18 October 06|3:18p
A few weeks ago brought us a typhoon. Lives were lost, trains derailed, all flights to/from Japan canceled. I was warned by word of mouth. We have a television, but with two channels in Japanese onry it's pretty difficult to watch. I hear my students talking about seeing something on the news and I think, “How can you understand that?”, but then I remember that they are Japanese. They speak Japanese.
There are loud speakers planted throughout Yonago. At 8am, noon and 5pm they play a different song – this way you're never wondering what time it is. “Did you just hear the 5 o'clock music?”. Ah, I love Home on the Range!
Some evenings we'll hear announcements over the speakers (which are hidden quite well I might add), but again in Japanese onry.
I was told by a past teacher that often Japan's elderly go for walks and get lost, so the announcements are usually asking the neighborhood to help find a lost old person. We'll hear an announcement which usually begins with good morning or hello and always ends with thank you very much (in Japanese of course). Another lost old lady!
Rumor has it that we also get important messages over these loud speakers – typhoon warnings, lost old people messages, more lost old people messages....sometimes we hear loud sirens – are we back in WWII? Are the Americans bombing us?
....and then I think....if a typhoon is coming how will I know? It's been very windy this week – I'm talking howling, blowing spiders clear out of their webs windy. We've had cold temperatures at 21 degrees Celsius and horizontal rain. The sky is looming with dark clouds – are Danny and I unknowing victims of a force larger then us? Will we be taken out because we're the only whities in the 'hood?
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