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This article uses "technical intern" or "technical intern trainee" to refer to 技能実習生 (gino jisshusei). Abuse of this "training" system (in fact, the system has been used to circumvent prohibitions against bringing people to Japan to do low-skill jobs) has quite a history in Kumamoto. Here's a link to an article called "Chinese trainees in Japan win court battle for back pay":
http://www.zenroren.gr.jp/jp/english/2010/02/english100302_01.html
"Four people, including Chinese trainees aged 22-25, won a court battle demanding that two companies pay them unpaid wages in back pay as well as consolation money. They joined the Local Union in Kumamoto Prefecture affiliated with the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) and brought the case to court in 2007. The two companies in Amakusa City, Kumamoto Prefecture, were subcontractors of Wacoal, Japan's major women's underwear maker, but both went out of business."
In the following post, I point out that much of the increase in Kumamoto's foreign population in recent years (Kumamoto's non-Japanese population has been growing faster proportioinally than most other prefectures) can be attributed to trainees. I also provide links to news articles that relate to the abuse of the trainee system, including a 2010 article about the four Chinese interns (trainees):
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/1869268536479903
Kirk
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/08/18/national/foreign-interns-face-specter-abuse-labor-hungry-kumamoto-quake-sites/#.W3kq5S2B364
Foreign interns face specter of abuse at labor-hungry Kumamoto quake sites | The Japan Times
Kumamoto has seen so many foreign laborers lately that it is raising suspicions Japan’s internship recruits are again being exploited as cheap labor.

A note from the Kumamoto International Goldilocks Desk (merged with the Dodging Bullet and Typhoon Info Desks for obvious reasons): One goes a little south, one goes a little north, and we enjoy a gentle breeze. - William

Joe Tomei here, here's an event notice from Takae Fuchigami that may be of interest. Please contact Takae directly, her facebook page is in the included flyer.
===
Hello everyone. I'm Takae Fuchigami, a freelance Japanese teacher and a newly-born English guide interpreter living in Kumamoto city.
I'm holding an event on September 16th (Sun.) for Japanese language beginners at Obiyama Nishi community center. In the event we will learn survival Japanese phrases in restaurants and for shopping, play games to practice very easy Japanese, and I'll introduce some of Kumamoto culture.
I'll do this kind of event once in a while in Kumamoto city and hopefully will do in other cities in Kumamoto prefecture, too. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!
For details of the event in September please look at the flyer.
Also, here's my website where I post Japanese quiz and write about Kumamoto and Japan.
https://www.kaseczek.weebly.com/

The course of this guy, Typhoon 19 by Japanese reckoning, deserves attention. It's slow-moving, basking over the warm waters in the Tropics for a bit to gain weight, and looks to be a biggie. - William

After a brief holiday, Friday Funky Places is back, this time with a bakery!
We here at FFP strongly believe that there can never be too many bakeries in town. (We also believe that there can't be too many places selling draft beer or too many ethnic restaurants, but that is another story). Today's FFP is a new bakery (yay!) that is right at the Kuwamizu Densha stop, Ishikawa Bakery. The croissants and shio-butter rolls are great. The Kuwamizu Densha stop is just a bit away from Baskin Robbins (and, as I'm sure as you all realize, called satee-wan (31) in Japanese( and a short walk from Ezu Lake, another undoubtably funky place (in a good sense, funky takes on a new meaning when talking about bodies of water). The zoo and botanical garden tram stop is two stops further (another place where the funky appellation might not be so good)
The FFP map is at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing
with the Baskin Robbins marked just in case.

