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An old story in America refers to what is known as a "post turtle" (and as someone who spent summers in Arkansas, the metaphor is vivid - you can read a version of the joke here if interested: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Post%20Turtle ): "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just want to help the poor guy get down."
This photo of some unfortunate pony stranded on a roof in Hiroshima reminded me of the post turtle metaphor. Our thoughts go out to those victims of the recent floods. - William

"Butterflies flutter by" is a phrase most native English-language speakers know, though they (butterflies, not native speakers) don't flutter due to ineptitude, scientists figure - they are quite able to fly rapidly in a straight line when need suits, but in order to confuse predators, scientists have noted, their flight pattern when feeding is as random as anything ever measured.
(I will refrain here from comparing butterflies with my daughter.)
Butterflies lay eggs on the particular plant their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed on voraciously as they grow rapidly; they then metamorphose, fly away, and thereafter never call or text unless they need something (I will again refrain here from comparing butterflies with my daughter).
Attached is a guide for identifying butterfly types common in Japan which is useful as it allows one to identify species by color. (Just memorize the Japanese names of one or two species and use them at random to impress your Japanese friends, who likely won't know any better - and, again, I will refrain here from bringing up my daughter). - William
http://www.pteron-world.com/topics/search/search.html

Some are rather neutral regarding watermelon (me!) while some are fanatic (my daughter!). Some watermelon are big, while some are small. One can reserve opinion regarding issues such as watermelons and daughters and still be impressed by these: 110 kilogram watermelons grown in Ueki from seeds originating from America, which Kumanichi describes as "rice-bale-shaped" - 米俵のような縦長の形 - as Japanese watermelons are generally round. The article notes that they will be sold at various supermarkets around town - or perhaps you could wait to receive one as a gift (which would then require lugging a 110-kilogram watermelon as an obligatory regift to your neighbor. This is what is known as "progress.") - William
重さ１１０キロにびっくり　植木町でジャンボスイカ品評会 - 熊本日日新聞
巨大なジャンボスイカに喜ぶ山本保育園の園児ら＝熊本市北区　ジャンボスイカの大きさを競う品評会が１０日、熊本市北区植木町のＪＡ熊本経済連第一集送センターであった。ＪＡ鹿本の園芸部ＯＢ会と植木町青年部野菜...

I thought folk might like to know about this new website, set up by Japan Times journalist and writer Amy Chavez - ‘Book on Asia’. In the issue featuring:
“BOA Issue No. 2 is all about Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, and its influence on Japan. The Hon podcast features author Judith Pascoe and her book "On the Bullet Train with Emily Bronte." Seán Michael Wilson (aye, that's me) expounds upon the makings of his graphic novel version of Wuthering Heights, and we introduce several translations and adaptations of Bronte's novel, including A True Novel, by Minae Mizumura (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter).”
Two Archives - Books on Asia
Issue 2 In this issue of Books on Asia, we delve into Emily Bronte’s classic Wuthering Heights and the popularity of the novel in Japan, which is also the subject of Judith Pascoe’s book On the Bullet Train with Emily Bronte. A fun, engaging read, Dr. Pascoe deliberates on some of the 20 or so J...

While technically an alluvial plain due to its two main rivers, Shirakawa and Midorikawa, Kumamoto can also be considered a basin when taking the Shimabara peninsula on the other side of Ariake sea into account, and basins can get very hot very quickly (one article I read while looking into this compared Kumamoto with Nara - they do have strikingly similar topography, though quite different latitudes - and in the immortal words of Jimmy Buffet, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"). Today is forecast to be 35°C (95°F), with astounding humidity. To all our friends, take care over the next few days. - William

Hemiptera, or true bugs (though why one would pretend to be a bug if one were actually not is beyond me), are an order of insects comprising some 50,000 to 80,000 species, most of which likely live under your pillow. The cicada accounts among them.
Cicada are numerous in Japan and are here a symbol of summer. As with most insects, their adult stage is quite short, only about a week, compared with some seven years of larval stage, during which they subsist on tree sap obtained from roots of the very trees they will eventually climb to metamorphose (though any wooden structure will do - Shinto shrines, typically surrounded by trees, are generally masked by cicada husks by mid-summer), leaving nickle-sized holes as they egress. Females continue to feed on tree sap during their adult life using a prong-shaped proboscis, while the males fast (that fellow below is likely male). Neither sex will harm you - which, generally speaking, is more than can be said regarding humans. The males emit a vibrating sound that is surprisingly loud considering their size. Deafening, even, by August. Kids here delight in catching them with nets and containing them in plastic boxes, which must be quite a bummer after having lived subterranially for seven years waiting for this one week during which to reproduce. Cicada exoskeletons litter wooden structures long after summer has ended. Most exoskeletons disappear due to weather or old women wielding brooms, but some remain petrified where their former inhabitants discarded them and can be seen even in the depths of winter. For a human observer, this is a reminder in February that July is imminent.
Somehow, cicada are able to discern the end of the rainy season - they will not emerge until the weather dries. You have likely heard the calls of the males today, an indication more accurate than any meteorologist can provide that the rainy season has ended and summer has begun. - William

