Kumamoto International Archive

Archive of the Kumamoto International Facebook group, 2011–present.

Kirk here with another bird post. I Google "Kumamoto" from time to time in order to check up on recent news related to this community. Yesterday when I did that, a summary of Wikipedia's page for Kumamoto Prefecture came up and I happened to notice that the official prefectural bird was listed as "great tit," (which I later learned is "シジュウカラ" [shijuukara] in Japanese). That led me to check Japanese sources and I found that the official birds of Kumamoto Prefecture and Kumamoto City were reversed on the English Wikipedia pages. I've since corrected them and now the official bird for Kumamoto Prefecture is correctly displayed as "Asian skylark" ("hibari" in Japanese) -- the bird pictured on the right.
I'm a jazz fan and learning about the Asian skylark reminded me that the great Hoagy Carmichael wrote a tune, now a standard, called "Skylark."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7HsGBJjilQ
I don't think he ever wrote a similar tribute to the great tit, even though it's a very attractive bird. Sometimes a name that that is completely unremarkable in one language carries different connotations in another language -- which reminds me of recent discussion of Asian Americans Anglicizing there names to try to fit in:
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2022/04/11/1091407334/a-chinese-student-americanized-her-name-to-fit-in-it-took-more-to-feel-she-belonged/
I'm not recommending a name change for Kumamoto City's bird. But, as someone with a name that took me aback when I first heard how it was pronounced in Japanese, I can sympathize if he/she/they feel any discomfort with the English rendering of his/her/their name.

Kirk here with news about a survey conducted by the Tokyo Bar Association. The results probably won't surprise many long-time residents of Japan who don't look Japanese: Foreigners get questioned a lot just because they are foreigners. The law says that the we must comply with such questioning. OK. But it also says that the police only have the right to stop and question us when they suspect criminal activity. The notion that one's skin color or facial features are enough to make one a criminal suspect is what is called racial profiling. I think the Tokyo Bar Association took this up in part because it's an abuse of the law -- the police don't have carte blanche to stop anyone they like without good reason.
I haven't had too much experience with this (though I've had enough to be angry about it) but I remember an exchange student here in Kumamoto that said he got checked all of the time -- just walking in town. According to the student, the officer would say "just checking" (or perhaps the equivalent in Japanese), as though being foreign meant that such checking was warranted.
I'm pleased to report that this has gotten a good deal of coverage in Japanese. Here are some links to Japanese articles for those of you who might want to see how this is being discussed in Japanese or who might want to convince a skeptical Japanese person that this actually happens:
職務質問、「外国人」は受けやすい？　東京弁護士会が実態調査
https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASQ3253DHQ2PUTIL00B.html
職質、外国人を狙ってる？　東京弁護士会が実態調査
https://www.asahi.com/articles/DA3S15220978.html
レイシャル・プロファイリング「全国的に調査しなければならない」国家公安委委員長が答弁
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/839e2f71ad1d44baa4e0a55c3c6530e7def2fa05
人種差別的な職務質問、東京弁護士会が調査へ【レイシャル・プロファイリング】
https://www.huffingtonpost.jp/entry/story_jp_61d508f5e4b0d637ae9b4101
「だって黒人でしょ」「名前を確認して態度が急変」人種差別的な職務質問、329人が訴え【レイシャル・プロファイリング】
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/cb8fc3edfd927c2917e02e7fce25c13c76d954ed
人種差別的な職務質問、東京弁護士会が調査へ【レイシャル・プロファイリング】
https://www.huffingtonpost.jp/entry/story_jp_61d508f5e4b0d637ae9b4101
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220410/p2g/00m/0na/019000c
63% of people with foreign roots in Japan questioned by police - The Mainichi
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A total of 62.9 percent of people in Japan with foreign roots were questioned by police over the past five years, preliminary results

Kirk here with a little preview of the Zoom chat we have planned for Sunday. Kumamon seems to be up for it, but the last time I Zoomed with that bear I was a little disappointed because he really didn't have anything to say -- just a lot really genki gestures, which started to wear thin after a while. And we're looking forward to hearing a little more from Johnny about that movie he made -- if he feels like talking about it this time.
Oh, wait a minute. I forgot that I'm only allowed to lie once a year -- on April 1st. It's already April 18th so I guess I'd better give you the straight story:
The sign-up post is here:
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/7121999554540082
A post Douglas made to get the ball rolling is here:
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/7111362698937101
See you Sunday!