For the geologically inclined, Kagoshima is Disneyland. It's best known for Sakurajima, a volcano which formed on the edge of the giant caldera today known as Kinkou Bay (錦江湾 - and if you haven't studied this, you should). Times are, when a volcano chamber collapses, enough debris clog the chamber to cause subsequent eruptions to occur along its edges. This did not happen with Aso, where activity is still concentrated amongst its central vent, but it is the cause of Sakurajima's existence.
An equally large caldera is far less known, and that is because it's under the sea so is less apparent unless you're aquatic. Like Sakurajima, the main vent has been blocked, and this has resulted in peripheral eruptions which have created many islands, the most famous of which is Yakushima (addendum¹: as Evan James Gowan notes below, Yakushima is a granitic batholith, not a volcano). It is called the Kikai caldera (鬼界カルデラ). Just next to Yakushima is a tongue-twister named island, Kuchinoerabujima (口永良部島), which was created by being a peripheral vent of the Kikai caldera.
Apparently, the volcano has started rumbling again, and the few hundred residents of this island are being evacuated. This is simply standard procedure. However, each caldera exists where a mountain once stood, and each mountain was rather abruptly shoved aside, resulting in our present, lovingly mountainous Kumamoto - but we'd rather not experience that process in our lifetimes (word as it that, after the eruptions of the Aira and Kikai volcanoes, life took about 13,000 years to reappear in Kyushu, way past my bedtime). (Addendum² - Anett Iwamoto pointed out the extra zero in my note about the average time life took to return to Kyushu following these mega eruptions - it should read 1,300 years. From what I've read, it was first regenerated by Miscanthus sinensis, or Asian pampas grass [in Japanese, 「ススキ」], seeds blowing over from the Chinese mainland.)
The image below is the extent of the Kikai caldera and possible ashfall in the extent of a worse-case eruption, which won't happen in our lifetimes, probably, so don't worry about it. Better use of time would be to learn how to pronounce Kuchinoerabujima and to think of its inhabitants' situation. - William

Those familiar with Kumamoto climate will have noticed this summer has been abnormally dry. Google sources inform that this is true but do not establish any long-term trends - that is, whether this is a "new normal" (a word I recently discovered is expressed in Japanese as 「ニュー・ノーマル」, inexplicably) remains unestablished by data.
Shirakwa has an unusual watershed, shaped like a balloon on a string, being entirely dependent on the Aso caldera and then contained in its banks to the sea. The lack of rain means it now subsists entirely on whatever the seven main Aso springs are able to provide, a sparse diet that has left it shriveled to its bones.
Your intrepid correspondent and very talented but slightly less intrepid photographer, Liz Suenaga, recently ventured out to capture the river's ribs exposed. Though having originated from frigid springwater, by downtown, the temperature was eerily bathwater-warm; shoals of small fish darted about nervously as if aware of their peril (the egret footprints criss-crossing the exposed beach testify to their multiple concerns).
A tropical depression should bring some relief from the parch Wednesday. We can enjoy that, and hope that this drought is not the ニュー・ノーマル. Thanks to Liz for her kind help on a roasting day. - William

TV news has video of the intense lightning storms that moved through Tokyo, our neighbor to the north, today. Notable is the video disruption milliseconds before the lightning (if you watch the short video I've linked to below, you'll see the phenomenon). I suppose this is due to an electromagnetic pulse emitted by ionic disequilibrium breakdown which precedes and actually results in lightning and is more often the cause of blackouts than direct lightning strikes themselves by overloading transformers (and Tokyo had plenty of blackouts today. Disclaimer: My son lives there now, but he has a girlfriend, so I'm sure he is more than fine). You might notice your lights flicker milliseconds before you hear the thunder due to the same phenomenon.
I mention this as it reminds me a bit of the P-waves my dog would notice seconds before the S-waves discernible by humans arrived back when quakes were an everyday occurrence. What happens around humans that escapes our notice is interesting. - William
東京都墨田区周辺では８月２１日午後１０時前後から強い雨となり、雷が激しく鳴り響いた。雷は高さ６３４メートルの東京スカイツリーも直撃。塔の頂上に向けて、青白い稲光が何度も走った。

My neighbor, Horiguchi-san, would at first glance appear to be a typical neighbor: She pays her taxes regularly, separates her garbage properly and puts it out on the correct day, is unfailingly polite, and has been a close family friend for a period far preceding my appearance. By all accounts, she is a normal, upstanding Japanese citizen.
Until you get to know her better.
Her son, Genki, you see, is a professional wrestler. He trains in Mexico and is proficient in Spanish. I know little about the sport but imagine chairs and opponents' heads play a prominent part. In fact, while well into her 70s, I suspect that chairs and heads were also at one point (or several) no strangers to Horiguchi-san's life. My point is that you never know about your neighbors until you really get to know them.
Genki will appear in a Kumamoto match on October 8 to benefit Kumamoto earthquake victims and celebrate his 20th anniversary in the sport which I suspect none of our readership will attend, but Horiguchi-san is my friend and neighbor and Genki is her son, so here you are. - William

