Japan marks winter solstice toward resurging of sun's power

December 22, 2017

Japan marks winter solstice toward resurging of sun's power

The winter solstice for 2017 fell on the 22nd day of December in the northern hemisphere, including Japan. Weather was relatively fine almost across Japan.  Early risers waited for the sun to come up from behind the mountain or from the sea, while commuting people saw the sun set on their way back home, while thinking about things for tomorrow.
In Fukuoka City, Kyushu, southwestern Japan, the sun rose at 7:19, and it set at 17:15.
The winter solstice means the day in which the sun's meridian altitude comes to the lowest point in a year--in other words, the day which has the shortest interval between the sunrise and the sunset.
According to the astrology-based traditional theory that has been believed in Asia, the sun starts regaining its strength after waning to the weakest point in the winter solstice, called "tohji" in Japan. The season moves toward a warmer, brighter period after passing the winter solstice.
One of centuries-old customs for the winter solstice in Japan calls for taking a "yuzuyu" yuzu citron bath on the tohji day, and the one may not catch a cold in winter.
People in some regions also have "tohjigayu" rice gruel with red beans, which is said to be good for warming the body.
The winter solstice represents the 22nd point in the 24-sequence annual solar term. Only two points are left ahead to complete and restart the solar term cycle at the "risshun" first day of spring on the lunar calendar.

The moon glittering in bitter coldness/
On the ground a small temple that has no gate/
The sky broadly spreads far above/
(A personal translation)

This is a haiku short poem made by Yosa Buson, a poet and a painter who was active in the Edo era in the late 18th century.
The 22nd day of December represented the fifth day of November on the old lunar calendar this year. Actually, a thin moon of the fifth day was seen shining above the mountain skyline lit by the afterglow of the sunset in some areas in Kyushu.
"The day is getting longer and longer, isn't it?" This is a greeting people often exchange around this time of the year. Cold weather continues further, until February or early March, but Japanese know that the day-by-day delay in the sunset is a harbinger of spring.

Japan bracing for early arrival of cold waves toward winter

November 18, 2017


Japan bracing for early arrival of cold waves toward winter

Japan sees cold air masses coming down from Siberia almost every week these days, as low pressure systems emerge east of the Japanese Archipelago. Weathermen warn the temperature will fall to around zero degree centigrade in some  areas in northernmost Japan later November.
November, the month which links autumn to winter, used to be called the Month of Frost in Japan. Damage from fallen frost is a threat to farmers in many parts of Japan. Particularly, unusually early or late frost falls cause serious damage to farm products.

Someone, someone has found a small autumn
Blind-fold tagger! come and catch me
To ears that listen carefully faintly sounded 
Whistling calls of a shrike
...........
Room facing the north, misted glass
Vacant eyes, dissolved milk
Autumn winds coming through a tiny opening
............
Weathercock of a long long time ago
On a hazy cock's comb, a leaf of a wax tree
The leaf is red like sunset
Someone, someone has found a small autumn
(A personal translation)

This is a poem written by Hachiro Sato who was active from the 1960s to the 1970s. He became famous particularly because he left many poems as lyrics for children's songs.
Japanese have seen signs of the global warming in their daily life these years, just like people in other parts of the world. Warm winter has become a less unusual thing to their life.
Signs of an early arrival of winter this year may be "an indication that the seasonal cycle is just getting back to the previous, proper pattern," says an amateur climate watcher living in Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, "but we should not be optimistic."
Winter is called "fuyu" in Japanese, while autumn is "aki." Fuyu means propagate or proliferate, and aki means get saturated.
From autumn to winter, all things in the universe get saturated and propagate quietly and gradually to repeat their life cycle.
The road is covered with withered dark red and yellow leaves, and the leaves will be swept away with a gust of cold wind. Autumn festivals for thanks for the good harvest and prayers for the ancestors are over.
Cold days around this time of the year pave the way for new lives to be born in the spring time.
Busy days in December are just around the corner, but the nature tells season-conscious Japanese people that the merry year-end and New Year's holidays are also weeks ahead.

