Roy Huggins Says Stuff

I’ve been trading some messages with my friend Maren on Facebook (of all places) and I wrote this today. I realized that this is the kind of stuff my friends like to hear about so I figured I’d paste it on my blog. This is in response to Maren asking me why the Japanese school year starts in April.

Everything here starts in April. It’s probably because Spring is associated with rebirth. The Japanese are huge on seasons. Or maybe I’m just pulling that out of my ass. I’m really not sure. But it is true that all employment contracts, the school year, etc. run from April to March. If you join a company in the middle of that then your contract runs until the following March, then you renew. But usually all new jobs start in April unless you’re in the service sector or something.

My Japanese teacher tells me that for this reason, May is a big month for depression. People are excited about the new beginnings in April and then novelty wears off and work stress sets in. Also people get sick because of the shifting weather (Electra and I both have colds right now.) It’s pretty weird for May to be a depression month, but I guess it’s true.

From the Desk of Roy Huggins

Date: May 7, 2008
To: Japan

This love of seasons thing is getting way out of hand. FYI.

Thank You,
Roy (ロイ)

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So there’s a long-standing cultural thing here wherein the changing of seasons is constantly recognized, remarked upon, and acted upon. Right now it’s nearing the end of flower-watching (花見) season in Hokkaido. It’s kinda cool, actually. Everyone goes out to watch the flowers and get drunk and eat BBQ’d ram.

But they took away my Yebisu Red. And what’s worse is they replaced it with “The Hop”, a beer which is as terrible as its name. I thought at first that my local store was just out of the red and I was waiting for more. So I didn’t worry. But when I complained of the situation at a party last week I discovered that the masterfully crafted, wonderfully bitter-yet-smooth Yebisu Red is only a winter seasonal. I of course wondered aloud about the strange policy of only producing one’s finest product during a certain part of the year. But it was explained very clearly that the Japanese love of seasons trumps pretty much everything. Ah, well.