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The 1930s were not a fun time to live anywhere, particularly in Japan, where its nascent export industries were devastated due to the Great Depression, leading to mass emigration, especially from Kumamoto. Some went to South America (mostly Brazil, where their agricultural skills came in handy), and my home state of California (where their agricultural skills also came in handy). My wife's grandmother went to Manchuria. I'd been there and was eager to engage in conversation, but she was extremely reluctant to talk about it. Some of them - or their scion - returned. Kumanichi has a fascinating article regarding this (as always, Google Translate is your friend). - William
https://kumanichi.com/articles/251035

As I've mentioned, I've been taking the conventional train to my job in Yatsushiro, not only as it is cheaper than the Shinkansen, but I can enjoyably observe morning commuters' two favorite hobbies: snatching a few more ZZZs or staring at their cellphones. It's worth the price of the ticket. But apparently, Japan is moving ahead with magnetically levitated trains that could reduce the travel time between Tokyo and Osaka to less than that of an airplane. (Fares will probably be, like, really expensive.) I hope that they build one between Kumamoto and Yatsushiro so that I can arrive an hour before I left. - William
The Fastest Train Ever Built: The SCMaglev
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Seiwa Bunraku (清和文楽) is the only theater in Kyushu where we can see Ningyo Joruri drama (人形浄瑠璃).
Until the end of July 2021, you can see the new and original drama, “Higo Amabie Koiutaibun (肥後アマビエ恋歌異聞)”. You may have heard of Amabie. She is a Japanese folk monster which is believed to live in the ocean in Kumamoto. It is said that when plague spread in the past, Amabie told locals to draw her figure on a piece of paper and show it to others so that the epidemic would be ended soon. This new play is a creation which is about Amabie and her impossible love with young samurai.
For more information about the history of Seiwa Bunraku and its newest play, check out the link below.
- Chieko

Y'know when you're a really good samurai, but not quite good enough to establish your own domain? That was the Matsui clan of Yatsushiro, who cleaved onto the Tokugawa clan and managed to survive (useful to the shogun as it provided a check against the rebellious Satsuma). Judging by the uniform, it must not have been an easy gig. There is an exhibition of their stuff now at the 八代市立博物館. William
https://kumanichi.com/articles/248823

Cows are both interesting and interested - I brought my whippet, Devo, into a barn in Aso once, and the cows were fascinated by this strange animal, lowing and rolling their eyes as my dog did his best to stay away from them (I'd never seen him stick so closely to the center of a path), but - HAY! - apparently there is a phrase for the first hay harvested to tide over winter: 「１番草」(ichibangusa), and, according to Kumanichi, they've got that in the barn now, much to the relief of milk-lovers such as I. - William
https://kumanichi.com/articles/248836

My wife made me garden this morning. I was not gruntled (that is, disgruntled). Long ago, I'd planted some sasa, a diminutive type of bamboo - as is often the case, choose your kanji - 笹、篠、筱、筿 - to shield our window. (Apparently, bamboo have pachymorph rhizomes that develop into a new culm such that they'll sprout meters away, having traversed under the asphalt), and they drop a lot of leaves, which I have to pick out one by one from between the gaps in the bricks. This is what led me not to be gruntled. But I am happy that the sasa is doing well - it will no doubt outlive me. - William
http://bamboo-identification.co.uk/html/rhizomes.html

Liz here. I am sorry this is so close to the crowd funding deadline , but I hope some will be able to donate to this very worthy cause. Hiromi Chida was kind enough to translate the most important parts into English. Her page Kuma Visit is a wealth of information and worthy of a Like to keep you updated on her posts.

Just reposting a tidbit I put on my private page - William
My adopted hometown of Higo (now Kumamoto) occupies a somewhat precarious position, sandwiched between Hakata (now Fukuoka), which was always closely controlled by Edo (now Tokyo), and Satsuma (now Kagoshima), which alone among all Japanese domains was never controlled by any one clan but the Shimazu (still the Shimazu) - they were always like, "Come and get us!" to the shogun, and the armies that trampled back and forth did so in my backyard, Higo (now Kumamoto). Even today, the Hakata and the Satsuma retain a mutual dislike, and nobody likes Kumamoto, us poor Higo-ko, as we're still known. But that Tom Cruise movie, the Last Samurai, (very) loosely based on history, took place in my hometown. (Pictured: it's like, "Sure, invade us! We have impassable mountains and caldera lakes and live volcanoes, and we know where all of them are, but you don't!").