Sean Benward and his crew are preparing another English-language cooking session to be held at Cocosa on July 14 from 11:30 to 2:30. Whether you're a native speaker or not, the environment and culinary content make each of Sean's events quite worthwhile. Detailed information is at the flyer below. - William

I'd recently arrived in Japan when the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway line perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo occurred in 1995. I remember with shame now how I joked about the incident at the time, not realizing its significance (the cult was also responsible for the murder of a young lawyer, wife, and child in 1989.) Today, the leader of the cult, Asahara Shoko, was executed.
He was born and raised in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto. - William
Japan doomsday cult leader executed 23 years after Tokyo sarin attack
The leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which carried out the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, has been executed, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

Joe Tomei here, with a special introduction for our Funky Place Friday post, which will hopefully make up for me missing last week! Today, I want to introduce Chieko Noriyuki's blog Untapped Kumamoto (http://untappedkumamoto.com/)
She's just starting, but Kumamoto has more funky places than you can shake a stick at, so this shouldn't be a problem. The blog format also allows more pictures and a bit longer description, so please check it out!
Untapped Kumamoto - Let me help you to discover untapped experiences
Let me help you to discover untapped experiences

A note from the Kumamoto International Incessant Rain Desk: Forecast through the weekend is incessant rain, so take care of flooding and landslides. There's also Typhoon 10, a rather powerful guy, and while he's currently tracked to bisect Okinawa on Tuesday and then wham Shanghai, typhoons can turn on a dime, so it bears watching. - William

Kumanichi reports on another step in post-quake recovery (and, yes, I understand that phrase is illogical as it's impossible to recover from damage not yet incurred): Kuwatsuru Bridge (桑鶴大橋) in Nishihara Mura, which connects to the Tawarayama Tunnel still under reconstruction, has been reopened. The photo below shows the extent of movement both vertical (the bridge towers, being anchored deeply, did not move in relation to the leading road) and lateral (look at the center lines). The bridge's name is also quite beautiful: "kuwa" (桑) means mulberry, that plant that silkworms thrive on, and "tsuru" (鶴), of course, means crane - that of the bird variety. Apparently, construction on connecting roads will continue through late July, resulting in single-lane usage through that time. - William
https://this.kiji.is/387211454803133537?c=92619697908483575

Even if you're unfamiliar with the name Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川歌麿, 1753 - 1806), you're likely familiar with his work - his ukie woodblock prints became the standard for what ukie should be. You can read more about him here at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utamaro
Kumanichi notes that some rice farmers in the Yamaura district of Kyouragi in Kamiamakusa's Matsushima Machi (Yeah, that's a mouthful: 上天草市松島町教良木の山浦地区 - just コピペ this if you head out there and show it to the locals for guidance) have reproduced a famous Kitagawa work using six strains of rice to create color variances. (Considering the large amount of Edo-era pornography Kitagawa produced [Google!], the choice was felicitous.)The location is close to a hill, allowing great photography. It will be on display until hunger overwhelms aesthetics. - William
https://this.kiji.is/386652775305741409?c=92619697908483575
山里に浮世絵　上天草市の農家らが「田んぼアート」 - 熊本日日新聞
水田に浮かび上がってきた美人画＝上天草市　上天草市松島町教良木の山浦地区で、地元農家らが植えた「田んぼアート」の稲が成長し、緑深い山里に浮世絵の美人画が浮かび上がってきた。 　天草四郎観光協会（同市）.....

Many will remember Iidamaru Turret, that which the quakes left leaning precariously on a single column of corner stones - it was dubbed the "single-column turret" - while engineers frantically sought a solution before aftershocks or the advent of rainy season brought down the whole structure. They finally settled on an immense cantilever, which did the job. Bravo for these engineers' ingenuity.
The turret itself has been carefully dismantled and stored away, and Kumanichi reports that work to dismantle wall remnants for restoration, including that famous column, began today and is expected to conclude in March, with rock by rock to be carefully winched down to safety.
Also included below are photographs nabbed from the Net for a short trip down Iidamaru's memory road. - William
https://this.kiji.is/386365894543082593?c=92619697908483575

Quick update on the typhette. As I'd suspected, it is erroring east and is currently expected to pass over Nagasaki between midnight and noon of the 3rd. Again, it's small, so there's no need for alarm, but a bit of wind might be expected. - William

