Photo/Illutration The snow-covered central area of Yamagata is seen from Yuso no Oka park in the city on Dec. 4. (The Asahi Shimbun)

On the morning of Dec. 4, heeding the forecast of bitter cold, I stepped out of the house in a down coat for the first time this season.

Fortunately, Tokyo was not icy enough to make one shiver to the core, yet even so, the sparrows perched in the trees seemed--perhaps it was only my impression--a touch fluffier than usual. December is upon us. Winter, in its full and earnest form, has come.

The Japanese poet Michio Mado (1909-2014) wrote a piece that goes like this: “A message of snow/ A letter on a fallen leaf/ Little bunny reads it/ Mumbling as she reads/ Mommy, please take out/ My white winter clothes.”

On that chilly day of Dec. 4, I imagine the little rabbit child, too, must have hurried to have its pure-white coats pulled from the back of the wardrobe.

A strong cold air mass had settled over much of the nation, and reports of the season’s first snowfall arrived from Nagoya, Kyoto, Hiroshima and other regions.

Some readers may have drawn their curtains in the early morning only to find a world gleaming crisply in white. In Sukayu, a mountainous hot-spring hamlet in the northern prefecture of Aomori, the snow has already risen to nearly a meter.

In the northern regions, from now until spring, life beneath those gloomy, lead-gray skies brings unending hardship. Heavy snowfalls demand constant labor: clearing drifts from roofs, shoveling paths before the doorway--no matter how much one does, there is always more, the work hard and wearying.

Such are the exacting conditions of living in the embrace of a harsh nature.

To make things tougher for those in snowy regions this year, another challenge has emerged--one that threatens local lives. Bears still wander through villages and towns at a time when they should be deep in hibernation.

Also on Dec. 4, in the mountainous prefecture of Nagano in central Japan, a man clearing snow was attacked; in Iwate, another northern prefecture, a woman walking along a snowy road had her face clawed. It is unsettling to think that even in this biting cold they have not entered their winter sleep.

In Mado’s poem, the fallen-leaf mail announcing winter reaches the bears’ den as well: “The little bear reads it/ Murmuring as he reads/ ‘Mother, let us sleep now/ Until next year.’”

It is a wish on everyone’s mind, shaped by silence and cold: mother bears and cubs, sleep--sleep as you should.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 5

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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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