That Japan history seems to be a carousel of familiar names is not surprising if one considers 98% of society was peasant, bereft even of family monikers. The Hosokawa clan, a branch of the history-altering Minamoto clan through the Ashikaga clan, reached its pinnacle during the the Muromachi period (1336–1467), when it was one of three families occupying post of Kanrei (Shogun's deputy), due to its literary ability and willingness to play second-string to the more ambitious samurai. A succession struggle later almost spelled its doom, but it was saved by an ancillary branch before being plucked by Tokugawa Ieyasu to head Kumamoto in place of the less-trustworthy Kato clan.
A fascinating incident regarding the clan occurred towards the end of the Sengoku period (1467–1600 - ironically, a period the Hosokawa were partially responsible for triggering - see the Onin War). As the Hosokawa were clawing their way back to power and Oda Nobunaga was on the cusp of reuniting Japan after a century of warfare, the daimyo and Oda's erstwhile ally, Akechi Mitsuhide, burned down a Kyoto pavilion with Oda in it. This didn't go over well for any involved, and it was "Get thee to a (Buddhist) nunnery!" for Akechi's daughter, Hosokawa Tama (細川玉). Her family name is due to the fact that she'd married the contemporary head of the Hosokawa clan, Tadaoki. Apparently, the two were genuinely in love and he was concerned over her safety due to the acts of her father. During her two years in exile, she became interested in spiritual stuff, and when she was finally permitted to return to Osaka, she became one of the most famous Catholic converts in Japanese history, adopting the name Gracia. Sadly, this did little to improve her fate: While her husband was off fighting, the warlord and rival to Tokugawa Ieyasu, Ishida Mitsunari, tried to take her hostage, so she committed suicide at the age of 27 in August, 1600. She and Tadaoki had had six children together.
The Hosokawa clan never forgot about this, and when the ultimately-victorious Ieyasu transferred the Kumamoto fife to them from the Kato clan, Gracia was disinterred and reburied at the former Hosokawa family temple on Tatsudayama. Next to her tomb is a stone basin into which she is said to have gazed while composing her death poem.
The Kumamoto Museum of Art is currently holding an exhibition of Gracia's artifacts. Information can be found at the link. - William
Addendum: I should have added her death poem to the above post - It's probably the most famous death poem in Japanese history and is written on the poster. Here it is, and my (probably totally lame) translation: 「散りぬべき 時知りてこそ 世の中の 花は花なれ 人は人なれ」- "It is that we are aware of time we are scattered, those in this world, flowers as flowers, humans as humans." She likely was not particularly enamored of humans at the moment.
http://www.museum.pref.kumamoto.jp/event_cal/pub/detail.aspx?c_id=10&id=131&trk_kbn=A

A note from the Kumamoto International Glad I'm Not my Kids Desk: This map showing how rainfall patterns are expected to change over the mid-term portrays Kyushu as yellow, which is better than purple but not as good as green, the color portraying the rest of Japan. I am not sure why Kyushu gets the short straw climate change-wise, but simply thinking of our recent weather, it's already here. - William

We had written yesterday about that salt shop, Andes Salt, located close to Route 3 on the right side of Fujisaki Shrine road (across from the shoe store which stocks a wide variety of geta - Japanese clogs - for low prices, if you're in the need). I had asked the proprietor, Honda-san, for this photo, which features on his name card. Suitably, the shop exudes a Mediterranean vibe. Do stop by. Honda-san is a polyglot, and that's his bicycle, which is there whenever he is. - William

My latest newspaper article out today, on another aspect of Japanese society that affects the safety of our everyday lives.
Kumamoto people: do you recognise where the photo was taken? It's a classic example of how pathetically narrow the bicycle lanes are here.
Thanks, Seán Michael Wilson
Japan's road system needs to be redesigned to make it safer for cyclists
In July 2015, a set of stricter rules came into place regarding bicycle use in Japan. One of the aspects of this is to disallow the use of bicycles on pedestrian sidewalks, apart from “exceptional circumstances.” Now, that may seem a good rule. We have all seen people riding carelessly…

Nabegataki
Ah, Nabegataki
Nabegataki
(Not knowing how else to introduce this waterfall, I've attempted a cheap imitation of one of Matsu Basho's poems. -- Kirk)
Cool cascade: Visitors flock to waterfall in Kumamoto Pref. to beat the heat - The Mainichi
OGUNI, Kumamoto -- Nabegataki Falls, famous for its wide curtain of water, is attracting many visitors seeking to cool off amid the current heat wave.

