Gamers come together to support sake brewery in Misato-machi. -- Kirk
2026-08-26 09:31 JST 2026 Gamers come together to support sake brewery in Misato-machi. -- Kirk Touken Ranbu Fandom Rallies to Save 250-Year-Old Kumamoto Sake Brewery After Earthquake Plea Goes ViralA powerful magnitude 7 earthquake rocked Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, on July 28, 2026, and rescue efforts are still underway to help the region recove... https://www.toy-people.com/en/?p=113642 ↗ View original post on Facebook For a link to the original post on Facebook, open this page on a computer. Reactions: 1 ← 2026-08-26 07:12 JST → Around this time … 2026-08-26 09:31 JSTGamers come together to support sake brewery in …Touken Ranbu Fandom Rallies to Save 250-Year-Old Kumamoto Sake Brewery After Earthquake Plea Goes Viral (this post) 2026-08-26 07:12 JSTJoha here: The 熊本県外国人サポートセンターKumamoto Support Center for Foreign Residents will offer a consultation service in Uki on September 6 for people affected by the recent earthquake. See flyer for details. 2026-08-25 10:06 JSTSome 90% of Japanese igusa, the reed used to make tatami, comes from areas recently damaged by the quakes. Effects on tatami production are feared. -William 2026-08-25 09:11 JSTKirk here. This was on the national broadcast of NHK's morning news program, Ohayo Nippon, today. The pace at which malicious rumors about foreigners are spreading on the internet far exceeds anything we saw in 2016. Fortunately, NHK and other media has been publishing stories to set the record straight.--- start ChatGPT translation ---Unfounded Claims Spread That “Muslims Complained About Emergency Food Distribution” After Kumamoto EarthquakeAugust 25, 2026, 8:05 a.m.Following the July Kumamoto earthquake, unfounded claims spread on social media alleging that Muslim evacuees, who cannot eat pork for religious reasons, had complained about meals at evacuation shelters and caused trouble. However, interviews with Kumamoto Prefecture and local municipalities found no evidence of any such incidents, and officials said there had been no confusion. A Muslim organization said, “It saddens us to see things that are not true being spread.”After the earthquake that registered a maximum seismic intensity of 7 in Kumamoto Prefecture, unfounded claims spread on social media platforms including X and Threads, such as that “Muslims complained about the tonjiru [pork miso soup] served at an emergency meal distribution.”The claims spread through X and online aggregation sites and were viewed more than 16 million times in total. However, the post that became the source of the claims had actually been posted on X before the earthquake occurred.NHK also contacted Kumamoto Prefecture and all 38 municipalities in the prefecture that had opened evacuation shelters. None reported any trouble involving foreign nationals or complaints about food distributed to evacuees.In reality, an organization made up of Muslims living in the prefecture, along with international NGOs and other groups, had delivered relief supplies intended for Muslims. An official with Kumamoto Prefecture’s International Affairs Division said, “We have not heard a single report from the affected areas of anyone saying, for example, that they were having difficulty because they could not eat the tonjiru. There was no major confusion.”Marlo Siswahyu, an Indonesian-born representative of the Kumamoto Islamic Center, said, “It is sad that this is being spread because there are people who will believe it, but there is nothing we can do, so we have no choice but to ignore it. I have lived in Japan for 25 years, and recently I feel that discrimination has been increasing. If there is something we are doing wrong, I would like people to tell us. And if there is anything they want to know about Islam, I hope they will feel free to ask us at any time.”False information about foreign nationals tends to spread easily during disasters. It is important not to casually share information from uncertain sources and to respond calmly.--- end translation ---熊本地震“炊き出しでイスラム教徒苦情”根拠ない情報拡散 | NHKニュース 2026-08-24 10:33 JSTI suspect that the person who wrote this article didn't ask many foreigners where they get their information. I was amazed recently to discover how large and active Vietnamese-language Facebook groups about Kumamoto are. I think Vietnamese people are getting most of their information from each other, not directly from the government. And, of course, this page, Kuma Visit, and other volunteer efforts might be mentioned in an article of this kind. :(--- start quote ---The Kumamoto city government started an emergency email service for foreigners based on lessons learned from the major quakes that struck the prefecture 10 years ago, when many foreigners were unable to receive the support they needed.--- end quote ---I get an email newsletter from the International Center and occasionally share the contents on this page. To be honest, though, I've been somewhat underwhelmed by both the quantity and the quality of the information. Does anybody know about an email newsletter that comes directly from the city government?I'm aware of LINE being translated into English but this too has many problems. One is that information shared on LINE cannot be shared easily outside of LINE; it's a walled-off garden.I agree with the basic premise of the article: There's lots of room for improvement. I would say, however, that improvement should start with better analysis than this article provides of the current situation and its deficiencies.-- KirkMany foreigners have hard time obtaining disaster info in Kumamoto quake - The Mainichi 2026-08-23 07:44 JSTKirk here. After over 25 years of providing, or attempting to provide information in English for the benefit of folks in Kumamoto who may not be fluent in Japanese, I've come, ironically, to be concerned about how the usefulness of Japanese to foreigners is often discounted. A recent example was my August 13 post about Kumamoto City presenting translations without links to the original (more detailed and informative) Japanese and without internal glossing of the original Japanese terms that they translate (without such glossing we foreigners are forced to struggle to "back translate" when trying to communicate with actual Japanese people about the content we read).Here's that post:https://www.facebook.com/1379708514190936/posts/1484195123742274To their credit, the City responded to my email and added a link to the original Japanese (but the pdfs are still unglossed; you have to go to the original Japanese documents to find the key terms).At any rate, since this "foreigners only need translations; have no need to use Japanese" stereotype is a pet peeve of mine, I've been particularly pleased to observe the rise of the yasashii (easy) Japanese movement, including the fine work described in this article.'Easy Japanese' Helps Foreign Residents Access Vital Information | JAPAN Forward
