Kirk here. If you’ve been in Kumamoto for a while, you probably have at least some familiarity with “shiranui.” The basic meaning is “unknown fire” or “unknown light” (in reference to an optical illusion) but it has come to be used in a variety of proper nouns (see the following Wikipedia “disambiguation” for an English-language list of all of the usages):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiranui_(disambiguation)
Well, some high school students have succeeded in reproducing the “rare type of atmospheric optical phenomenon that can be glimpsed in the Yatsushiro Sea and nowhere else in Japan.”
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15400093
Wow!
P.S. To see a long list of posts on this page that include the word or proper noun “shiranui”, see the following. https://www.facebook.com/profile/100064554018003/search/?q=shiranui
