In the news tonight

Today I went to Kamagadai to teach. The driver who took me pointed out red smears on the window of the town car. "What's this?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"It's sand from China."

I just read a report on a news page about the dust storms in China.

The rest of the journey to Kamagadai was taken up by the driver talking about hunting. "Can you hunt in New Zealand? I am a hunter. I like to eat bear because it is sweet. I like to eat it raw. I have been to Hokkaido to hunt Shika deer. Deer is tasty when raw too, especially if you put pepper on it." Alarmingly, he kept taking his hands off the steering wheel to mime out holding a rifle. He only let up from this discussion on the tastes and textures of the flesh of wild animals long enough to point out 'skunk weed' to me. He is far more interesting than the other driver, the one who does not speak.

At Kamagadai, the English teacher told me an alarming tale. I don't watch the news here, and if I did I would not understand it anyway, but apparently birds of various species have all of a sudden started dying off in droves all over Hokkaido and Tohoku, and a few have died in Tokyo too. This has been happening just in the last couple of weeks. The very first thing scientists checked for was bird flu, but apparently the birds were flu-free. However, they all had recently eaten insects. I'm assuming Mr. Sato meant they had all eaten the same type of insect. Anyway, it is very scary, and the Japanese public has been told to stay well away from bird carcasses. If anyone hears a proper news article about this and can give me more details, please do so.

(Tomorrow I have some free time, so I will get around to actually writing about Kamagadai, which I realise I have not yet done).