Rainy Season in Japan

June to July is a rainy season in Japan, called "tsuyu." When tsuyu ends, hot and humid summer beggins. There is another rainy season in fall. In August, some typhoons pass over Japan. Japan's summer reminds me that Japan is one of the Asian countries. When I went to Europe, especially in Paris, the air was dry and the pictures I took were like the ones taken by a professional photographer. The sunlight crosses from the right corner of the photo and the air in the picture was shining to make everything vivid. The senics taken in Japan are vivid because of the camera's performance not photographer's. Soon, tsuyu will end according to the weather report. A good point in the Japanese summer is that I'm not as thirsty as I was in Paris, and there're bunch of vending machines selling non-sugar green tea bottles. You don't have to be followed by the people with 1 euro mineral water.

Diary or what? I don't know... Confession of my feeling two days after the Valentine's day in 2009

I'm so in love with her. But I don't know what to do.

She is a friend of my ex-girlfriend who died in the summer of 2006. My ex-girlfriend killed herself by taking too much hypnotic drug to wake up again. She tried it a few times before she really went to the heaven. But I didn't know her such situation when I met her last time one week before her death because I couldn't get in touch with her so many times for the busyness of my work. In the last date, she expalained to me that she broke up with her boyfriend and her mental state was not very good and consulted to a psychiatrist. She looked so weak mentally and physically. We went to see a movie which was the first plan of our date and then went to an aquarium. I didn't have any persistence in going there, but it was one of the last days when my membership card expired and I knew she liked to see animals, especially penguins. But this whole plan of dating was not good to her at all. The contents of the movie, which attacked the hero's mental weakness, may have been harsh to her, and the aquarium was the place she visited with her broken-up boyfriend a few months ago. She mumbled it to me but didn't reject visiting for her kindness (or weakness). The aquarium was a little crowded with children released from the busy school life for summer vacation. We couldn't see many tanks with calmness, but I remember she said, "looks delicious," looking hundreds of sardine and a few tuna whirling in the round tank. We sat down on a bench situated in front of the penguin presentation in a dim room, and hugged and kissed a little worrying about people's eyes... After the aquarium, we moved to a food court next to the aquarium building. I ate burgers but she ate nothing but dipping-dots (small round icecream). After the late lunch, we sat on the seaside bench and talked. She was not talkative but seemed thinking about the same thing and looked so weak. I wanted to be with her more but I knew the time to get her home. We took the subway and took her hand to the railway station. We parted under the stairs which lead to the platform of my train. I went up the stairs and looked down the stairs. She had been looking at my back and then she was looking up my face with an apathetical face. I waved my hand to her, and she waved hers back and walked to her platform. I can't forget her face at that moment and her small appearance standing alone downstairs. After her death, I had to pass the spot many times to go to my company. Even now I regret I didn't follow her even though it didn't mean anything. One week later, I got a mail on my cell phone from her address, but the writer was not her but her younger sister. She noticed me her death and invited me her wake and funeral. I've seen her once at her house in 2004. She remembered me and sent the message to me. I had a second visit to her hometown for her wake but I couldn't go to her funeral held on the next day. In Japan, "boyfriend" is not a socially established position, and furthurmore I was an ex. It was enough unbearable for me to see her crying mother and sister before her coffin. Before leaving the ceremony hall, I talked to her broken-up boyfriend and cheered him up. It was a hot summer day. There're drops of tears on my face and sweat under my mourning suit on my way back to the station. I had to pass through the Kintetsu line ticket gate where we always parted at the end of dates.

My ex-girlfriend showed me some pictures when we're still going on. On those pictures, she was always there and she was the best friend of hers. When I looked at a picture, I even said she was sexier than my ex-girlfriend though she was 17 and my ex was 19. After my ex's death, I had a chance to meet her at the beginning of 2007. I don't know why she approved it, but I speculate she worried about me. We met at Tokyo, walked around the Emperor's house, and went to buy some books at Jinbocho famous for secondhand bookstores. She was mild, smelled good, concealed her emotion coming from her exotic breeding (France) under a Japanese girl appearance. The expression was different but the essential nature was the same as my ex-girlfriend. I may say she was a little more controlled and balanced probably because of her parents' discipline and education. We didn't do any special things in the day, but I was so relieved by her existence. One month after, I confessed my love by email to her who went back to England for her school. I don't know how I could do it in what tone of voice (sentence) but I did. After some time, a week or so, she wrote me back, saying that I was her best friend's ex-boyfriend, so she felt me like her older brother and that she got her first and Chinese boyfriend there after he confessed his love to her. And she continued if things did not happen in this order, she might have fallen for me. I don't know if she just expressed her kindness or truth.

The last year, 2008, I quit my job for a company (I mentioned it below), and went to Europe to learn French and traveled around. I stayed in France for seven weeks, where she had been living. When I arrived at Paris, she was about to go to Japan for internship. She was too busy in preparation to meet me. She keeps a blog. So I commented my jeremiad on her blog. She laughed it away and finished her reply with bisous. In the seven week stay in France, I got to know some girls but somthing prevented me from making an intimate relationship with those girls. I don't know if it's due to my age, my experience, or simply my nature.

I respect and envy her because she brought up in France and has a language proficiency that can never be obtained by the Japanese who're raised in Japan like me. But at the same time, I feel sympathy at her effort to become a Japanese, partly under the order of her mother. I love the strength and weakness of her duality and her gushing emotion coming from her unbalance. I also feel if I can live with her, my ex-girl friend is there too. I don't know how she feels my way of thinking. Women's thoughts are never in my hands. But for now I think she's shutting me out not entering her mind although she gives me replies and comments.

Diary

Recently, I'm in the process of searching for a new job. I went to a "hello work" in my district, which is a public facility introducing jobs to the people. This time, I was not there for finding jobs but applying for unemployment insurance benefits. Normally, I have to wait for three months and a week until I can get the first insurance benefits. But if the labor standards office admits the unlawfully long labor hours of me for three serial months before I quit the job, which should be 45 hours or more for overtime hours, I can get the money only one week after. I worked for three years, so I can get the insurance for 90 days only. But all of this money will be gone for the taxes for the city and prefecture residential taxes, which are calculated from the last year's income.

I eat a lot of yellow watermelons which have been grown by my father. When I stayed in France, I had to eat a watermelon with a fork and knife before dinner. It was a strange experience for me. In Japan, a watermelon is eaten with a spoon after a meal or for a snack.