In the Tokyo area, August was a month of hideri (日照り, brutal sunshine), the effects of which were accelerated by the setsuden (節電, energy-conserving) mood. Many of us trudged through the streets under a blazing sun, clutching a towel in one hand and a water bottle in the other.

Ah, thank the gods for mizu (水, water) — the one thing the Japanese have always had in abundance. Consider the phrase: yumizu no gotoku tsukau (湯水の如くつかう, go through something like hot and cold water), which when you think about it, is a blatantly extravagant thing to say. Even during the toughest times, like the end of World War II when Tokyo was a charred wasteland of ash and rubble, the majority of Tokyoites rarely lacked for water even as they lacked for everything else. There were working wells in every district, as well as the grapevine network of yōsuiro (用水路, irrigation canals).

The Japanese know it's a sin against the gods to take water for granted. We're fully aware that elsewhere in the world crops have failed and the earth is cracked from drought. Sessui (節水, conserving water) has been drummed into us from elementary school onwards. Yet, at the very heart of the Japanese soul is a conviction that nice, clean water — whether gushing from taps or running through (relatively) pristine rivers — is our birthright. Japan has never had natural fuel resources to speak of and has had to import almost all forms of fossilized energy for more than a century. Water is our only and last resort.