Adorable butterflies live mysterious life on long migrating journey from Japan

October 29, 2017

Adorable butterflies live mysterious life on long migrating journey from Japan

Migrating creatures are not limited to birds, animals and fish. A kind of spotted butterflies, called "asagimadara" in Japanese, spend the summer in cool areas, mainly on highlands, in northern Japan and fly over the sea to southern Japan regions or Taiwan from late autumn to breed the next generation.
Chestnut tiger butterflies, so called in English, have pretty spotted wing patterns. The front wings, 4 to 6 centimeters in length, have semitransparent pale blue spots, while the rear wings are red or red-brown. When the wings are expanded, they are about 10 centimeters long.
The fact that asagimadara butterflies migrate from Japan to southern regions in autumn and fly back to Japan in spring in the following year came to be known through marking researches by groups of citizens in many parts of Japan since the 1980s.
Early researches revealed some asagimadara flew 1,000 to 1,500 kilometers from the northern and central Japan regions to the Nansei Islands, including Okinawa, but their migrating journey record was renewed almost every year later.
The current longest record, 2,246 kilometers, was reported in  2006, when a female asagimadara released with markings along with others in Yamagata Prefecture, northern Japan, in August, was found on an island near Taiwan three months later.
Researches joined by citizens have revealed their behaviors and flying routes, both northward and southward, but many parts of their life remain mysterious.
Why can they fly so long a distance? How do they feed themselves while flying across the sea? and where do they sleep at night?
The life of spotted butterflies, such as asagimadara, is about four months. This means that the asagimadara butterflies which fly southward from Japan and those which fly northward to Japan in the following year are not the same ones. They are all almost newly born when they start migrating, but they realize the timing of migration and the direction of migration. How?
The one can sometimes see asagimadara with their wings worn out. "It is just natural. Their wings get worn out, because they travel so long a distance," says a butterfly watcher living in southwestern Japan.
Many asakimadara are seen sucking nectar from certain kinds of flowers while in Japan in summer or on their way to southern regions in autumn.
In the southwestern Japan region of Kyushu, they are often found flying around thoroughwort flowers, called Fujibakama in Japanese, which is known as one of the "nanakusa" seven flowers of autumn. 
The nectar of the flower has a toxic agent. The fact that they seek nectar from Fujibakama flowers is taken to mean that they protect themselves from  insects or birds by obtaining the toxic nectar.
Recent studies show that the northern limit of their summer habitats is going up to the north. The timing of migration to their summer or winter habitats is said to be changing in recent years. These indications are taken as signs of the global warming.
"The tiny creature (asakimadara butterfly) "tells us what's happening in the natural environment surrounding us," said a person who is familiar with their habits. "They are just adorable, and we must be even friendlier with them."

Japan's manufacturing at crossroads, electronics giant Toshiba struggling for survival

September 28, 2017

Japan's manufacturing at crossroads, electronics giant Toshiba struggling for survival

