Posts
Douglas here.
The best time of year to see many active mutsugoro (mudskippers) on the muddy shores around the Ariake Sea is from the end of May and the middle of June.
This very short video is the result of our first visit to film the fish in 2023.
The main purpose was to get used to shooting video with our recently acquired BlackMagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K - more usually named BMPCC4K!
We hope to be able to go back in June to get some more interesting shots of the mutsugoro.
Mutsugoro May 2023
The best time of year to see many active mutsugoro (mudskippers) on the muddy shores around the Ariake Sea is from the end of May and the middle of June.This...
Kirk here. Facebook has instituted a major change to their page editing and management interface. It may not be so noticeable to most users but it's a big change -- for the worse -- for me as someone managing and looking after the page.
The change that has the biggest impact on page participants (not editors) is that it is no longer possible to post to the page as a guest. Moreover, the posts in which participants shared information to the page as guests (this was in a category called "community") seem to have been lost.
All this reminded me of the concept of en****tification, propounded by Cory Doctorow. The basic idea is that modern internet platforms attract you with good services/features, make you dependent, and then reduce the quality or the experience to maximize profits. The reduction in quality is bad enough to be irritating but not so bad as to get you to break your ties with the service on which you have become depended (and where you have built a community).
This latest change has nudged my love-hate relationship with Facebook a bit farther in the "hate" direction. :(
Enshittification Part 1: Why Every Platform Goes Bad | On the Media | WNYC Studios
When did the internet start getting worse?
Atsuko, with information about the cute baby dolphins of Amakusa.ଘ(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭✧
Translated page⤵
赤ちゃんイルカ、今年も元気に登場 熊本・天草市の通詞島沖｜熊本日日新聞社
天草市五和町の通詞島沖に生息するミナミハンドウイルカの群れに、今年も赤ちゃんイルカが姿を見せ、元気よく跳ねながら泳ぐ様子が見られるようになった。
Sean here -Reporting on an amazing discovery.
File under: Parking
For hikers, bikers, and all people who love Kinpo san.
By chance, I rolled into this parking lot located about halfway between Honmyoji Park and Togenochaya Park and Museum on Rt. 1.
What a great idea for people who have neither time nor energy but still want to hike or bike in our amazing collective backyard.
This is not an ordinary parking lot. Each parking space is surrounded by a curtain to protect your car from killer bees, snakes, wild boar, or bears while you are away…..I guess.
And they really want your business. The Parking “P” has a cute and welcoming heart surrounding it.
Another reason to love our town.
William The following info perhaps useful for our US readers was sent to my email. If you're an American citizen and haven't registered with the Consulate, you should.
Greetings from the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka,
We be visiting Kumamoto City on Friday, June 9th to offer passport, birth registration, and notarial services. Services are by appointment only and are limited to 8 families. If you would like an appointment, please reply to this email by Tuesday, June 6 with the information requested below.
Please note that we will need applicants to bring exact change in cash only. We can accept payment in both dollars or yen. If paying in yen, please note our exchange rate is currently $1=140 yen but is subject to change. We look forward to seeing you in Kumamoto!
Date: June 9, 2023 (Friday) 13:00-15:00
Venue: Kumamoto Prefectural Office Main Building 7th Floor
6-18-1 Suizenji, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto City
*To make an appointment, please email us the following information by Tuesday, June 6.
Name of applicant
Type of service requested
Passport / Birth report / Notarial service
Number of applicants
Please let us know if you currently have an appointment at the Consulate
Yes / No
Sincerely,
Consular Section, U.S. Consulate
[email protected]
Kirk again. I just posted about the heat. It's supposed to get up to about 29 Celsius (about 84 Fahrenheit) today. I thought I'd check to see how that compares with historical temperatures and this is what I found. The blue is average daily highs for the month of May and red is for June. You can see that 29 is hot, even for June, much less May. You can also see that the trend is up -- presumably the result of global warming.
I took the data from this webpage:
https://www.data.jma.go.jp/obd/stats/etrn/view/monthly_s3.php?prec_no=86&block_no=47819&year=&month=&day=&view=a2
Kirk here with a little about the heat. I was just watching a news show I recorded last night and I saw that they are already using misting fans to cool folks waiting in line outside of the castle. This video was posted four days ago but I have no double that the fans are being run today too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cw2J1l4iGk
Kirk here. Over the time that I (with lots of help from others) have been trying to feed relevant and (hopefully) useful information to this page, I have come to notice that English information is often presented on the web with no links to the Japanese information it is based on. Discussion of that issue here eventually led me to write a letter to Mayor Onishi that, to the mayor's credit, resulted in a significant improvement in machine translation on the Kumamoto City website: users can now toggle directly between foreign-language translations and the original Japanese.
