Comme ça du Japon

Everybody does it every morning yet opening the 郵便箱 (YûBinBako) “letter box” has always been a surprising experience. I am not talking about my メールボックス (Me-RuBokKuSu) “email box” because we all have the same spam emails no matter where we live. However, we can observe different trends between japanese, french and english spams but this will be the subject for a next article. I have recently received a postcard with ひまわり (Himawari) “sunfowers”. I had no idea from whom it could be.

Turns out that this was a postcard sent by the nearby 焼肉レストラン (YakiNiku ReSuToRaN) “grilled meat restaurant”. You might think that there is nothing special about it. Well this postcard is surprising for two reasons: it was handwritten and there was no commercial message. Here is the message and a translation attempt:

暑中お見舞い申し上げます。バウ様、当店のご利用ありがとうございます。お暑い折ですのでどうぞお体大切にお過ごし下さいませ。
ShoChû OMiMaI MouShiAGeMASu. BaUSama, Tô Mise No GoRiYô ARiGaTô GoZaIMaSu. OAtsuI Ori Desu No De DôZo O Karada TaiSetsu Ni OSuGoShi KudaSaIMaSe.
We would like to address you are thoughts for this period of intense heat. Dear M. Baheux thanks you so much for your fidelity. Please be careful during this hot summer.

This is a 暑中見舞い (ShoChûMiMaI) “letter asking for news during the hot season”. This expression is built by combining 暑中 (ShoChû) “Hot + Middle”, in other words “right in middle of a hot summer”, and 見舞い (MiMaI) “See + Dance”. However, no one came to my house to dance. In fact, in this particular case, 舞 (Bu / Mai) “dance” has a mystical nuance that 踊り (OdoRi) “dance” does not have for instance. The word お見舞い (OMiMai) that we use when we pay a visit to a relative who got sick or the various 舞 (Mai) “ritual dance” of the Enburi festival of Hachinohe seems to confirm this point. The only nice thing about Summer in Japan is the huge number of festivals and the lovely japanese girls in 浴衣 (YuKata) “light kimono”. The humidity is so high that hot temperatures are really difficult to bear. Because this is particularly hard period of the year, japanese usually 安否を気遣う (AnPi Wo KiDuKaU) “inquire after” their relatives during the hot summer. The use of postcards started during the 大正時代 (TaiShô Jidai) “Taishô era” (1912-1926). The postcard should be sent between July 20th and 立秋 (RisShû) “the first day of autumn (of the old calendar)” which is around August 8th. It is still posssible to send such postcard after August 8th but in that case it will be 残暑見舞い (ZanShôMimai) “remaining + hot + 見舞い”.

I think I know where I will eat this evening