Nowaki (Autumn Typhooon)
2011年09月30日
This September was another disaster for Japan.
Successive raids of typhoons did it serious damages.
In the first week the prime minister changed, but that hardly made a
significant topic.
Politics in Kasumigaseki was dwarfed by a natural disaster again.
“Nowaki(野分)”, or “Nowake” is an old Japanese word denoting autumn
typhoons.
In ancient times typhoons also swept Japan, naturally.
“Nowaki” is one of autumn’s Kigo(季語) for Haiku. Traditinal-styled
Haiku has a rule to include a “Kigo” – a range of words that are regarded
to represent a mood of a season – in it.
The word “Nowaki” was frequently used in Haiku or other kinds of Japanese
literatures, and wasn’t necessarily used with nasty meanings.
But typhoons were, and are, destructive when being struck, as you know.
Were ancient people so patient that they felt even typhoons as beautiful?
These days weather forecasting technology has fully developed, and we can
trace typhoons’ path hour by hour.
As we can see coming typhoons accurately and be worried so much even much
before landing, it might be that we have lost patient and easy-going hearts
that people in old times had for natural phenomena.
(Oda Mitsuo, Asia no Tofu)
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