My wife reads the 今日の料理 (Kyo no Ryori) magazine and watches its associated TV show like it's some kind of religion. I flip through the magazine as a guide to what will show up on my table sometime during the week. But their was an interesting ad on the rear this week for pure-cane sugar （きびさと、きび砂糖 - there seems to be no kanji for きび). Sugar and salt are the elixirs of life. Once, in a remote corner of Kagoshima, I came across a small salt still - the owner told me she takes discarded wood from construction sites to boil the local water down to its solidities, and that the reason the salt is so good is due to the calcium that the coral in the water provides. She let me buy some with the warning that she normally does not sell to individual customers, only those in her network (high-end restaurants).
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Other things about the corona virus we've likely not thought about: Kumamoto University students are for the most tossed out into the wild and told to forage for themselves, but foraging, consisting mostly as it does of restaurant work, has all but dried up. So a project, called the くまもと学生食料支援プロジェクト has been launched to provide free meals to Kumadai students. One is quoted as saying, 「夢みたいなありがたいことやってる。おまえも来い」- "I'm so thankful - it's like a dream! All of you guys, get out here!" - William
https://kumanichi.com/articles/248181

There seems to be some dispute about the etymological origins of 熊本. This is the most persuadable argument I've heard. The original kanji for Kumamoto didn't use 熊本 but 隈本ーthat is, "foot of a nook." And if you think about the city before the land reclaimers got to work, that was so - we were a small alluvial plain at the foot of the central Kyushu mountains. It was also (and still is) known as "Higo" （肥後）, as opposed to "Hizen," modern Fukuoka, across the mountains. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%82%A5%E5%89%8D%E5%9B%BDBut The eventual powers that chose our name chose to somehow imbue us with a glory that us Higokko naturally avoid so changed the 隈 to 熊, and thus, Kumamoto became associated with bears (see: Kumamon) despite the fact that no bears have ever lived here. Pictured are Hizen and Higo. - William

Introduction of the corona virus vaccine has begun in Kumamoto, with Kumanichi describing it as 混乱する中 - "confusion amidst" - who can get it where, when, and how many times seems unclear. As an aged society, many in Japan are susceptible to the virus; it is hoped that they can quickly and easily get the vaccination. But as an etymologist, I'd like to point out that the first vaccines were used on cows for hoof-and-mouth disease (not clear what that is, but it appears to refer to cows who say something really stupid); etymonline notes "(vaccine is) from Latin vaccina, fem. of vaccinus "pertaining to a cow" - which is a bit redundant, as cows are always female (males are bulls or, if unlucky and shod of their testicles, steers).－William
高齢者ワクチン接種、小規模自治体で順調　「孫に会いたい」 | 熊本日日新聞社
　一般高齢者を対象にした新型コロナウイルスのワクチン接種をめぐり、熊本市などで予約受け付けが混乱する中、小規模自治体では接種が順調に進み、五木村などでは２回目の接種が始まっている。人口が少なく効率的な...

Our friend, Stuart Iles from Hakata, provided this fine photo of a statue of Kato Kiyomasa. If you live in Kumamoto, he's a must-know-about guy. A few facts that you can drop in casual conversation:
- He lived from 1562 to 1611;
- He's not from Kumamoto but Nagoya;
- His life spanned the Azuchi–Momoyama and Edo periods (the former being a stepchild of Japanese eras, when all the warlords were still in the process of outdoing each other);
- It's either a very bad or very good idea to live when eras change;
- He was one of the "Seven Spears of Shizugatake" (賤ヶ岳の七本槍, Shizugatake no shichi-hon-yari), mounted bodyguards for Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the battle of Shizugatake in 1583, crucial in Hideyoshi's rise to power;
- Hideyoshi was clearly terrified of Kato, so sent him off to invade Korea, evidently hoping that he wouldn't return, but he did;
- Hideyoshi made Kato the lord of the Higo fief in way, way south Kyushu as a way to contain him;
- Higo was not united at the time, and there was an epic feud between Kato and the lord of southern Higo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konishi_Yukinaga. Guess who prevailed.
- He almost invaded Satsuma, unusual among Japanese fiefs as it wasn't actually a fief: it was the ancestral domain of the Shimazu clan, but was called off (good call: if you've ever been to Kagoshima, you'll quickly learn it is not a good place to invade);
- He is buried at Honmyō-ji temple;
- His son, Katō Tadahiro, seceded him but was quickly deposed by the Shogun Hideyoshi, likely as Higo was earned by his clan, not dispensed, and thus the clan had no obligatory allegiance to the Shogun;
- His family crest was a simple circle, shown below, which is still the symbol of Kumamoto City;
- His successors, the Hosokawa clan, has a family crest which, ironically, means "defend Kato";
- He was famous for his really tall hat, also pictured below;
- When he built Kumamoto Castle, he had it planted with ginko trees as the leaves could be used for horse fodder and the wood for fuel in the case of siege; even today, the castle is known as the "銀杏城” (Ginnanjyo);
- He died en-route from Edo to Higo, whether from natural causes or poisoning - the latter is suspected, again, due to the threat that his position posed to the emerging powers in Edo.
So that's about all I've got. If I've made mistakes or omissions, please add them to the comments below. - William

