Photo/Illutration People use umbrellas in Tokyo’s Shibuya district on June 6, when the start of the rainy season was declared for the Kanto-Koshin region. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

In London, a famously rainy city, no one used an umbrella until the mid-18th century.

A children’s picture book titled “Jonas Hanway’s Scurrilous, Scandalous, Shockingly Sensational Umbrella” vividly portrays a stubbornly eccentric man whom society frowned upon for walking around the city in the rain under an umbrella.

Using an umbrella in the rain seems a perfectly natural act.

However, people would use this type of portable shade only for protection from the sun back in those days.

In ancient times, such a device was used to enhance the authority of rulers. Women had also used similar instruments as accessories since the early modern period.

Hanway, a British businessman, was ridiculed for using an umbrella for protection from the rain.

Unfazed, he continued using an umbrella in the rain for 30 years, helping popularize the practice.

I wondered how things are now in London regarding umbrellas and found through personal connections a Japanese woman who has been living there for 24 years.

“Londoners are surprisingly unwilling to use an umbrella,” she said. “Many prefer wearing a raincoat and walk without an umbrella, even in a downpour.”

Umbrellas are just a nuisance for London citizens apparently because they are useless for protecting them from drizzling rain coming from the sides and underneath.

The unpopularity of umbrellas may be partly attributed to the fact that the weather in the British capital is notoriously fickle, as summed up by the phrase “four seasons in a day,” and clothing quickly dries once the rain stops.

In a recent international survey, Japan was ranked as the country with the largest per-capita number of umbrellas, with 3.3 per head. Britons owned 1.9, on average.

Not surprisingly, the umbrella stand in my home is full of plastic ones and foldable products. In disbelief, I wondered how my collection has grown so much without my noticing.

The start of the rainy season was declared for Kyushu on June 11, following the Kanto-Koshin region, which entered the wet season earlier last week.

Umbrellas have a long history, although they are too familiar and mundane to attract our attention.

Paying tribute to Hanway’s tireless efforts 270 years ago, let us go out with an umbrella in hand.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 12

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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