Ame may mean rain, but it's never been just rain in Japan; it's been dissected and categorized under a multitude of names that, sadly, few Japanese are in touch with anymore. Still, the fact that many people casually refer to Japan as ame no kuni (country of rain), where water perpetually seeps from the sky -- sometimes shito-shito (drop by drop), other times jan-jan (cats and dogs) -- has made us sensitive to and appreciative of the language connected with rain.

Winter ends when the rains start to fall, and old people say "hitoame goto ni atatakaku naru (it gets warmer with every rainfall)." Summer bows out with the beginning of the akisame (autumn rains), whose quality and quantity is an indicator of what the winter will be like. And in June we have tsuyu (plum rain) -- the rainy season, when people hang dehumidifiers in their closets and spray bathrooms with mildew zappers. (The concept of the "June bride" is an imported mistake, unless you like to see guests in gowns and tuxedos wiping rainwater off their faces.) The more rain there is in a tsuyu, it's said that the hotter the summer will be -- and the tastier the watermelons. This year weather forecasters are predicting a karatsuyu (absence of rain in the rainy season), and though this may be good news for the World Cup fans and players, it's a killer for rice, tea and other crops.

The Japanese will complain endlessly about rain, and a few even leave the country for better weather elsewhere. But deprive us of it for too long and we start to feel ame-koishii (lonely for rain). Heck, even Ryuichi Sakamoto named his daughter Miu (beautiful rain).