Spring's coming! Earlier this month, I awoke in my bed feeling cold one night, despite four layers of covers, including an electric blanket on low. Our bedroom is unheated—in fact, like the Japanese, we don’t have central heating in our apartment and use only space heaters to warm whichever room we’re in at the time, but never overnight or when we go out. Then we dutifully switch off the heat so as not to chance an accidental fire. With city structures built more closely together than grains of sand on a beach, anyone’s fire can quickly escalate to everyone’s fire. Hence the Japanese are extra cautious about fire prevention. But our bedroom was no colder that early morning hour than ever. Dressed in two layers of pajamas and socks, I shouldn’t have been cold. But I was.
Mostly I was sleepy, but slumber eluded me. Even snuggling with Bernie and, with covers pulled over my head, nestling like a hibernating bear didn’t help me warm up and will myself back to sleep. Having just returned from the United States, my rational mind announced that I was victim to jet lag. (Japan is 14 hours ahead of America’s Eastern Time zone.) But that certainly didn’t pacify my need for sleep.
Instead, completely awake by now, I began recalling other cold experiences in Japan—like the time I brought in the frozen laundry from our outside clothes lines at our Tarumi house. My jeans were so stiff that they literally stood on the kitchen floor. It looked like an invisible man, minus feet, was standing directly in front of me (until the warmish room melted and collapsed the jeans in a heap on the floor). “Now that’s cold!” I admonished myself firmly for feeling cold in my toasty bed.
In that same old, drafty house where blowing wind outside moved our curtains inside--even with doors and windows shut as tightly as possible--we also found a skiff of ice on the tops of bowls or glasses left overnight in the sink with water in them. “Now that’s cold!” I chided myself years later for having become such a weather wimp.
Years before, we visited a co-worker in her apartment one winter’s day. Instead of answering the door, we heard Janet holler, “Come on in!” Doffing our shoes at the front door in good Japanese custom, we followed her voice and stepped into her freezing bedroom (no heat at all, ever). There we exploded with laughter at the sight of her. Janet was bundled under so many layers of blankets that we could hardly see any form at all in her bed. What we could see was her red face (from the cold), her head (sheathed in a knit cap), and her gloved hands holding the book she was trying to read. “Now that’s cold!” I said, trying to convince myself that I had nothing at all to complain about in Tokyo.
In quick succession, I also remembered two other experiences with cold in Japan. The Christmas following Kobe’s Great Hanshin Earthquake of January 1995, we joined church members to Christmas carol in one of the many temporary housing neighborhoods constructed after the quake. I felt like the inside of my mouth froze every time I opened it—which is necessary to sing. I was soon shivering so violently that I had the vibrato of a great opera star, though I couldn’t stay anywhere close to pitch. The now-familiar refrain repeated itself in my mind, “Now that’s cold!”
Then there was the time one early February that we attended the Sapporo Snow Festival on Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido. The name of the annual event that features ice sculptures of famous people, landmarks, and anime characters should have given me an important clue: it’s going to be cold. But I had no other winter clothes than those I wore in more temperate Kobe. It was only minutes—maybe seconds—after arriving at Chitose Airport that I realized next time, I’d go to the beach. “Now that’s cold!” I agreed with my head as I snuggled further down in my covers.
Several nights later, I again awoke too early this morning. Same cold bedroom. Same bed layered with the same covers. But this time, I was too hot. Instead of being frustrated, however, I rejoiced. Spring arrives one week from today. I for one am ready to bid winter goodbye.
