases) are equipped with all sorts of colours and designs. The umbrellas widely used are the longer ones, of 60cm or 70cm rather than the foldable stuff that is more popular in India. You get designer umbrellas for 20,000 yen and also the foldable stuff in 100 yen. Umbrellas with dual colours, Umbrellas with metallic chain staps, flowered umbrellas, summer umbrellas, doll umbrellas decorating the kimono-clad dolls - It is a treat for umbrella maniacs (hey, I'm not one).
On the same fateful friday, I noticed a woman in the train hanging her umbrella in her hands with an umbrella pouch; An umbrella pouch - huh whats that? It's one of the thousands of Japanese inventions that makes life easier. It is made of cloth with an ear to its end. Get the ear inside your hand and put your umbrella inside the pouch - So....Nobody can see your umbrella - They will never come to know, whether its black, white, coloured or flowered. It becomes so handy, compact and the Japanese introvert tendency is preserved.
In places like restuarants and offices, umbrella stands are there so that you d'ont have to carry it all along with you. If you are really concerned with your priced possession, you can always lock it and take the key with you. So many of them, like me forget their umbrellas. There is a whole bunch of umbrellas, orphaned, untouched for years sleeping in hundreds of umbrella stands all over this country. The unlucky ones forgotten by only because it was not raining when their masters were returning back. As everybody will agree, an umbrella beats anyother stuff in this world when it comes to losing it - oh, poor umbrella!
The other one worth mentioning are the rain pouches; When you are going to a supermarket on a rainy day, you are surely gonna get inside with your umbrella and damp the place out there.But thats strictly not allowed, you cannot mess around with public property; The option is to keep the umbrella outside and go - which may sometimes become difficult to manage in a crowded place. The solution is to have a plastic pouch, put your wet umbrella inside it so that it does not drip and when you are getting out of the place, remove the pouch and put it in the designated garbage bin before venturing into the rain again.
In our office, there are yellow umbrellas arranged in the grid-wise pattern in umbrella stands which can be used to commute between the buildings. A note beside it says "This umbrella is Company Property. Do not bring back to your home". When it is not raining, the umbrellas along with the stands are kept inside, but the note stays there proclaiming the unseen umbrellas to be the company's property. Another interesting thing about this note is that it is written only in English and not in Japanese. Maybe, the Japanese are trained so much that they will never "bring" back a company umbrella to their homes even in the wildest dreams. The foreigners always underestimate the rain and end up helpless in the evening facing an endless rain, left with the only choice of "bringing" back a company umbrella back home. Still wondering about "bring" - the "bring" here, literally means "take" - another bad translation. The Japanese can never be seen drenched or standing helpless against the rain. They ALWAYS have umbrellas and whenever it is not raining, Japanese do not have umbrellas while the foreigners (Aliens in Japanese-English translated from the word Gai-jin) end up carrying it all day along.
During the rainy season (Jun-July), it rains everyday and one of my colleagues sayshe always carrys two umbrellas during the rainy season. The smaller foldable one inside his bag is for small rain and the long one in his hand is for a heavier rain.

Hope this is my first blog - on Japanese lifestyle ....... .... .... More musings to follow .

Nagz