The mayor fixed the issue on the Kumamoto City site (see URL at the end of this post), but the vast majority of municipal / governmental websites in Japan continue to present poor-quality machine translations with no clear way of accessing the original Japanese text. That led me to write an academic paper (in Japanese) that came out in December of last year:
https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1520013485571215616
The motivation for the article and a significant portion of the discussion relates directly to this Facebook page so I would like to share a pdf here but staff at my university tell me that the pdf won't be published on the web until June. I'll post about that when the time comes.
At any rate, the main idea of the article is "Why the %*@# do so many people in Japan assume that foreigners ONLY need information in foreign languages?" In other words, why is it assumed that foreign residents have no need for information in Japanese, even when the quality of the translation is clearly poor? I gave a paper copy of the article to Mr. Yagi of the International Center and he was kind enough to arrange an opportunity for me for me to present the contents of my paper to the staff at the International Center. Mr. Yagi has asked me to address some issues that go slightly beyond what I wrote in the paper I so I decided to make up a short little Google form questionnaire to get some feedback from readers of this page. Here are the URLs of the form and of the post I made about it yesterday.
https://forms.gle/qbrEMjKfV6A6mDH29
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/pfbid0Q7vYqgZ9AvV5P9kYVRPnoC1Wr8GfpcxoPbjb8kL5nmThRo7MWgfVMmTGQwVhiQfGl
I've already gotten 13 responses. Thanks!!! I hope more of you will share your perspectives so that I can share them with the folks at the International Center and then with readers of this page. Yoroshiku!!
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/pfbid02LZBsiowcLPQWYTBiZCzxNxb2zSLceUdkrizXDDkVUdoP6dCY6Dmsc2oqyuy3HEfvl
I will be speaking with staff at Kumamoto's International Center soon about how best to respond to the linguistic needs of foreign residents of Kumamoto. I don't feel qualified to speak on behalf of the diverse community so I'd like to ask that you take a few minutes to respond to the questions in a Google form that I put on the web:
https://forms.gle/Rng33mFfCa2KM4XW8
The form only collects your answers (not your e-mail address or another identifying information).
The form has a few questions about length of residence in Japan, native language, level of Japanese and then the following four questions:
1. How often do you feel frustrated or uncomfortable because Japanese people expect you to function at a higher level in Japanese than you are able to?
2. How often do you feel frustrated or uncomfortable because Japanese people want to speak Japanese with you (when you would really prefer to speak English or another language you know)?
3. How often do you feel frustrated or uncomfortable because Japanese people assume that your Japanese level is lower than it actually is?
4. How often do you feel frustrated or uncomfortable because Japanese people want to speak English (or another language other than Japanese) with you (when you would really prefer to speak Japanese with them)?
That's all. It should only take a couple of minutes to fill out. I'll report the results here (on this Facebook page) in addition to sharing them with staff at the International Center.
Thanks in advance!!
Expectations/Assumptions about Communication in Japanese and Other Languages
I will be speaking with staff at Kumamoto's International Center soon about how best to respond to the linguistic needs of non-Japanese residents of Kumamoto. I don't feel qualified to speak on behalf of the diverse community of non-Japanese residents so I'd like to ask that you take a few minutes t...
Kirk here sharing a post from Kumamoto Japan Tourism. I think this series is a great idea. I love to see high school students using their hard-won English skills so meaningfully. In regard to KATO Kiyomasa, I've been impressed with just how many aspects of contemporary life in Kumamoto can be traced back to him. His civil engineering projects changed the course of the Shirakawa and created irrigation channels that are still in use today. Moreover, the following foods all have connections to KATO Kiyomasa (some more direct than others): basashi, karashi renkon, Chosen ame. Then, there's Kumamon. If KATO hadn't changed the character used to write Kumamoto from 隈 to 熊 we wouldn't have a cute bear as a mascot. Since 隈 can refer to dark circles under your eyes, maybe KATO saved us from having an extremely tired looking character! ;)
https://www.facebook.com/kumamoto.en/posts/pfbid0VtKkgYdkKToLoPfm9NpNwPce6Yw4UCWGShsWZbxUw1kBfo4uqa87RsddYAcSynF9l
Kirk here. Shaken (JCI car inspection) anyone? If the deadline for your vehicle is coming up, be sure NOT to take it to the BIG MOTOR on the Hamasen Bypass:
Follow-up Scoop!" Shocking Video of "Big Motor," the Leading Used Car Dealer, Punching Holes in Customers' Tires
A former mechanic angrily accuses the giant company "Big Motor" of gross negligence! Video footage of the factory manager himself giving instructional demonstrations in order to raise wages and overcharge for insurance claims! What is the astonishing array of dishonesty that goes on behind the scene...
Kirk here reporting on a very important person whom I'm sorry to say I didn't know about until I heard of his passing.
