The first day of autumn 2015/8/8
The first day of autumn by Japanese 24sekki falls on August 8th this year. We have had 8 consecutive extremely hot days but weather forecast says we will have a bit cooler days from now on. Natural weather may follow the old saying in traditional 24sekki.
No matter how hot, we can notice the arrival of autumn by the traditional saying of “the first day of autumn”.
From old days, Japanese have been trying to find signs of autumn during hot and sticky days and have left so many wonderful poems and Haiku (Japanese short poem).
Since we have had extra ordinal hot weather, we may be able to enjoy more funs in finding signs of autumn in hot weather such as breeze in early morning or late evening, star dust in clear sky, the first autumn leaves, songs of insects, flowers of morning glory、 sound of evening cicada and so on.
There are around 5 kinds of popular cicadas with different sounds and seasons. Some starts to sing in early summer, some from midsummer and evening cicadas from early autumn. Therefore when we find pretty sounds of evening cicadas among loud sounds of others, we feel coolness and a sign of autumn.