A note from the Kumamoto International desk of the Several Ways that Volcanoes can Kill You: We won't discuss the recent Hawaiian eruption, which resulted in magma flowing to the sea causing the sea salt to turn into a sodium chloride gas that will suffocate everything in its vicinity because those types of hot spot volcanoes do not occur in Japan and are anyway easily avoidable if you're not stupid. Or a bird.
Japanese eruptions, being subductive, don't present such danger; instead, there are two others: ejecta (rocks hurled up to kilometers from the site - ever notice really large rocks in Kumamoto whose existence is difficult to explain? -probably ejecta), and pyroclastic flow, which is a very hot mixture of ash and gasses that flows down from a volcano much faster than you can move away - basically, if you see pyroclastic flow within a kilometer from its origin, it's probably the last thing you'll ever see.
The reason I bring this up is that the guy who had died in the Mt. Vesuvius eruption of A.D. 79 and whose demise was assumed to have been due to a huge boulder landing on his face (ejecta - see photo) actually appears to have died from pyroclastic flow suffocation, with the boulder coming later as a cherry-on-cake kind of thing.
Mt. Pompei is very similar to Mt. Aso. Ejecta is cause for concern; pyroclastic flow leaves nothing alive in its wake. Then again, you might find yourself famous 2,000 years later. - William
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/30/europe/pompeii-victim-new-findings/index.html
Archaeologists uncover remains of man crushed while fleeing Pompeii
A man managed to escape the first eruptive fury of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, only to be crushed beneath a block of stone hurled by an explosive volcanic cloud, new excavations at the site suggest.

Typhoons tend to error eastward in the northern hemisphere, as that is the direction of the jet stream. This lil' guy had first been centered on Seoul, than Pusan, and now through the Tsushima Straits, so it's not inconceivable that it will land directly on Kumamoto tomorrow.
But it's a weak typhoon - a typhette, if you would. Good practice for autumn, when the big guys will come rolling in. - William

If you live in Japan, chances are you have a tatami (「畳」）or several. Tatami are constructed in a set size of 3尺×6尺; with a 尺 (shyaku) equal to 30.3 centimeters, this means a normal-sized tatami will be 91cm×182cm, or 1.6562 m², a unit which is called a "jyo" (｢帖｣ or 「畳」, with the first kanji indicating area and the second actual dimensions, and, yes the second is the same kanji as "tatami" but is pronounced "jyo" when discussing area in given dimension terms - got it?) - though there are regional and historical variances, which you can read about here if you're really into this: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%95%B3 . This unit is often used to describe the area of a room (e.g., "My living room is eight jyo"). Half-jyos are also common, with a four-and-a-half jyo (yon jyo han) room being a typical size for a bedroom.
I mention this because tatami are made from the igusa plant （「イグサ」、「藺草」、or most often 「い草」or「イ草」）, and almost 100% of Japanese igusa is grown in Yatsushiro. Kumanichi points out that now is igusa harvesting season. This does not mean that all tatami come from Yatsushiro as about 80% of igusa is imported, mostly from China. The article notes that 420 households (down 17 from last year) farm 505 hectares (or 3,055,250帖 - yes, online calculators exist for such conversions) for igusa production, half compared with a decade ago due to the aging of the farmers and the reluctance of their offspring to continue such work. This year's crop looks good; one farmer with a cool name, Kitahashi Ryumi (北橋龍美さん) was quoted: "The color is good and it is a satisfying crop. We hope to continue the tradition of producing high-quality igusa in Yatsushiro."
Many other, more highly value-added products are made using Yatsushiro igusa such as pillows and zabuton. If you see a product made from local igusa and purchase it, remember that you are supporting the farmers of Yatsushiro. - William
https://this.kiji.is/385384417084261473?c=92619697908483575
緑濃く イ草揺れる　八代で収穫作業盛ん - 熊本日日新聞
収穫機に乗り込み、イ草を刈り取っていく農家＝八代市　全国一のイ草産地・八代地方で収穫作業が進んでいる。濃い緑色のイ草が風に揺れる中、農家が専用の収穫機に乗り込み、刈り取りに汗を流す。作業は７月中旬まで...

