An umbrella for all seasons

"Eskimos have innumerous different words for snow," I have heard before. I have seen snow and would certainly consider myself to have many different words for the scene, but I cannot fathom so many words as an Eskimo could provide. It doesn't rain much in my hometown that rests on a beach of Southern California, just enough to show me the kindness of rain and its calming spirit.

Guangzhou rain is a different breed. I try to come up with many different words to describe the kind of rain that soak this region. It encourages me though because I feel capable in my rain-speak even to say drizzle, mist, a light shower, a gentle rain, a sprinkle, a downpour, torrential rain, heavy rain, a storm, a windy rain, and a monsoon, to name a few--all of these I have experienced while living in Canton for near two years time. In teaching my friends these descriptions of rain they seem baffled. I get the picture that rain is rain to a Chinese person. "Sure heavy rain is heavy rain, but rain gets you wet either way so how do the fancy words of what it look like change that fact?" seems to be a common philosophy of the locals.

It's taught that when someone stays out in the rain, or gets a wet head in the rain, it causes a cold. In American culture we've acquired the understanding that this is, in much part, an old wives' tale. We shake off a sprinkle as being less than that of a real rain and don't shy away from the moisture so timidly. Perhaps we've raised ourselves to be a hearty water people. In fact we often can't be bothered by having to be responsible for an umbrella and choose hats or hooded jackets instead. Umbrellas are for real rain not piddly drizzles. But the Chinese always have umbrellas: in the mist, in the sprinkling shower, in the break of rain, in the sunshine, let alone when it's actually raining.

I never considered it to be a philosophical argument: is it raining outside? Of course, I never considered owning four umbrellas either. I suppose that's the Chinese influence in me--an umbrella for all seasons.