72 Seasons

At just about the same time rainy season begins, the plums begin to turn a faint yellow. These are harvested and made into pickled plums, liqueur preserves, and many other things. The word for rainy season is "tsuyu" or "baiu", literally the plum rain, which means the rain that falls when the plums are getting ripe. It is also a time when a lot of mold grows, so at one time, "baiu" was spelled with the characters for mold and rain.
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