Today is June 30, and if you're like me, you think of your little sister as it's her birthday (Happy birthday, Margaret!), but chances are you're not like me. You will notice, though, if you pass by any shrine, a circle constructed out of some kind of plant. That is because June 30 is also the day on which the Shinto festival of "Natsugoe no Harai" (「夏越の祓」) is held. Let us discuss this.
"Natsugoe" literally means "passing into summer," while "harai" is that Shinto purification rite where the priest waves a stick with pieces of paper over your bowed head - that's called an "oonusa" (「大麻」, sometimes「太麻」 ), which means "hemp" as they used to be made of hemp and is not to be confused with marijuana, which shares the same kanji but is pronounced "taima."
The event used to be held according to the lunar calendar but is now fixed on June 30 and is said to date back to Izanagi (「伊弉諾尊」), the male deity who, according to Shinto tradition fathered Japan, the sun, and the moon along with his female counterpart Izanami (「伊弉冉」). The purpose is to purify and protect oneself for the second half of the year and involves conducting a chinowa-kuguri (passing through a hoop made of kaya grass, though other material, particularly bamboo, is often used) (「茅の輪くぐり」).
If you have a chance this late afternoon, visit your local shrine to hop through the hoop once, turn to the left, hop through again, turn to the right, and hop through a final time before receiving your harai. I'm not guaranteeing that participation will be effective in protecting yourself for the last half of 2018, but then again, maybe it will. Below: a photograph of 夏越の祓 and its accompanying 茅の輪くぐり held at the main Shinto shrine, Ito. - William

A note from the Kumamoto International Department of Where Einstein Stayed in Kyushu desk (merged with the Where Washington Stayed in Kyushu desk as the latter is only a single entry shorter than the former): a recently published book entitled "The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein: The Far East, Palestine & Spain 1922 - 1923" (Amazon!) notes that the Jewish Einstein spent the 1922 Christmas season in Shinto/Buddhist Fukuoka - enough to make one wonder why they mentioned Christmas in the first place - to give a lecture at Kyushu University. The former Moji Mitsui Club, where he stayed, has preserved his room, and it is open to the public. There is no word on why he didn't visit Kumamoto; perhaps, given the proximity to Oshyougatsu, the shinkansen were all booked. Interesting article from Japan Today at the link below (photo: Einstein enjoying a traditional Japanese Christmas before the introduction of KFC), and more on the Moji Mitsui Club below that. - William
https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/when-albert-einstein-formulated-his-japanese-cultural-equation
http://www.gururich-kitaq.com/kanmon/en/detail/index.php?id=35&app=0

Below is a roundup of recent Kumanichi articles:
- Amakusa has topped a survey of locations in Kyushu/Yamaguchi that visitors are most happy to having stayed at, narrowly edging out Beppu. Third on the list was Kumamoto's Hirayama Onsen. Reasons for selecting Amakusa included "fresh fruits of the sea, magnificent views, plentiful onsen, and the World Heritage Site."
- Kumamoto Zoo's golden snub‐nosed monkey Pao Pao (パオパオ, 宝宝), who had just turned 29 (about 90 in human years) and had lived at the zoo since 1993, succumbed yesterday to chronic gastroenteritis. This follows the death on June 22 of another of the same breed, Shin Shin, who was 21. This leaves three golden snub‐nosed monkeys at the zoo, including Pao Pao's bereaved mate, Hen Hen (27) and two of their six offspring, Fei Fei (19) and Yo Yo (14). (Apologies - my previous summary of this story included inaccurate information.)
- Inspections on block walls of elementary schools conducted after the recent Osaka earthquake found 29 cases where reinforcement is required and 16 which require complete replacement. Work on this project began yesterday. (Summer is obviously the time when major school construction projects are conducted. My kids' alma mater finally got air conditioning!)
- In case you're missing the quakes (I am; my dog's not), a recent survey on quake probability ranked Kumamoto amongst the highest risk at 26% or above over the next 30 years, so you've got that to look forward to. A geologist noted, "While the risk on the Futagawa fault is basically zero, many other faults exist, so one should not grow complacent." A risk map is at the link.
- The castle's main dojon was opened to reporters who, being reporters, reported on what they saw. While exterior work shows signs of completion, with coatings of extra-strong stucco currently being applied, the interior, which is undergoing major quake retrofitting, still exhibits bare pillars and beams. The article lists a whole slew of measures being taken to strengthen the donjon, the details of which you likely don't care about, so I won't list them except to say that they are so numerous that the completion date remains unknown. (If you are interested, let me know, and I'll list them in the comments section.)
And that's it for the news. All links are below. Congratulations to Pao Pao! - William
https://this.kiji.is/384478452100842593?c=92619697908483575
https://this.kiji.is/384901236317209697?c=92619697908483575
https://this.kiji.is/384684222172218465?c=92619697908483575
https://this.kiji.is/384667193037948001?c=92619697908483575
３０年以内に震度６弱、熊本市など「２６％以上」　政府予測 - 熊本日日新聞
　政府の地震調査委員会（委員長・平田直東京大教授）は２６日、現時点で想定されるすべての地震で、今後３０年以内に震度６弱以上の揺れに見舞われる危険性を示す「全国地震動予測地図」２０１８年版（１月１日時点...