A note from the Kumamoto International Desk of Bureaucratic Stuff One Learns Too Late (pay attention!): When my son went bye-bye to study in America, we duly severed him from our health insurance and left him to his own devices (Obamacare!). When the same happened with our daughter, we continued paying her premiums as we worried that her asthma might require medical treatment during her brief visits home.
Here is where it gets interesting.
When my daughter turned 20, demands for payment to the pension system began to arrive, while they never did for my son - it turns out that health insurance and pension are connected, you see. So my son is invisible to the system (ironic, as he now lives in Tokyo); meanwhile, my daughter has racked up $1,800 in pension fees despite having no job and living in the US. I continued to toss statements into the bin until the most recent, which gave me pause: It stated that they could resort to confiscation in lieu of collection.
This was totally fine with me. I mean, my daughter is an adult, so I have no legal responsibility for her, and if they want to confiscate stuff - look at her room! It's littered with unwanted underwear and whatnot. They'd be doing me a huge favor by confiscating as many of her assets as they could get their hands on.
But I'm a bit more responsible than that (the urge was there for a moment, though), so I visited the tax office, where I was politely informed that she would be exempt from pension payments until she's 23 (and this also cancelled the $1,800 they'd claimed, which means I'll have to clean her room by myself) - the age when one must choose a nationality under Japanese law.
So there you have it. If you are the parent of a dual-national child and remove them from health insurance, should they move abroad, they will not be automatically enrolled in the pension service. If they are enrolled, even if they are abroad, they will. (The insurance clerk told me we may receive continuing correspondence demanding payment or confiscation for some period, so perhaps there is still hope. Otherwise, I'll have to clean my daughter's room myself.)

Salt. Not many think about salt, yet it used to be utilized as a currency - think about "salary" or "earn one's salt." Salt gourmets notice. The chemical compositions of various salts add delightful, novel expressions to cuisine - one shouldn't keep "a" salt jar but several.
Additionally, salt is important to ward off heat stroke. Andes Salt, a small shop located on the Fujisaki Shrine Shindo, is offering free packets of salt to help you (or those you're thinking of) to survive the summer heat. The proprietor, Honda-san, is proficient in both Spanish and English. Visit to receive your sample, and while you're there, immerse yourself in the world of salt - it's more interesting than you would imagine. (I love the rock salt which is shaved for consumption - the taste is incomparable.) It is a shop worth going out of your way for (and free parking right in front!) - William
熊本の岩塩専門店 アンデス物産 | 当店の岩塩は天然のお塩。飲食店やご家庭でお料理の調味料に、美容や健康に、運気アップに、いろんなシーンで大活躍！
アンデス物産は熊本にある岩塩の専門店。お料理の調味料に、熱中症の予防や対策に、お風呂の入浴剤に、盛り塩に、用途はさまざま。飲食店などお店で使う業務用の岩塩も。ローズソルトやブラックソルト等のミネラル豊...

I seldom translate Kumanichi articles, preferring just to introduce the main points; I also seldom venture downtown anymore now that my kids are gone. But they used to visit a juku in an area next to the "entertainment zone," and I was never worried about them moving about that area unattended. That is the most positive aspect about Kumamoto: You can let your children free with zero worries.
I've heard rumors, though, of increasing disreputable activity in the area and a resulting crackdown. Good - drive these rats out of town. Kumanichi has an exposé on the situation, and for once, I decided to translate the article whole. Let's keep Kumamoto safe and clean. - William
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Disreputable Solicitors, Clip Joints Increase - Complaints up 2.5 Times from Previous Year - Shopkeepers Demand New Regulations
With the reconstruction from the Kumamoto earthquake and the return of customers to the downtown shopping streets, "bottakuri" 「ぼったくり」, in which shopkeepers demand malicious charges from customers, is increasing. "Let's restore a safe and friendly downtown area," say local merchants as they work together with prefectural police to aim for the "purification" of urban areas and the establishment of city regulations to crack down on malicious shops.
　”We have beautiful girls!” “30 thousand yen, all inclusive!” ring the calls from the arcade on the weekend. Young men with blond-dyed hair dressed in black suits gather and busily talk with tourists and tipsy office workers.
A male employee (26) who frequently goes downtown with his colleagues confides, "I was annoyed by being so frequently called at while just walking. I have three friends who, having followed a tout and drank just a little, ended up paying 48,000 yen."
Local food and drink establishments are also bothered by the resurgence of these malicious shops. A man in his 60s sighed, "The bustle finally returned after the earthquake, but with it suddenly came dealers from outside the prefecture who contracted to set up these food and drink joints. Bad guys are on the rise."
A male manager of a food and drink establishment on Shinshigai (36) listened to voices regarding damage from about 20 local shops: "They come to the edge of my premises to steal customers"; "They dress as workers affiliated with our store and take away our guests". The manager says with a scowl, "For shops sincerely managed, having one’s customers stolen is a serious situation."
■　　　■
Touting is banned by the Entertainment Business Act as well as by prefectural nuisance prevention ordinances. According to prefectural police, reports of complaints regarding touting numbered 149 in 2016, when the earthquakes occurred, but increased rapidly to 537 in 2017. Between January to April in 2018, such complaints amounted to 399, an increase of 2.5 times that of the previous year, and nine people were arrested.
In early May, Kumamoto Police announced a crackdown on touting and malicious practices focused on about 800 establishments registered as “entertainment businesses” in the downtown area.
What led to this was the case in which a male manager (29) of a food and drink establishment located in a multi-use building downtown was found dead and a total of six people were arrested for causing his injuries. The incident seems to have been sparked by trouble over charges. Investigative officials emphasized prevention of similar incidents in their drive to aggressively uncover similar establishments.
　　　■　　　■
People downtown have stood up to stop the deterioration of public order and to maintain its image. As such, the Shopping Arcade Organization and the Crime Prevention Association established on 14th this month the "Committee for Countermeasures against Touting in the Central Area of Kumamoto City." Plans are to submit a request to the city requesting establishment of a new ordinance that can regulate acts such as "waiting for customers" within the arcade, which are not currently regulated.
　Kiyosaki Hiroshi (60) - chairman of the city's crime prevention model district promotion committee - renews his determination to "create strict regulations to ensure we pass down a safe city to the next generation."
（This article was written by Horie Toshimasa and Maeda Kōji of the Kumanichi Shinbun.）
悪質客引き、ぼったくり急増　苦情 前年の2.5倍ペース　商店主ら新規制条例の制定求める - 熊本日日新聞
繁華街に間隔を置いて並び通行人を待ち構える客引き＝熊本市中央区　熊本地震からの復興に伴い、ようやく客足が戻ってきた熊本市中央区の中心繁華街で、悪質な客引き行為や法外な料金を請求する「ぼったくり」が増え...

