Does anyone recall Typhoon Bart? It swept across Japan back in the late summer/early fall of 1999. At that time, I had just joined the JET program as an Assistant Langauge Teacher (ALT) and moved into a little seaside apartment in the fishing town of Ushibuka, at the southernmost tip of Japan's Amakusa Island chain. A couple of years later, I wrote about the experience for the Record, a central California newspaper. More than ten years later, the article is still archived on the Record's website.
The whole article can be read for free at Recordnet.com. The 20120-13 JET Programme participants are landing in Tokyo about now, so if you are a new JET headed to Kumamoto Prefecture, particularly the Amakusa Islands, I encourage you to read this story. It's a tale of fear (yeah, this California native had never experienced a typhoon before), of truly functional architecture, and of inspiration. I remember feeling completely in awe of the collaborative spirit with which everyone in Ushibuka pitched in to clean up the town after Typhoon Bart churned up the sea and dumped mud all over the roads. It was eye-opening to see how powerful communities of people can be when everyone works together for the common good.
