Friday, September 18, 2015

Reason #001 to Learn Japanese: Emergency Warnings

Imagine this scenario if you will. After a brutally hot summer, the last few nights have finally cooled down. So, you sleep with your windows open. The key word here is 'sleep.'

However

At 3 am you are awoken by what can easily fall into the category of top five most unholy sounds you've ever heard. Luckily, I've never heard an air raid siren in practical use before, but, an air raid siren is the closest match I can think of still. It was, well, loud. Needless to say, I woke up.

Being my first city-wide siren alarm clock, I woke up confused and honestly a bit panicked. What do I do? The siren only went off for only a few minutes. Then, silence.

Until, a voice started to echo through the streets. The voice was loud, firm, and had an air of no nonsense to it. Unfortunately, I still don't understand Japanese. I can only assume this voice was explaining the noise, explaining the situation, and maybe even giving instructions on what to do. Helpful to the right ears, waisted on me. This went on for minutes.

So it's about 3:15 am, there was a siren, there was a city-wide announcement, and I still have no idea what is happening or what I should do. No longer in that rocked out of bed sort of mindset, I'm thinking more logically but still a bit shaken. My phones got emergency messages in Japanese - sigh.

I look to the streets to gauge the level of panic. None. None at all. Is everything okay? I look up what an emergency alarm could mean. Heavy rain, volcano eruption, or tsunami. One isn't like the others. There has been heavy rain and thunder, or what I hoped was thunder and not eruptions.

So I did what I had to do. I went back to sleep - eventually. Oh, it was a tsunami warning by the way. It was backlash from the earthquake in Chili. It only ended up being 60 inches, but better safe than sorry.

For the first time in my life, I honestly didn’t know if the sound of thunder was actually the sound of a volcano eruption. That’s some shit.

I need to learn Japanese.

2 comments:

  1. That must have been scary as hell !!
    How did you go back to sleep, and when / how did you learn what is was ?
    You are having one incredible experience....
    Keep it up !
    Love,
    Dad

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  2. Well, good news, spoken Japanese is easier to learn than written Japanese. I hope you have an emergency pack ready to go in case there's another evacuation (water, first aid, cash).

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