---- start quote ----
Isao Arita (1926 – 17 March 2023) was a Japanese physician, virologist and vaccination specialist who headed the World Health Organization (WHO) Smallpox Eradication Unit in 1977–85. During this period, smallpox became the first infectious disease of humans to be eradicated globally. For this work, he and his colleagues were awarded the Japan Prize in 1988.
---- end quote ----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isao_Arita
His passing has been covered a good deal in the Japanese-language media but I haven't been able to find anything in English. This is one of many examples of news that I would think should be covered in English too (you know, head of the WHO, eradication of smallpox is not exactly small potatoes) -- but that isn't. Another reason to learn Japanese -- there's quite a lot of information that's available in Japanese that never gets translated.
Photo taken from:
https://www.japanprize.jp/en/prize_past_1988_prize02.html
Kirk here with an update on the helicopter from Kumamoto that crashed in Okinawa.
Wreckage of GSDF helicopter returned to base | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News
The wreckage of a crashed Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force helicopter has been transported to the base in Kumamoto Prefecture where it belonged. The GSDF plans to closely examine the wreckage to determine the cause of the accident.
(Douglas)
In sharing the following 360° Virtual Tour of Takahashi Inari JInja, I would like to ask for your help in providing me with some valuable feedback.
The tour should work without any problems when viewed on a computer.
In fact, I recommend that method if you want to get the real feeling of the 360° images.
The problems can arise when viewing from a smartphone or android phone.
Links may not work, videos may take ages to download, some elements may not appear at all and so on!
I do not use this method of viewing myself.
That's where you come in.
For those of you who would like to help me with feedback and are viewing on a "phone", please take some time to try the tour and report back to me with your thoughts on any problems you encounter.
When going to the link below on your phone, you may see an icon representing 3d glasses. Clicking on that icon will likely show,"Install Google VR Services?" You should do that in order to see the correct 360° images and videos.
Once at the start of the tour, I suggest you watch the left-hand-side video on Navigating the 360° Tour, before pressing the start button.
Short comments and feedback can be left in the comments here.
However if you prefer, you can email me at [email protected].
I hope you can enjoy the Tour and I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback.
Takahashi Inari Jinja
Virtual Tour | 高橋稲荷神社 | Opening image wide
Kirk here. This Kumamon (the one in front of Sakura Machi Kumamoto) had his mask removed today, in keeping with the national downgrading of COVID-19.
https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/stream/article/21346/
William This was behind Kumanichi's paywall, so I couldn't read the whole article, but the first sentence was sufficient: "Of the 89 civilian airports nationwide, the number of landings by U.S. military aircraft in 2022 was 56 at Kumamoto Airport (Mashiki Town), the second highest number after 60 at Fukuoka Airport (Fukuoka City)." https://kumanichi.com/articles/1039055
Photo: Osprey landing at Kumamoto-Aso Airport.
＜くまもと発 安保の現場＞熊本空港、22年の米軍機着陸 過去10年で最多56回 全国2番目 中国念頭、訓練活発化か｜熊本日日新聞社
全国89の民間空港で、2022年に米軍機が着陸した回数が熊本空港（益城町）で56回に上り、福岡空港（福岡市）の60回に次いで2番目に多かったことが7日、国土交通省航空局への取材で分かった。過去10年で最多となり、専門....
Kirk here with with a detailed article (lots of pictures and a map) about the restoration (completion cscheduled for July) of the Minami Aso Railway.
Kumamoto: Fan of Quake-Hit Railway Aids Restoration Efforts
ASO, Kumamoto — As a teenager on an internship with Minami-Aso Railway Co. in March 2016, Yusuke Shishido became enamored with the sightseeing trolley train the company runs. He planned to work for the company after graduating from the railroad vocational school he was attending, but just a month ...
(Fiona) The Kumamoto-i inbox has a message from a British hitchhiker currently visiting Kumamoto and looking for people to view the coronation of King Charles with. He asked if there are any watch parties going on. I'm currently out of the country and unable to help, so posting here to reach a wider audience.
Happy Golden Week!! 🌳🚊🎏🐸🛫🗾
PSA: Hitoyoshi-Hinagu-Minamata (E3A) South Kyushu Expressway Night Closure later in May (15th-25th).
Ruth here! Coming back from Kagoshima, via Minamata, there were signs on the E3A South Kyushu Expressway (Minamata-Hinagu and Yatsushiro-Hinagu) stating night-time (8pm-6am!) closures for maintenance later this month, from the 15th to 25th May, excluding Saturdays and Sundays.
**Please note that is NOT the E3 Kyushu Expressway, but the toll-free E3A South Kyushu Expressway**
So, if you plan on taking that route between the 15th to 25th May, bear in mind that it'll be closed most nights from 8pm to 6am.
The images in the Japanese link below clearly show the route closures, and other pertinent info - just like the image here, taken from the link: https://corp.w-nexco.co.jp/corporate/release/kyushu/r5/0414a/