There are a few food trucks in Kumamoto which cruise around selling things like 石焼き芋 (Ishiyaki imo! Imo! Imo!) and ramen, but their number has fallen dramatically, perhaps due to the burgeoning convenience store culture. This is too bad, I think, as their "cuisine" is, by necessity, unique. It makes me miss my hometown of Los Angeles, where taco trucks are ubiquitous in numbers that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" pares down to only the best. Let's hope they reappear. - William

I can't find a proprosed chedule for when Japan expects to start giving vaccine shots to people younger than 65. Has anyone else seen a tentative timetable?
PS It's great that Carlton has received his first vaccine shot and is scheduled for his second.

Kumamoto boasts about a zillion (I think - I stopped counting after quadrillion) small businesses, and we here at KI want to support them, complementing Joe's "Funky Friday" series. Please PM us your favorite local business and we will post it. Here is one: the bakery ぐちょきぱん - get it? - it's a pun on "rock, scissors, paper" - in Oe-machi, just across from the library. Ohno-san, the owner, bakes their bread all on-site, and it sells out quickly, so you should get there early. Their telephone number is at the photo. If you have any special order, it can be fulfilled. (I gave him sourdough starter from San Francisco). Again, please let us know of your favorite local shop so that we can do a write-up - and visit ぐちょきぱん (early). - William

I recently posted about the US telling citizens to avoid travel to Japan. That may be a reasonable policy but, just to put it in perspective, take a look at the COVID-19 cases per million in this graph. The US is finally getting close to Japan's level. Of course, an important difference now is that vaccination levels are much lower here. Still, in terms of numbers, the gap between the two countries has only recently closed.
-- Kirk
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases

Kumanichi mentions something I'd not thought about: how the closure of retail and leisure facilities due to corona virus is affecting college students. I was a seasonal worker in LA while in college, working at Disneyland when attendance soared during the summer, so I'm aware how important that income is (you can't ask your parents for everything) - and also the work experience. This is tragic for modern youth. - William
バイトない、食費ない…コロナ禍で生活切り詰め　熊本県内の大学生　 | 熊本日日新聞社
　新型コロナウイルスによる度重なる飲食店の時間短縮要請や外出自粛要請。アルバイトで生活や学費を賄っていた熊本県内の大学生たちも、感染を警戒されたり、バイト先が閉店したりして、追い詰められている。

There's a lil' fish that lives in the pond at Suizenji called the tanago (タナゴ) - kinda cute but nothing spectacular. (Reference: me.) Its importance, aside from its own purposes, is to monitor water quality of Suizenji and its downstream, Ezuko. Apparently, it hasn't been doing so well. - William
https://kumanichi.com/articles/245107

Japanese retail differs from that in America in that most each city has their own, individual department store. In Kumamoto, that would be Tsuruya. In an interview, the company president, Fukuoka Tetsuo (福岡哲生) sounded upbeat, touting this time of corona as an opportunity to revamp the store and increase online sales. Kumamoto really cannot afford to lose such an anchor retailer. Plus, they have a beer garden on the roof which is now open. Those with local knowledge will recall the Taiyou Department Store fire of 1973, which killed 104 and injured another 124 and drastically altered Shimotori, where it was located (the space is now occupied by Cocosa, which my wife says people are afraid of entering, such is its horrid history). - William
https://kumanichi.com/articles/245332