William My beat covers politics, technology, and the environment, not culture. That 八代亜紀 (according to my wife, pronounced "Yashiro," not "Yatsushiro" Aki) could have remained off my radar displays the depths of my ignorance.
If Kumamoto could have a prefectural anthem, it would be this: Sweet Home Kumamoto
八代亜紀 / Sweet Home Kumamoto
■八代亜紀　Newアルバム『哀歌-aiuta-』の情報はこちら↓https://columbia.jp/aki/八代亜紀　Newアルバム『哀歌-aiuta-』、2015/10/28発売！収録曲より「Sweet Home Kumamoto」　作詩/大友博　作曲/Robert Johnson　編曲/寺岡呼人八代亜紀...

Kirk here with news of recognition given to researchers at Kumamoto University:
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/949491
--- start quote ---
Dr. Miharada and his team were selected this year for their proposal, “Towards safe and stable transfusion therapies independent of blood donation.” The excellent collaboration of young international scientists is made of three researchers from Japan and one from Sweden.
--- end quote ---
Kumamoto University’s Dr. Kenichi Miharada awarded this year’s Heisei Memorial Research Grant from the Japan Prize Foundation
The Japan Prize Foundation has awarded Dr. Kenichi Miharada from Kumamoto University's International Research Center for Medical Sciences (Japan) the 2022 Heisei Memorial Research Grant.

Kirk here with something that's not unique to Kumamoto but is as relevant here as it is elsewhere in Japan. As this post from Kuma Visit explains, the new 500 coins are cool, but you might not be able to use them in older vending machines:
https://www.facebook.com/kumavisit/posts/3102320763352882

(Douglas) Sorry to be late in remembering the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes.
Here is a video that Megumi and I produced in May of 2016.
2016 Kumamoto Quakes Revisited
To mark the 6th "anniversary" of the 2 powerful earthquakes that hit the Kumamoto area in April 2016, I have dusted off this video we made in May 2016.I have...

William As an Angeleno (the southwesternmost part of the US), I went to college in Maine (the northeasternmost part of the US). It was there I learned "culture shock." Clothing, food, behavior, climate, how people interact, even language - all was new to me. And my first two years there were both the most rotten and most productive of my life. After that, I found I could fit most anywhere.
TO ALL NEW KUMAMOTO ARRIVALS: Any request, any advice, even just an ear to listen to: contact us. PM. We oldies are here to help, no condescension. After all, we have been there.
Below: My hometown beach and my college beach, both in winter.

Post

A blessed Easter to our Kumamoto International friends from all of us at KI.
(Stock photo - ha ha! Get it?)

(Fiona) After meeting a few Kumamoto-i members on a walk in Tatsuda-yama yesterday, we talked about making an event of it....the Kumamoto-i Walk and Talk! Tatsuda-yama has lots of walking trails, ranging from gentle to mildly strenuous, and now is a great season to explore it, before it gets too hot and the mosquitoes are out in force. It's also one of the locations of the Green Vision Expo and currently offers free shuttle trips to the area from downtown Kumamoto.
If you'd like to go on a stroll through the forest, taking in bamboo groves, a tiny woodland shrine, wildlife and birdsong with fellow Kumamoto-i members, please join us for the inaugural Walk and Talk next Saturday from 3pm, weather permitting. It's well worth arriving earlier in the day to check out some of the Hana Haku events in Matsuri Hiroba. There is free parking, but little in the way of food and drinks, so bring your own refreshments and water bottle.
Meeting point, sign-up sheet and further details will be posted later in the week, but please comment below if you're interested in joining the walk.

Kirk here. The caption reads "A woman lights a lantern at temporary housing in the Kumamoto Prefecture town of Mashiki on April 14, 2022, the sixth anniversary of two devastating earthquakes in the southwestern Japan prefecture. A total of 276 people were killed in Kumamoto and Oita prefectures in the quakes on April 14 and 16, 2016. (Kyodo)"
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/04/ff507e0ac645-japan-and-beyond-week-in-photos---april-915.html

William It was the quakes that turned Kirk's hobby into a full-fledged venture: this site. For some, the quakes were a seminal event; new arrivals who did not experience them may have noticed the scars. If you were here during that time, please share your stories below. They may be helpful for the next one.
https://kumanichi.com/articles/626562

