Kid Ethnic: Mixed-Race Adventures in Japan: Typhoons Will Not Stop Me

Typhoons Will Not Stop Me · 1 September 04

Black and white of my curtains being blown into my room.

If this site were run by CNN.com, this space would be filled with a dramatic picture of me as I struggled across a Kumamoto intersection during last weekend’s typhoon.

Then, after signing up for the 14-day Real News SuperPass trial, you’d have the opportunity to see video footage of the wind forcing my path to wobble like a tipsy unicyclist.

You’d watch the wind flip my forest green umbrella inside-out and back again, Cartoon Network-style.

You’ll find none of that here, partially because at kidethnic.com we (I) don’t believe in following corporate media’s cookie cutter conventions. But mostly because I forgot my camera.

(Sidenote to my moms: Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t be out walking during typhoons. But it’s cool, everyone does it here. The government even issues everyone special typhoon helmets and, um, Typhoon Protection Vest Armor Systems.)

[Sidenote to everyone else: I made up the bit about the helmets and TPVAS. Don’t tell my mom.]

Typhoons hit Japan so frequently that they number them rather than name them. Last weekend’s was number 16.

Like many natural phenomena, typhoons are interesting to the degree that you prepare for them. That is, the less you prepare for them the more interesting they are.

Two weeks ago, I found #15 pretty dang interesting.

That typhoon got blowing while I slept on the bamboo mat of my apartment floor. Next to my wide-open sliding glass doors.

It woke me by whipping me in the head with a wet curtain. A very wet curtain. I sprung up to find my that my recycling pile had been distributed evenly around the apartment. The week’s newspapers were circling the air.

It was a typhoon in my living room. It felt like like Poltergeist.

I ran around the apartment in my pajamas slamming shut windows like an old lady with goth-industrial neighbors.

I wandered around the house a bit, but there was nothing left to do but clean up. Instead, I went back to my slightly damp spot on the bamboo and fell asleep.

The next morning I sat in the living room watching the storm’s aftermath blow my curtains in and out of the apartment for awhile (see above).

Then I switched to the other side of the house to watch the sun break the storm.

Photo of sun through the clouds.

That’s my story. You can head back to CNN now.

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