Japan's 72 Microseasons - #43

"Silver Dew Glistens On Grass"

September 8 - 12
草露白
くさのつゆしろし
Kusa no tsuyu shiroshi
”Silver dew glistens on grass”

Where the last kō featured abundant fields of gold, Kō 43 brings with it delicate drops of silver.

This is the kō that kicks off the sekki called Hakuro (白露), meaning “white dew,”¹ and so named for the water droplets that cling to trees and grasses during these transitionary mornings and evenings between late summer and early autumn. The heavy humidity that so overbearingly filled the late-summer air is beginning to quite literally settle down. Differences in ambient temperature overnight cause moisture to form in beads that glisten in the rising sunlight, which are called roshu (露珠)² in Japanese—or, more poetically, tsuki-no-shizuku (月の雫), “moondrops.”

The appearance of these silvery drops, glittering outside your door one morning as you step outside, are also the stars of Kō 43: Kusa no tsuyu shiroshi (草露白). Its name is made of the characters for “grass,” “dew,” and “white” in turn, although as ever the Japanese reading gives us a small interpretive twist. The choice of the word shiroshi for white adds in some extra meaning, and reveals something about how the Koyomi frames the microseason—in older contexts, it can means “to make plain” or to “clearly express.” This meaning persists today in the word meihaku (明白), which uses the same “white” character. In that sense, the morning dew on the grass is clear evidence that temperatures are falling (even if it’s just when we’re asleep).

More than just pretty, it’s also a good way to predict the weather. Since dew only forms during cloudless, stiller nights free of wind and rain, seeing it at daybreak is a good indicator of fine weather. Even today, it’s commonly said that “if dews settles it’ll be clear skies” (露が降りると晴れ)—good to know if you’re getting ready for a long day of work outside or a walk into town. While people back then (and today, probably) didn’t know the term “radiative cooling” (放射冷却), they certainly recognized patterns and phenomena that came every year around the same time.

And of course anyone would recognize that the falling temperatures of early autumn would eventually lead to the dark of winter. With the primary rice harvest wrapped up, a large part of the year’s reaping and sowing would be done, and the passing of the year’s midpoint would be noticed and remarked on. Just as we do today, I’m certain people would say it went by quickly, and they couldn’t believe it was almost the end of the year already.

Another meaning that the “white” character can express is one familiar to us in English: that of a blank slate, or a fresh start. And in the Five Classical Elements of Chinese cosmology (陰陽五行, inyō-gogyō), autumn is given white as its color (and round as its shape, as it happens). This white is not the white of fallen snow,³ but of light reflected. The white of passing clouds and the moon on a clear night. The white of pure, unfilled potential. The plans laid last year are done, and we look forward to what will be.

Of course, it is also just pretty to look at. As are the many wildflowers that dot the fields in autumn and are often decorated in dew of a still morning. During this season, tens of millions of small blossoms appear amongst the forests and uncut grasses—perhaps unimpressive standing on their own but radiant all together. Contrary to spring and summer's big, flashy blooms of more charismatic flowers with well-known names, the flowering fields of fall carry out their life cycle in quiet beauty. It’s an apt metaphor for the daily lives of the common man, a comparison which certainly hasn’t escaped poets’ pens over the centuries—here’s one from Sanpū Sugiyama (杉山杉風), a deaf fish merchant who was both patron and pupil to the famous Bashō:

名はしらず草毎に花あはれなり
Na wa shirazu / Kusa goto ni hana / ahare nari
It’s a little sad / even nameless blades of grass / have their own flowers

There is, however, one charismatic flower (somewhat) celebrated during this kō. In fact, it’s one of Japan’s most important: the chrysanthemum, symbol of the nation and its royal family. Imported from China alongside other courtly events that Japanese nobles imitated for a while, the Chrysanthemum Festival (重陽, Chōyō) is held on the 9th day of the 9th month (so, September 9th), and is one of Japan’s five major seasonal festivals called sekku (節句).⁴

Also called, simply Kiku no Sekku (菊の節句, “the seasonal festival of chrysanthemums”), Chōyō is little celebrated by today compared to other sekku, and other traditional events in general. Perhaps it’s because it spent so long as an observance for the wealthy and powerful to display their wealth and power. Perhaps it’s because it overlaps with an important harvest season. Perhaps it’s because it lacks the specific festive events and targets of affection that others do. Whatever the reason, the festival was already in decline during the Edo Period, and today is mainly an aesthetic observance in seasonal decorating⁵. One of the few old practices that still persists is the eating of chestnut rice and chestnut mochi, which are flavors strongly associated with autumn in Japan.

And I think that takes us nicely into the seasonal items for this kō:

● Seasonal fruit
kuri, 栗, chestnuts

● Seasonal seafood
shima-aji, しまあじ, white trevally

● Seasonal plant
aki-no-nanakusa, 秋の七草, The Seven Autumnal Flowers⁶

kuri rice, salt-grilled shima-aji, the aki-no-nanakusa

Dew is a product of transition: from night to morning, from cold to heat, from summer to autumn.

The microseasons written in the Kurashi no Koyomi are about noticing gradual changes in the nature around us: subtle shifts in color, a new sound on the air, the habits of animals. Of course, to notice something you have to be looking for it, and the Koyomi encourages us to look down to the earth as often as we do up to the skies for signs of what nature is up to. Even without a crucial planting and harvesting schedule to keep track of, there’s plenty of benefit (or at least no harm) in seeing what you can read in what the world writes.

If you do, one morning you may see a bit of glistening, shining silver decorating every blade of grass.

See you next kō~

---

[Images & info by kurashikata.com, kurashi-no-hotorisya.jp, 543life.com, and Wikipedia except where otherwise noted]

1. “Silver dew” would more accurately be ginro (銀露), but I couldn’t resist the gold/silver transition

2. A fun little footnote that doesn’t really have a place: because the character for dew is read as “ro,” it forms part of Russia’s classical name in Japanese—the country is called Roshia when pronounced in Japanese, and before the widespread use of the simpler kana writing systems it was written as 露西亜 (ro-shi-a), a mostly phonetic match that doesn’t carry explicit meaning

Later, the Ro- part was taken as shorthand and the word for “country” is added to create Rokoku (露国), which happened with other countries Japan had contact with at the time such as France (仏蘭西, shortened to 仏国)/Futsukoku), Italy (伊太利亜, shortened to 伊国/Ikoku), and Holland (阿蘭陀, shortened to 欄国/Rankoku)

While modern-day country names in Japanese mainly line up with their internationally recognized names, there’s a few that still use this construction: namely, Beikoku for North America (米国), which comes from 亜米利加

3. Winter’s color is black

4. The other four are: Jinjitsu (人日, January 7th), Joshi (上巳, March 3rd), Tango (端午, May 5th), Tanabata (七夕, July 7th)

5. Kiku no Sekku is one of the rare exceptions to a general table-setting rule in Japan that discourages matching tableware—for this one you can go full chrysanthemum if you like

6. There are 七草 for each of the 4 major seasons—the ones for autumn are: hagi (萩, bush clover), susuki (薄, pampas grass), kuzu (葛, arrowroot), nadeshiko (撫子, pink dianthus), ominaeshi (女郎花, golden lace), fujibakama (藤袴, thoroughwort), and kikyō (桔梗, bellflower)