Kumamoto International Archive

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

I'm pretty sure that the bird you hear in the video is an uguisu, a Japanese bush warbler. I haven't gotten a good look at it yet but it has decided to hang around our house lately. If I could speak uguisu, I would say "you're welcome to stay here as long as you like. Keep making that pretty music." The cat seems to like the bird's singing too, although this cat's interest may not be purely aesthetic. -- Kirk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_bush_warbler

Cats make great pets. Unlike dogs, who need you so much that they'll hump your leg, cats will disappear for most of the day (whether indoor or out) and then reappear when hungry with a reproving look. But they also can be very affectionate and loyal; most of this depends on the amount and quality of food you supply and how you scratch them at that certain place at the base of their tail. (They like graham crackers but not s'mores. I don't know why. And don't pick them up. That they hate.) Anyway, if you'd like to challenge living with a cat, our friend Jeremey has a kitten for free. PM us for more. - William

Cruising through southern Kumamoto on the incredibly rapid, on-time train, I enjoy observing the countryside homes. They have heavy tile roofs which tell them, "Stay down!" (good idea for a house in typhoons but not when there's an earthquake, during which the opposite command is appropriate). They are often decorated at the eaves with shachihoko (鯱鉾) – or simply shachi (鯱) – an animal in Japanese folklore with the head of a tiger and the body of a carp, supposed to ward off fire (I guess if I were a tiger-carp, I wouldn't like fire unless I wanted to eat myself - biomorphology gets complicated). Did you know 90% of Japanese igusa, the reed used to make tatami, comes from Yatsushiro? Now you do. Impress your friends. - William

Kumamoto is famous for citrus（kankitsurui－柑橘類). Asia is where citrus originated, after all. There are so many types of citrus in Kumamoto that even the locals don't know what they are. The woman whose desk is next to mine gave me some citrus this morning. I asked her what it was, and she said, "Dunno. Some kind of citrus." Kumamoto is very famous for the banpeiyu (晩白柚) - when you buy it, it looks like a bowling ball, but once you've peeled it, it's more like a softball. - William

Lil' bit of good news from the lil' kids education front: Kindergarten in Japan is fraught with challenges. As it is not compulsory, many cities forgo investment, resulting in a chronic shortage of seats. Not only does this inhibit early childhood development, it also places a great burden on parents. However, Kumamoto has apparently experienced two straight years of no kindergarten entrance denial (what's called 待機児童 - たいきじどう; the blue line on the graph, 保留児童 - ほうりゅうじどう - refers to children who are judged not prepared to enter kindergarten for whatever reason). Please pay due respect to the tireless women (and on occasion, men) who make this possible. - William
https://kumanichi.com/articles/242527

Pasted by Kirk.
US tells citizens to avoid travel to Japan due to Covid outbreak
Move comes amid preparations in Tokyo for the Olympics, which are due to be held from 23 July despite a raging fourth wave

Hi! Kirk here with a notice from the Kumamoto International Foundation (also known as the "International Center") about Kumamoto's "pre-emergency" or "quasi-emergency" status. As I wrote in the following post, this is how newspaper articles have rendered "man'en boushi tou juuten sochi" (まん延防止等重点措置), or "mambo" for short.
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/5359252387481483
I'd like to express my gratitude to the good people at the Kumamoto International Foundation because they have kindly agreed to paste the original Japanese text to the end of messages such as this one. This is partly in response to the following post in which many of you said that your agreed with me that access to Japanese can be useful:
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/5329273953812660
In the case of the following e-mail text, the Japanese helped me confirm that "stricter measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19" refers to "mambo" and not to any other measures. The Japanese text can come in handy in many other ways and, of course, those who have no interest in it are free to ignore it.
If you appreciate the addition of Japanese text to messages like this one, please "like" this post and/or write a positive comment. I'm planning to share this post in a thank you note to the International Foundation so anything your write here will become part of that note. Thanks!
-----------------
Kumamoto Prefecture and Kumamoto City have been placed under stricter measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as the number of new coronavirus cases are rapidly increasing.
The measures run from Sunday, May 15th to Sunday, June 13th.
The details are listed below.
- Wear a face mask even if you have no symptoms.
- Wash your hands often. Sanitize your hands.
- When you have a fever, stay home and call your doctor for advice.
- Avoid going out and stay home as much as possible. Do not go out after 8pm.
- Do not drink on the street or gather in parks to drink with others.
- Eat alone or eat with someone you are always with in a small group.
- You can't drink at restaurants or bars. They don't serve alcohol.
- All restaurants and bars are closed at 8pm.
Keep these rules to avoid the spread of Coronavirus.
熊本県と市は新型コロナウイルス感染の急拡大を受けて、「まん延防止等重点措置」を出しました。内容は下記のとおりです。
期間：5月15日（日）～6月13日（日）
主な内容：
・症状がなくとも、マスク着用
・こまめな手洗い・手指消毒
・発熱時は仕事等を休み、すぐにかかりつけ医等に電話相談！
・日中も含めた不要不急の外出※を控えて下さい（特に午後8時以降は徹底して下さい。）
・路上・公園等での集団飲酒等はしないで下さい。
・会食はなるべく普段から一緒にいる人と人数を絞って行う。
・全ての飲食店について、終日の酒類の提供（利用者による店内持ち込みを含む）の自粛を要請します。
・全ての飲食店について、午後８時までの営業時間短縮を要請します。
これらの決まりを守って新型コロナウイルス感染拡大防止へのご協力をお願いします。