The huge object stands right in front of Japan Railways Kurume Station in Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan. It is actually a drum-shaped clock with mechanical items built inside.
With a height of 5.9 meters and decorations on the pillar and on the base, the clock was established at the station square in 1999 in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of an inventor who hailed from Kurume City.
Hisashige Tanaka is well known to local people with his nickname, Karakuri (mechanism) Giemon.  Before dying at the age of 82 in 1881, 14 years after the Meiji Restoration, he designed and made a number of mechanical tools and toys.
His masterpieces include the "Yumihiki Doji" boy, a windup doll with an arrow fixed to the bow, and the "Jimeisho" perpetual clock which is said to have kept moving with a single wind for a year, with as many as about 1,000 handmade parts fabricated inside.
Displays about his life and works can be seen at Toshiba Science Museum, as a manufacturing factory he built in Tokyo in 1875 is known as the root company for Toshiba Corp., an electronics giant which has been globally active but is at the brink of collapse.
Toshiba is trying to keep going by selling its well performing assets, notably its flash memory division, but it is uncertain if the scenario goes well.
Passers-by who pay attention to the Giemon clock are limited, but some people look up at the object when the clock opens and starts a small show.
The clock face rotates and opens every one hour, from 8 in the morning to 7 in the evening. Then, mechanical miniature toys appear from the inside. Among them are the boy doll, who takes and shoots four arrows one by one, the perpetual clock and the figure of Giemon, who speaks about his works by himself while music is played for the 5-minute show.
Standing at the top of the clock are two chickens, who light the clock face when it is open.
Karakuri Giemon was born as the son of a tortoiseshell craftsman in the hub of Kurume, which was a castle town. He displayed a strong curiosity about invention from his childhood and started inventing mechanical toys.
He made a success by showing his works at various events in Kyoto, Osaka and elsewhere and then moved to Tokyo in 1873, when he was 74.
Giemon's statues can be found at a few places in Kurume. One of them stands at the entrance of a building which houses research companies and organizations at a riverside park.
Toshiba's fix is compared to the 2016 deal in which a Taiwan conglomerate bought Sharp Corp., one of Japan's time-honored electronics makers, to bail it out.
Sharp once made a big success by releasing many innovative products, including liquid crystal wall TVs, but its decline started soon because it failed to keep up with a competition from its rivals.
The deal was taken as an incident which symbols the decline of Japan's manufacturing industry with long years of craftsmanship. Meanwhile, Toshiba's plight is attributed to its failure in the atomic power reactor business.
Giemon's statue at the research complex appears to be worriedly watching Toshiba's current difficulty.
It is unknown whether Toshiba's fall can be averted, but the clock at the station square will keep ticking, assuring people that his legacies will be inherited to the future as the backbone of Japan's manufacturing spirit.

Japan's "Water Day" events focus on finiteness of water for today's daily life

August 30, 2017

Japan's "Water Day" events focus on finiteness of water for today's daily life

August is the hottest month of the year in most parts of Japan, and Japanese people get attracted to rivers, lakes, waterfalls and other water-cooled locations to dodge from the heat of the summer.

Japanese have seen themselves surrounded with abundant fresh water, notably river water, underground water and subterranean stream water, as the greater part of Japan's national land is occupied with mountains and forests in the Asian monsoon zone.
Japanese had so far felt that drinking water is not exhaustible, just like air, and free of charge, but they have come to believe that the supply of water is not unlimited any more. This reflects the years of urbanization since the 1960s and the influence of environmental pollution. They think that they have to adopt a water-saving lifestyle now.
The first day of August is designated as the "Water Day" in Japan. Various kinds of events and campaigns, mainly led by public organizations,  are held across the country in order to increase people's awareness about the finiteness of water for people's daily life.
The Water Day campaigns call for, in part, actively using rain water and recycled water for domestic use.
As of 2010, the use of rain water and recycled water at major facilities came to 260 million cubic meters a year. This accounted for 0.3 percent of the total amount of water supplied for domestic use across Japan.
A government-organized event for the Water Week, the week from August 1, calls for reviving the centuries-old custom of sprinkling water on the road in front of the house and elsewhere.
The custom, called "uchimizu," is expected to contribute to appeasing the effects of the heat island phenomenon and reducing the emission of ozone-depleting greenhouse gas from air conditioners during the summer time.
At a time when Japanese believe drinking water is not free any more, the consumption of mineral water is increasing steadily year by year. The per capita consumption of bottled mineral water grew to 19.6 liters in 2007, an increase of about 12 times from 1.6 liters for 1990. Today, water has become "a thing to buy" for them.
The use of mineral water is expected to increase further in the years ahead, but at the same time, Japanese are also becoming aware of the need to preserve precious water resources across the country.

Hot weather threatens volunteer work in flood-hit areas in southwestern Japan

July 30, 2017

Hot weather threatens volunteer work in flood-hit areas in southwestern Japan

The two local high school girls were serving bottles of cooled drinks to volunteers on their departure to assigned places in areas hit by recent floods and landslides in Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu, southwestern Japan.
They looked proud of their job which helps protect volunteers' physical condition amid a long spell of very hot weather toward the end of July.
The girls, accompanied with their boss, were manning one of the booths set up at the main volunteer reception facility in Asakura City, hardest hit by the disaster. The heavy rainfalls, which continued for a few days from July 5, triggered floods and mudslides in riverside areas  in the city and neighboring regions. leaving over 40 persons dead or missing and hundreds of houses damaged and inundated.