Kirk here with something I posted last year. Apologies to those of you who have already seen this.
Miyazono (an area in Mashiki-machi) is the only place in Japan to have suffered two shindo (seismic internsity) 7 earthquakes in succession. When I took the first photo, I had no idea I'd be going back to the same place in two days to take another photo. My camera was a simple smartphone -- nothing special -- but I wonder if mine might not be a rather rare set of photos showing what two Shindo 7 quakes in one spot actually means.
Today is April 16 -- exactly six years since the second quake. I hope my days as a disaster photographer ended with these shots.
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/5220478308025559

William Sometimes little things go under the nose - like those little sprinkles on your rice, called "furikake" (ふりかけ). Turns out the ubiquitous sprinkle was invented by a Kumamoto guy, To supplement the calcium-deficient diet of the time, the Kumamoto pharmacist Sueyoshi Yoshimaru came up with the simple idea of grinding fish bones into powder and sprinkling it over rice. So, in addition to karashirenkon and basashi, we've got that going for us, culinary-wise.
https://kumaque.com/food/1810

William This post is not Kumamoto-specific but may nonetheless benefit our home.
Shirakawa often runs low and muddy at this time of year as its waters are drawn to irrigate upstream paddies, with a silty discharge that must be periodically renewed - remember, the riverbed is higher than its surrounding areas. ヤバい。 (Photo below.)
Pivot: rice farmers are a notoriously low-paid, hard-working, greying population. Hardest work is the sowing and reaping - the latter has been mechanized for some time, easy as the paddies are drained and dry, but sowing remains labor-intensive. A company has developed a remote-control rice sowing machine which rice farmers may use while leisurely reclined aside their plots.
Let's hope assistance is provided to Kumamoto farmers so that they can learn to use this device.
https://japantoday.com/category/features/new-products/Robot-designed-to-reduce-burden-on-declining-rice-farmers

Kirk here with a video (in English) from NHK about the 6th anniversary of the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220414_12/
Naturally, there have been quite a few article published in English too. Here's a sample:
https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/04/a2dcc252873e-kumamoto-mourns-on-6th-anniversary-of-deadly-quakes.html
https://japantoday.com/category/national/Kumamoto-marks-6th-anniversary-of-deadly-quakes
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14598359
Kumamoto marks 6 years since major quakes | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News
Recovery work is still ongoing six years after a series of strong earthquakes hit the southwestern Japanese prefecture of Kumamoto.

Kirk here with a little commemoration of the 6th anniversary of the beginning of the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes. One obvious role for this page during the disaster was to provide information for English-speaking people who were here in Kumamoto. Another, rather unexpected, role we wound up playing was providing information to people who were not here but wanted to know what was going on. In that regard we got lots of inquiries from foreign media. Among them was the BBC. William was kind enough to try to relay the inquiry from them to me but I'm glad that he was able to take the interview when I failed to respond quickly enough.
I wound up being interviewed by the NBC in the US and by media in New Zealand and France. Later that fall, NHK WORLD-JAPAN had me on a program about the quakes. Another media highlight for the page was the presentation of an award to Sara Kubota by US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy in recognition for the work she did on Kumamoto International after the shaking started.
The page also got written about in a number of Japanese articles.
So, all in all, Kumamoto International got a little more that it's alotted 15 minutes of fame in 2016. I hope it's the last time we get attention for playing some sort of a role in a disaster. ;)
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1018724274867671

Kirk here with a share from Kuma Visit. I only occasionally get around to sharing posts from Kuma Visit and other useful pages. So, if you like what you see, be sure to "like" the page. ;)
https://www.facebook.com/kumavisit/posts/3098103947107897

Kirk here, copying and pasting. One way in which I look for stuff to post to this page is to search Google news for "Kumamoto." Today, that led me, in a round about sort of way, to this information about a major golf touranament that will be held here this weekend. I don't know how easy or difficult (cheap or expensive) it might be to watch the stars of women's golf play in person, but, if you're a fan, you might want to check it out:
KKT Cup VANTELIN Ladies Open
Dates: Apr 15–Apr 17
Total Prize Money: ¥100,000,000
Grand Prize: ¥18,000,000
Golf Course: Kumamoto Kuko CC, Kumamoto
https://www.lpga.or.jp/en/tournament/jlpgatour/2022/1113/info