We’re getting an impressive amount of rain here in Nara from the typhoon, and pretty much the whole area is marked with violent wind and heavy rain warnings. However, most directly onerous for my family, and probably to every person living around here, is the regular, very loud warnings over the neighborhood loudspeaker, issued in a creepy, slow-motion voice, “A…flood…warning…has…been…issued…for…Nara…City…so…please…be…careful…”

This message has blared every half hour since about 2:00am (it’s now 7:00). It’s hard to imagine these warnings are useful to anyone. Those few who didn’t know already that a typhoon was coming or who are out walking in this heavy rain in the middle of the night would be too cognitively impaired to understand them, while the rest of us just didn’t sleep because of them. The fact that the area is under absolutely no threat of flooding adds another layer of absurdity to the situation.