Typhoon Jangmi is bringing rain and strong winds to Japan. It is called Typhoon No. 6. in Japan, but in other countries, they use the international name Jangmi. The typhoon came up from Okinawa and is traveling northeast. It is passing through my area late tonight, and by the time you read this or watch the video, it will be gone. If you are in northeastern Japan, be careful of strong winds and flooding. Don’t go out if you don’t have to. Typhoons can be very dangerous. One of the worst typhoons in Japanese history was Typhoon Vera, known as the Isewan Typhoon in Japan. It hit Nagoya in September 1959 and killed more than 5,000 people.    (117 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a week, go to “Support Jaremaga” at https://jaremaga.online/ for more information. You can send

We were busy at Fujimae Tidal Flat last week. Three different elementary schools visited the center, and the children had a great time looking for crabs and other living creatures on the tidal flat. When it was time for lunch, the children ate outside on the grass. Most of them had homemade box lunches with rice and different side dishes. Japanese parents work hard to make lunches look great. In one lunch box, I saw a figure made of rice. The body was covered with a thin yellow egg coat, and the figure’s head was covered with a thin egg bonnet. The face was made of tiny pieces of “nori.” It looked too cute to eat.  (116 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a week, go to “Support Jaremaga” below for more information. You can send me a

While I was walking the dog in my neighborhood, I saw some people sitting under a white tent. It was a groundbreaking ceremony for a house. A Shinto priest was performing the ceremony. This kind of ceremony is held for the safety of the builders and for the happiness of the house owner. When we built our house in Nagoya, we had a groundbreaking ceremony, too. It’s different in the U.S. We don’t have groundbreaking ceremonies for single-family houses. However, we do have this kind of ceremony for big projects like schools and museums. I am including a link to a video of a groundbreaking ceremony at a school so that you can see what an American ceremony looks like.   (120 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a week, go to “Support Jaremaga” below for more information. You

Nagoya has official city garbage bags. There are three kinds of bags. Bags with red lettering are for combustible garbage, garbage that you can burn. Bags with green lettering are for noncombustible garbage, garbage that you can’t burn, like metal and glass. Bags with blue lettering are for recyclable garbage, garbage like plastic containers and trays. However, stores are running out of these bags because Japanese companies cannot get enough naphtha from the Middle East to make the bags. People are also buying more bags because they are worried. Now, Nagoya has new rules that start today and go to June 30. You can put your garbage into clear bags instead of city garbage bags, but you have to write the kind of garbage on the bag before you put it out. Is this happening in other Japan cities?   (139 words) Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become