清明

清明 — *clear and bright*, around the fifth of April, and for once a season named after nothing but how the air is. Everything has come out. The light has changed. There is no single event to point at, which is presumably why they named it after the general condition.

This is peak cherry blossom in most of the country, and therefore peak sitting-under-trees.

Eight characters and basic katakana is finished.

And there it is — the last of the four. 花見 for blossom now, 雪見 for snow in November, 紅葉狩り for leaves in October, and summer's fireworks and insect-listening. The whole year is covered by things you go and look at on purpose.

花見 is the biggest by a wide margin, and it is much less refined than the poetry suggests. People arrive early to claim ground under a good tree, lay out plastic sheets, and eat and drink under the branches for hours. Companies send junior staff to hold the spot.

Both things are true at once: it is a genuine annual encounter with something briefly and famously beautiful, and it is also a large public picnic that gets loud. The petals fall into the beer either way.

The kana

The last eight, and three of them look like each other.

**ク, ワ and ケ** all start with a similar angle. ク is two strokes closing to a point. ワ is two strokes with a flat top and an open bottom. ケ has a stroke crossing through. Look at the top edge: pointed is ク, flat is ワ.

**ラ and フ** — ラ has a small stroke above, フ has nothing. **ル and レ** — ル has two strokes, レ has one.

And ン, which you were warned about three chapters ago: ン comes **up** from the bottom left, ソ comes **down** from the top. Same test as シ and ツ. Direction of the stroke, every time.

ヲ exists and you will almost never see it. The object particle is written in hiragana as を even in sentences full of katakana.