Kumamoto City has just announced that they decided to call off Hinokuni Festival this year, too. It is sad but cannot be helped.
The main event of the festival is “おてもやん総踊り(Samba Otemoyan)”. “Otemoyan” is a famous local figure in Kumamoto but how much do you know about her?
In the article below, you will get to know the meaning of the song “Otemoyan” and also the life of the character Otemoyan and its writer Ine. Check the article below and get a glimpse of the world of Otemoyan.
- Chieko

They've got this new thing in Japan where you're not supposed to walk on escalators. Yet everyone still stands rigidly on the left, leaving a tempting path which I take. Somebody pointed this out, and I said, "It's going down. It's not an escalator - it's a deesculator." --William

So I'm walking from my new high school way out in the wilds of Yatsushiro to the train station and ran into an old woman using what in Japanese is called a 達者カー (tasshyaka-), which basically means, "vehicle for old active people.". They generally have a seat that one can rest on when needed and a basket underneath for purchases. I know it's called this because, when I bought my first baby stroller, the same catalog listed 達者カー (they're kind of similar, just for different ends of the life cycle). I stopped to talk with her and mentioned that what was supporting her was called a 達者カー. She didn't know that. It's never too late to learn. - William

I've gotta take the train to Yatsushiro twice a week. I could take the shinkansen, but I enjoy the local train - the views of the local areas and fellow passengers. Plus, it's half the price. The local train passes by a major shinkansen maintenance center in Uto. Just looking at these beasts as they await their signal to sprint forth at unbelievable speeds from their trainyard reminds me of my whippet. - William

Let's caption this. I'll start. "Don't like that guy's attitude: he's just a shrimp but pretends to be Ebisu."

Spare a thought for the mudskipper (ムツゴロウ, mutsugorou), a type of goby that lives in the Ariake and Yatsushiro seas. It is flagged as "yellow" on the extinction endangered list, mostly due to habitat destruction. But when they mate, the males really go at it. Observing their exhibited enthusiasm, you just gotta wish these guys luck. (The article uses the phrase “熱い恋” - "hot love" - and if you've ever visited the mudflats, you'll learn how hot they do get.) - William
https://kumanichi.com/articles/239712

During the hungry times during the Great Depression of the '30s, many Japanese - including many from Kumamoto - emigrated to Brazil and California and Hawaii and left their cultural stamp wherever they went. For example, the "Hawaiian" (or "aloha") shirt was originally made from yukata fabric which was reversed to give it a more weathered look. The most famous aloha shirt maker is Reyne Spooner, so famous that that's how one refers to such a shirt. I'm wearing one now. They're kinda hard to find, but look. - William
Reyn Spooner® Shop
Reyn Spooner Hawaiian Shirts a Hawaiian Tradition since 1956. Short Sleeve, Long Sleeve Shirts, Men, Women, Kids, Limited Edition Hawaiian Shirts.

When America closed up its two military bases in Kumamoto, at Kengun and Camp Wood, they donated their books (Hemingway and Steinbeck and Scott) to the Kumamoto Prefectural Library in Oe. They are still there, in the closed stacks, but if you ask a librarian, you can have access and even borrow them. It is history meeting literature. Pictured is the library in Huntington Beach, California, where my mother was assistant director - I grew up ensconced in books there, like a literate feral cat. - William

Baseball holds little attraction for me unless it's Koshien, but I like my hometown teams, the Dodgers and the Angles. There is no race there, just talent, as in the two Mexican pitchers, Víctor González, a Nayarit native, and Julio Urías, originally from Sinalo, show. Here's an article about how Japanese native Shohei Ohtani learned MLB from comic books. - William
Hernández: How a comic book character influenced Shohei Ohtani's two-way dominance
Shohei Ohtani's cartoon-like feats for the Angels have stunned the baseball world, but it's very similar to the comic book world that influenced him.

Y'know when you've forgotten "my bag" and have purchased more than you can stuff in your pockets but are loathe to pay the 5円 for a bag that will contribute to the garbage cycle? Some stores now offer city-approved garbage bags as a way to finagle yourself out of this quandary (and finagling oneself out of quandaries is what life is all about). - William https://kumanichi.com/articles/238545

Our friend Oyama-san had posted on my private feed about what it was like to live in wartime, meatless Japan. Without comment, I'd like to copypaste what he'd written. It is an education. - William
People who could get peasants and ducks ate them, then they had to hunt in the mountain area depending on where they lived. People who possessed horses or cows for doing agriculture could eat them if they tried to. But they should have been a treasure or the way to live on with. That must have been a rare case, I guess. Of course, people live near the sea could eat raw fish, but corned fish was available even in the mountain area. But we didn’t grow mammals just for eating. Growing mammals for food could come out of Japan after Edo era. In the countryside of Japan, even my parents house, had several chickens for their eggs, and sometimes such as neighbors party held once a year or two when I was only a child. It was about fifty years ago. Monks couldn’t eat mammals, I heard, so they pretended rabbits were a kind of birds and counted them like birds and made it a excuse to eat rabbits. Sometimes the Japanese are blamed for eating whales or horses, but I think nobody can blame others for their cultures on eating. Each has their own situations, he or she was or is trying to live his or her life with given situation.

Hi-I’ve been absent on here for quite awhile but it seems that my profile is being used to edit or erase other people’s comments on Kumamoto International. Hopefully this situation will be fixed and the moderator in charge can take actual responsibility in what people can say or do on this site. Also that moderator should explain to those certain folk why their comments were removed.-Thanks John Onyskin

I know you're sad. I feel your pain. The cause is that we can't find sour cream. Here is a recipe for making something akin - William
Mexican Crema Recipe – A Couple Cooks
Mexican crema is a thickened cream for dolloping over tacos and soups! Creamy and slightly tangy, it's easy to make at home!