Posts
(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.
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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
Kirk here was some news about Jikei Hospital's "baby hatch." The circumstances that led to this person's being left at the hospital are tragic but I'm glad to learn that he is doing well.
15 years after being left in 'baby hatch,' Japan teen embraces happiness with foster family - The Mainichi
KUMAMOTO -- This May will mark 15 years since Jikei Hospital in this southwest Japan city established a
Kirk with some Kumamoto-Ukraine news. Reading the article made me wonder how best to contribute (that is, give money) to Ukraine. Any ideas?
17-yr-old in Japan raises money for Ukraine after cousin forced to flee country - The Mainichi
KUMAMOTO -- A high school student here whose cousin evacuated from Ukraine days before Russia invaded has started a humanitarian aid fundraising campa
Kirk here with an article about how Oguni-machi is cooperating with a company called Asteria to manage its forests more effectively. Asteria seems to have a platform that makes it possible for lay people to build simple apps that assist in recording and managing data. The article doesn't use the term, but I think such platforms are generally referred to as no-code or low-code platforms.
Personal aside:
I've been using a no-code platform called AppSheet since 2016 to build some educational apps. AppSheet was acquired by Google a couple years ago and seems to have become quite popular, though the field is filled with competitors. AppSheet has enabled me to build apps that would have been impossible for me otherwise but, nonetheless, there was quite a learning curve; I'd say AppSheet is much easier than learning to code (Python, Java, etc.) but not exactly "easy." Here's a link to a video I made about how I use AppSheet in my classes:
https://kguics.blogspot.com/2020/05/how-i-use-appsheet-in-my-classes.html
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/2022/03/31/special-supplements/town-company-team-achieve-sdgs-kumamoto/
Town, company team up to achieve SDGs in Kumamoto
While the United Nations sustainable development goals present the diverse challenges the world faces, it is important that companies and municipalities ex
Kirk here with some information on opportunities to study Japanese in Kumamoto City. Today, I received the following information in an email from the Kumamoto International Foundation:
---- start quote -----
【The study of Japanese】
Kumamoto International Foundation has restarted Japanese learning. For more information, please access our website or inquire of the foundation.
https://www.kumamoto-if.or.jp/list00066.html
---- end quote ----
"Restarted" refers to the temporary closing of such classes (in January?) due to high infection rates in Kumamoto. So, things are back on track now.
The link in the message from the foundation is to a Japanese language page. That's OK if you've already gotten your foot in the door, so to speak, with the Japanese language but I thought I should provide some information in English for people who are just getting started. The image you see was converted from a pdf that I found here:
https://www.kumamoto-if.or.jp/kiji003234/index.html
Also, the foundation has a やさしいにほんご (easy Japanese) Facebook page where they share information about Kumamoto and about opportunities to study Japanese, etc. That page can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/kurashinonihongo
William Culinary-wise, Kumamoto hits that sweet spot between mountain and sea. Likely no finer cuisine exists in Japan. My wife hails from the mountains of Yabe, but her grandfather was a fishmonger (her mother was the first female in Yabe to obtain a drivers license so that she could travel to Tasaki Market to buy fish.)
Experience it.
