ID4

So, today’s Independence Day. Happy 4th to all my fellow Americans.

Notice the lack of exclamation points. I’m in Japan, where it’s just pouring down buckets of rain, as this is the Rainy Season. When I first got here, I tried to celebrate the 4th like a good Amerikanski, but what I soon discovered is that trying to take over a section of beach and turn it into a little slice of fireworks-poppin’ America is, well, kind of pointless. Since it’s during the rainy season, nobody is there to be overawed by your patriotism, and even in those years when it’s not raining on the 4th, nobody cares. People on the beach and in parks are setting off a few bottle rockets all the time in the summer.

And it really gets silly when you witness your first Japanese summer fireworks display. On August 2nd, we have the biggest one here in Fukuoka, but there are several others here in the city, and dozens out in small towns, from the second half of July to the first half of September. And they make the biggest July 4th display in America look like a damp squib. I’m talking 90 minutes of amazing, overwhelming, absolutely gorgeous explosions, one after another with only brief pauses to let the accumulated smoke drift away. And they go off at a much lower altitude than would ever be allowed in America, to the point where you have to watch for sparks setting your hair on fire. The explosions make your internal organs vibrate. It leaves you numb.

It’s kind of weird that Japan, which in many ways has such a "nanny mentality" government and has far stricter safety laws about things like food safety and gun control, is so much more permissive than the US when it comes to fireworks. Here, you can buy big bundles of them at 7-11 and set them off just about anywhere, anytime, as long as you don’t make the neighbors complain. In Texas, it’s far, FAR easier to buy guns and ammo than to buy firecrackers. (You might have a two-week waiting period on guns, but you can only buy fireworks three weeks a year.) I think this is related to what Sneezy talks about here.

So anyway, Independence Day has joined that growing group of American holidays where I just go, "Oh, today’s the 4th…" And then I feel a bit homesick.

superdave