Kyushu, a largely rural region, has been ravaged by natural disasters twice in two years; an extensive killer earthquake hit Kumamoto Prefecture in April 2016.
Related local authorities and organizations appear better prepared than before to manage the post-disaster mess,  but the situation remains to be fully improved, for example, in terms of systems to sort out volunteers and properly support their jobs at the affected places, experts say.
Volunteer reception points in Asakura were flocked with volunteers on the first and second weekends after the disaster and as a result, some of them remained unregistered to be sent until in the afternoon. One volunteer was hit by a heatstroke and taken to a hospital.
Individual volunteers came up on weekdays and on weekend, while groups of volunteers came usually on the weekend.

As relief work made progress, many volunteers came in groups to the affected areas after being processed by dispatcher organizations. The system must be improved mainly for accepting individual volunteers on weekdays.
Individual volunteers must be divided into different segments--first-timers or not, and volunteer policyholders or not, and then, first-time volunteers receive orientation before being matched with others to be a team of 10 or so under a mutually selected leader.
"We have accepted 400 to 500 volunteers  a day this weekend, but there was no problem, because they had been well organized by a volunteer dispatcher before coming to us," said a leader in one of the affected communities.
"We could let them start their jobs quickly only after giving them a brief explanation," he said.  
Those dispatched for relief work in the community were mainly students attending a high school of Fukuoka City, the prefecture's capital.
The students kept working under a scorching sunlight as dust rose from the dried mud.
Some of them tried hard to take out mud from under the floor of inundated houses. Others collected the debris from the flooded areas and cleaned ditches buried with mud on an alley.
"We'll return to the community center where we were accepted this morning and take a lunch there, and then work again until 2:30 in the afternoon," a leader student said.
"This is our first day of activity here, because we just entered the summer vacation," he said. Part of the students are expected to be back again before their vacation is over.
Japan has come to realize that it should make itself even more resilient to natural disasters, not just by reinforcing hardware infrastructures for disaster prevention but also by enhancing software-related systems, such as those for early weather warning, quick evacuation to shelters and smooth volunteer acceptance.
The experience the student volunteers have obtained this time is expected to contribute to further refining Japan's disaster relief system from now on.

Japan's oldest irrigation canal lives with nature-loving people over centuries

June 30, 2017

Japan's oldest irrigation canal lives with nature-loving people over centuries

Japan's "tsuyu" rainy season from June to early July represents the start of rice planting in various parts of the country, the practice which reminds Japanese that they have lived on eating rice.
Japan's oldest irrigation canal, called Sakuta-no-Unade, has continued to water over 150 hectares of rice fields in Nakagawa town, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan.
The canal, which starts at a water gate built on the middle reaches of Nakagawa River,  has a total length of 5.5 kilometers.
The watercourse project is depicted in one of the oldest Japanese historical books, Nihon Shoki, compiled in the early 8th century. Precisely when the canal was dug remains unseen, but researchers surmise the oldest part of the canal system dates back to the second to third centuries, because a big ancient tomb excavated near the canal is believed to have been built for who ruled the area around the period.
The Sakuta canal is famous because of an episode linked to Empress Jingu, the legendary figure who appears in the book.
When people had difficulty cutting out through a big rock standing on the canal route, she prayed to the god that the rock would be removed, then a thunderbolt fell onto the rock and tore it apart.
The canal represents an important tourist asset for Nakagawa town, located south of Fukuoka City, the prefectural capital.
The town has the dual jobs of preserving the environment and landscape around the canal but at the same time, keeping the irrigation system in an active, workable condition.
If the canal bank is protected with modern stone walls only for the purpose of increasing convenience, will the landscape be well preserved?, a researcher doubts.
Water parks built along the canal enable people to get
them feel close to the aquatic environment. Nature-loving people are hoping to see an innovative design which will make it possible to preserve the historic and cultural value of the watercourse while maintaining and enhancing its irrigation functions.