December Rain: Korea and Japan Order the Months Differently

December in Hwatu (Korean flower cards) is the month of rain. It’s the last card of the year, yet it shows a rainy day, not a clear one, which feels like a rather lonely way to end, doesn’t it? But this December card hides a fun secret: Korea and Japan put the order of the months differently.

Rain Bright

Swallow (Animal)

Ribbon

Double Junk

Korea’s November is Paulownia, Japan’s November is Rain?

Korean Hwatu has November as Paulownia and December as Rain. But Japanese Hanafuda is the opposite: November is the willow (rain) and December is the paulownia. It’s the same pictures with just the months swapped. Why they were swapped, I couldn’t find a clear explanation in the sources I checked. Let’s leave it as a mystery and enjoy it.

So the card Koreans call Ttong-gwang (the Paulownia Bright) is a December card in Japan, and Korea’s December Rain Bright is a November card in Japan. If you play Hanafuda with a Japanese friend, you might both be puzzled: ‘Which month’s card is that?’

Hidden picture: the swallow and the Double Junk

The December Animal is the swallow. Doesn’t it remind you of what the older folks used to say when swallows flew low on a rainy day, ‘It looks like rain is coming’? The swallow in the picture trails a long, sleek tail. In this game’s artwork, the swallow has a red beak and a yellow body, cutting through the black leaves.

The Ribbon next to it is a plain red ribbon with no writing, and the last card, the Double Junk, is a red-backed card filled with a black leaf pattern. A Double Junk counts as two Junk cards, so take good care of it.

The Rain Bright has a long story of its own

December’s Bright is the Rain Bright, showing a person holding an umbrella. The story of the frog, the willow tree, and the person with the umbrella is quite long, so I wrote it up separately.

Who Is the Person with the Umbrella on the Rain Bright?

Pick up the story there.

Role in the game

• December is a treasure-packed month with one Bright, one Animal, one Ribbon, and one Double Junk.
• If the Rain Bright is among them, three Brights are worth 2 points, not 3. Four Brights are 4 points, and five Brights are 20 points.
• The Rain Double Junk, together with the November Double Junk and the Gu-jja (the September Animal, the sake cup), is the material for the ‘Catch the Double Junk Corps’ mission (x3).
• The December Ribbon belongs to none of the Red, Blue or Grass Ribbons, so it only adds to the Ribbon score (from 5 cards, the number of cards minus 4 points).

In a word, the Rain Bright is an actor who is ‘the star in scoring but can also be a burden.’ If you gathered three Brights and the Rain Bright is among them, it’s a real disappointment.

A little joke

Some people say, "The year ends in tears," because the last card of the year is rain. But look at it the other way: after the rain, the ground hardens and a new spring comes. Past December’s rain, January’s pine is waiting again.