Earthquakes can be a bit like sex: the movement is sudden and exciting, but the cleanup is a long, hard slog. As part of the latter, Kumamoto Prefecture with the help of aid from the national government had purchased at a cost of 1.5 billion yen a custom-made waste disposal machine able to effectively separate and prepare for recycling multiple materials (wood, metal, plastic, glass).
Anyway, it's job here is done. お疲れ様でした。However, as it is not adaptable to standard refuse recycling, its future was in question until a group of 12 local waste disposal companies which form a union stepped in to purchase it for 3 million yen. They will store it for up to three years (at a cost of some 5 million yen annually) in the anticipation that it will soon be needed elsewhere, at which time they will donate it.
One would hope it will not be needed again, but sadly, it likely will, and when it is, it will be delivered and assembled promptly, all thanks to the Kumamoto Waste Disposal Union. Next time you see your local garbage collector, give him a tip o' the hat. An image of the device is below. - William (Apologies for the sex joke, but an article like this requires a good lede.)
廃棄物処理で被災地支援　熊本地震時の施設、県内業者が保管・再利用 - 熊本日日新聞
県産業廃棄物処理協同組合が解体して保管することになった熊本地震の災害廃棄物処理施設の一部＝２０１７年１月、益城町　県内１９事業者でつくる県産業廃棄物処理協同組合（野原雅浩代表理事）は３日、県が熊本地震...

A note from the Kumamoto Deja Vu Desk (merged with the Redundancy Desk due to cost cutting): We miss our evening thundershowers, which cut the heat, provided exciting lightning, and brought the pavement temperature down so our doggy's feet didn't get ouchies during walk time. They've vanished due to the previous typhoon, whose low pressure system vacuumed up the cloud systems.
Another approaching typhoon was set to pass to the east of Japan and would have resulted in identical phenomenon, but a look at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center's site tonight now shows it veering over Honshu just north of Tokyo - just as predicted with the last typhoon, and we all know how that turned out. So there's still hope. (We can't believe we're begging for a typhoon - ANYTHING to give us a break from this heat.) - William

Joe Tomei with your Funky Friday place fix. FFP is strolling into the lion's den this week, cause we are going to give you a ramen recommendation. I know that ramenophiles can be pretty picky, so I thought we'd start off with a place that does a non-Kyushu ramen, Miso no Ya, located up Higashi bypass, after the expressway exit, just after the Starbucks. Miso no Ya does Sapporo ramen good enough to make my wife, a dosanko (native of Hokkaido) happy. The chashu don is pretty amazing and last night's ramen was a hiyashi tan tan men. Two branches, the other is in Minami-ku, Hirata cho, which I've not been to.
The FFP map is at
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing