After the Second World War and prior to 30 July 1978 traffic in Okinawa drove on the right hand side of the road.
On 30 July Okinawa changed to driving on the left hand side of the road. For eight hours between 10 pm on 29 July to 6 am on 30 July all traffic other than emergency vehicles was banned.
Left hand side drive vehicles were referred to as 729 vehicles and right hand drive vehicles, 730 vehicles.
See the Wikipedia article at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/730_(transport)]
I’d watched the news as it came in and perhaps with more interest than some others as I’d been to Kumejima a few years before.
Reports came in over a few days of a tropical depression tracking northwards through the East China Sea towards Kumejima. Then one day there was a report that it had suddenly increased in intensity and was packing winds of over 200 kmh. It was to be a super typhoon.
All residents, I heard, had been advised to go to emergency shelters. Planes, shipping and ferry services to Kumejima had been cancelled. It was expected that wave heights could reach 15 metres in some places.
I knew the Kumejima Marathon was scheduled to start soon and I wondered what impact the typhoon would have on that event.
As it neared Kumejima, authorities named it Akai Kutsu [“Red Shoes”]. I naturally thought it was named that because of the red shoes that the Kumejima Marathon participants all wore. I found I was wrong.
The naming authorities were unaware that Kumejima Marathon participants wore red shoes. They were also unaware that the marathon was scheduled to start about the time the super typhoon was due to make landfall. In fact it was named after a familiar Japanese children’s folksong.
As I watched and listened to successive news reports, I heard that schools and most businesses were closed or closing and that many residents had - as instructed - already gone to evacuation centres. I also heard that authorities had decided to cut electricity. I wondered what impact that would have on the mental health of residents.
I also wondered what the impact would be on the Kumejima Marathon. My curiosity increased when I found that landfall was expected to be Eef Beach, the location of the Kumejima Marathon itself.
Among the succession of sometimes confusing news reports I found that though the area where the marathon was to be held has no protection from the sea, organisers were saying the event would go ahead.
Indeed one report told of the majority of the competitors arriving in the evening before the typhoon was due to make landfall. Before heading off to the nearest evacuation centres, they recounted for a reporter their experiences in overcoming the strong currents and big waves as they approached Eef Beach.
What the report didn’t make clear was how the participants got to Kumejima and why the references to strong currents and big waves given that planes and ships had all been cancelled. I soon realised of course that they’d all swum there. Perhaps the seeming impossibility of swimming to Kumejima and swimming there through a typhoon was not included in reports as it was too much of an impossible possibility for the reporter to explain to an outside audience.
When some time after Akai Kutsu’s visit I went to Kumejima, I was told that at that time local restaurants and accommodation venues around Eef Beach operated from within the evacuation centres. Despite the high winds and extremely heavy rain outside competitors and locals spent the evenings listening to and singing traditional folk songs featuring the sanshin performing eisā dances, eating chanpurū and drinking awamori. Red shoes of course were in abundance.
What nobody could have foreseen during that happy time in the evacuation centres and in the midst of a raging storm were the subsequent sudden rise in depression amongst the Kumejima locals, a sort of temporal dislocation and the vast ecological degradation that occurred because of it, and the end of invisible swimming.
Most of the reporting about Akai Kutsu centred on the immediate effect on shipping, the flooding of low-lying land and the devastation of coastal property and farmlands.
Of course, reports also mentioned that Akai Kutsu was the strongest typhoon ever to make landfall since typhoon record-keeping began after the annexation of Ryukyu in 1879. It was truly huge.
Some things though didn't become clear until later.
Initially there were no reports about the Kumejima traffic lights even though they did not function for days after the typhoon made landfall. There were also no reports of the problem that that caused which was that with no working traffic lights, there was nowhere on the island where people were able to watch a traffic light countdown. Nowhere was anybody able to clench a number.
Not being able to clench a number was not an unusual problem. But not knowing if or when a number could be clenched was. This caused the deep psychological problems within the community.
Other problems, reported by medical professionals, included a general malaise particularly among children and the elderly and vast increases in the number of people experiencing sleeping problems and memory loss. There were more and more of these reports.
Memory loss didn’t affect children or younger people. Instead, it affected middle-aged adults. It presented in two ways. One was the inability of some people to remember key people in their lives. The other was thinking that they were living in the days leading up to 30 July 1978.
The most common memory-loss symptom was people forgetting their real partner. These people would often try - usually successfully - to ensconce themselves with a new partner. Most often that would be someone else’s present partner.
As an example, a pineapple farming couple were both unable to remember who their partner was. The husband thought his wife was the local hairdresser. His wife thought the hairdresser’s husband was her husband. To solve this, one of the partners from each couple swapped places with the other.
Malaise, not memory loss, affected the children. As a consequence, their teachers were unable to progress the school curriculum as fast as they had before. Authorities found that extending the teaching day, previously 8:30 am to 4:30 pm to 9 pm resolved this problem. Children continued their learning but at a slower pace but they also spent more time at school to fulfil the curriculum requirements.
Unfortunately the longer days and the malaise itself meant that children engaged in fewer physical activities. This has led to increasing rates of obesity amongst the children and the cancellation of all sporting activities. It is rare now to see even waddling children on the beach and some are unable to raise a hand to return a wave to the young turtles and seabirds being driven in 730 cars.
The sleeping problems affected everyone and did so in a surprising way. People who had physical characteristics in common would all be unable to sleep at the same time and being unable to sleep they would go somewhere as a group.
Sometimes they went to Eef Beach to watch the few remaining turtles, the squid boats or some other nautical happening. At Eef Beach groups usually did nothing but watch. But watch they did for hours at a time.
Sometimes the groups would go to the centre of town to direct cars around the town’s only traffic roundabout. They mistakenly believed that all the cars were 729 cars and they were all going around the roundabout the wrong way. This would have caused mayhem except for the fact that there were no longer any 729 cars in Kumejima when Akai Kutsu struck.
Sometimes the groups would suddenly decide to go to the port to help clear debris. Sometimes they went to the highest point on Kumejima - Uegusuku Castle - to help the weather office staff. Sometimes they went to Kumejima Tsumugi no Sato to weave pongee silk items.
Of course no help was required at these places. Furthermore the ability of the helpers usually didn’t match the requirements of the tasks. People with myopia loved going to weave silk but couldn’t see what they were doing. People with arthritis had difficulty lifting and moving debris at the port. The weather office was so small that the number of overly large people who wanted to go there to help couldn’t fit in.
Though groups did these things on a turn-and-turn-about basis there appeared no way to predict which group would be going where on any given day. So at Eef Beach, for example, some days only left-handed people would be there turtle watching. On other days it might be right-handed people only. Some days it would be those whose eyes were blue - which in an island like Kumejima would mean a group of two or three only. Some days it was people with myopia, other days people with arthritis.
The people who experienced temporal dislocation all believed it was still 1978. They thought they were living in the lead-up to the switch from driving on the right-hand side of the road to the left.
As with any significant change, amongst this group there were some against it and some for. Those against the change marched through the streets of Kumejima demanding the government withdraw from the Vienna Traffic Convention. Fortunately the protests were peaceful and the police, most of whom were involved with the aftereffects of the typhoon, were not needed.
These protesters refused to have anything to do with anything related to Vienna. Some mistakenly believed all meat was veal and all veal was Wiener Schnitzel. These people went on hunger strikes - thus overloading hospitals - and protested wherever meat was sold or eaten. Protest banners included signs reading “Cut off your wieners”, “No wieners for our kids”, “Veal isn’t real” and “You can’t make love with wieners”.
Others protested about the sale of schnapps even though schnapps was rarely sold in Kumejima. Coffee and any other drink that might have a connection with Austria were also the targets of protests. Their slogans included “Schnapps back to awamori”, “Einspänner makes you hoarse”, “Prick the Spritzer bubbles!” “No bubbles in our awamori”. They also marched on the local restaurants accusing them of selling - or proposing to sell - Viennese coffee instead of Sanpin cha or awamori.
Still others went to the town square to watch the clock for 8 hours at a time. This was in the belief that they could prevent the start of the eight-hour changeover from driving on the right to driving on the left that occurred in 1978. They shouted a seemingly contradictory slogan “Eight hours! Never stop! Eight hours! Never start!”.
They described themselves as the Never start, Never stop 8 group. Some shortened this to, or misinterpreted it as, the “Start-Stop, Ate group”. This led others to think they were protesting about food additives. Still others misheard it as “Start-stop, Hate group”. These people thought the group was protesting about hate crimes - of which there were few if any - in Kumejima.
On the opposing side, but in the same time-warp, were people who were keen to see the switch go ahead. Some of these volunteered to help the police with the changeover and took it upon themselves to do things like replace road signs and road markings.
Because they thought they were in Kumejima before 30 July 1978 they placed the road signs on the other side of the road from which they’d been on before the typhoon hit. So a stop sign’s reverse side - the blank side - faced the oncoming traffic.
This group also posted messages and pictures on social media advertising the changeover. It was usually not clear whether the posts were typhoon-related or traffic changeover-related.
“Think left” got mixed up with “Don’t be left stranded”. There was a graphic of the direction of traffic switching from the right to the left side of the road. Many people misunderstood this. They thought that evacuation centres were all on the left-hand side of the road. As by this time the typhoon had passed it was of no consequence though might be in the future.
“T-Day” for “Typhoon day” which in reality was a historical event and “TC-Day” for “Traffic Changeover Day” which though also an historical event butnin their minds was yet to happen got conflated. They might refer to “TC-Day minus 20” but write “T-Day minus 20”. This confused those members of the population who were not part of their thinking. How could there be a “Minus 20” day if the typhoon had already passed?
Both groups had problems driving or getting into cars and getting into buses. They all thought the buses were 729 buses. They couldn’t find the doors and so there were many among them whose fingernails were destroyed trying to open a non-existent door. Some also severely banged their heads thinking that they were able to enter but hit their heads on the sides of the bus instead.
When they did manage to get into a car and actually get it going they drove on the right-hand side of the road causing quite a few - luckily minor - traffic accidents.
There is not usually a lot of interaction between locals and the marathon participants as the sport does not attract a lot of spectators. Besides, any would-be spectators would usually be occupied with farmwork. However at this time participants in the marathon and the locals spent many evenings together in the evacuation centres.
The Kumejima Marathon participants noticed that many of the locals were displaying symptoms of mental stress through not being able to clench a number while watching traffic lights countdown. They therefore invited the locals to go down to Eef Beach and join the marathon. The not-unreasonable thinking was that as invisible swimming made the marathon participants happy, it would likely lift the depression of the locals. It would be an antidote to them feeling low.
Many of the locals who weren’t depressed, and most of the locals who were, accepted the invitation. They went down to Eef Beach for several days after the worst of the typhoon had passed.
They were assisted down to the seaweed groves by some of the Stop Ate groups driving vehicles which they thought were 729 vehicles but weren’t. This would have caused a lot of problems for other traffic but fortunately there is not much traffic on Kumejima. They were met by marathon participants who were to help them have their feet resized and reshaped to fit a red shoe. After the seaweed had curled around their feet for a few minutes they went back to the evacuation centre to drink awamori believing that drinking the awamori made from the droppings of an indigenous Kumejima animal would make them invisible and the red shoes would enable them to control the visibility and - in this case - would lift their depression.
What nobody had predicted was the effect that wearing red shoes and drinking awamori would have on already mentally disordered people.
About 24 hours after modelling for red shoes and drinking the awamori these people suddenly developed an overwhelming urge to eat the very same seaweed that helped them remodel their feet. They raced down to the beach, pushed would-be marathoners aside and dived down to the seaweed beds. There they proceeded to tear great hunks of the seaweed out by the roots, shove it greedily into their mouths and rush back for more.
Some of them thought they would sell bags of the seaweed at the local morning market to other depressed LP people who were also drunk on awamori. They loaded seaweed into the back and front seats of what they thought were 729 cars and then of course tried to drive the cars. That was difficult, if not impossible to do, as the driver’s seat was covered with seaweed.
In endeavouring to solve this problem while not understanding why it had occurred they took more and more seaweed but scattered lots of it wastefully on the road. Huge banks of unloaded seaweed formed on the road to rot.
The marathon organisers were obviously not prepared for these effects. When they did become aware they offered other varieties of seaweed, hid the awamori [well tried to. Awamori is so ubiquitous in Kumejima that it would be impossible to hide it all] and then withdrew their offer of support to the locals.
Unfortunately by then it was too late. Vast areas of the seaweed beds had already been destroyed and the depressed locals, once they had a taste for this sort of seaweed, could not be stopped from continuing to make forays into the sea to tear out the seaweed.
Having drunk the awamori, having had their feet remodelled and wearing their red shoes for the short time necessary, they were now invisible to the marathon swimmers who only became aware of their presence as they watched the seaweed beds disappear.
Some time has now passed since Akai Kutsu’s landfall but none of the Kumejima locals who were affected by the electricity outage have recovered.
The malaise affecting some segments of the population continues to do so and people continue to forget who their partners are.
There are now many people in Kumejima who spend long periods staring mutely at any lights that count down. You can see many surrounding the - now working - traffic lights. You can also see them spending their days in or around Kumejima’s only lift watching the numbered lights count down as the lift descends from floor to floor.
Some researchers in trying to understand this phenomenon have found that these people can be attracted to digital clocks running in reverse. They might also respond to countdown lights used at events such as the countdown to a new year or at the start of a race. However the research so far has not led to any decreases in depression amongst the Kumejima locals. It has, rather, just shown that there a more opportunities for locals to watch a countdown than watching traffic lights.
The loss of seaweed beds off the coast of Eef Beach has had many and some far-reaching effects. Amongst these is sand-drift.
Sand-drift which was previously halted by the seaweed is now having devastating effects on the turtle breeding areas and nesting areas of sea birds. These animals now endeavour to breed and nest in vehicles.
The group opposing the change - which they believe has not yet occurred - from right-hand side driving to left-hand side driving has managed to effect a change to the law such that any 730 car which has turtles or sea-birds breeding in it must be parked in a sea-facing area until the hatchlings have left. The turtles and birds can’t be moved from the car but the car can be driven for normal purposes such as shopping and commuting.
As this group believes the change to driving on the left hand side has not yet occurred, they also believe nobody could be affected by this change to the law. This despite the fact that it’s now quite common to see young turtles and seabirds enjoying the view and waving to passers-by from the windows of a 730 car.
In the hope that the sea-weed will be restored by creation of new reefs, the same group whilst successfully changing the breeding law has also taken to stealing 730 cars [which they don’t believe exist] and locating them on the seabed at Eef Beach.
Some of the 730 cars are quite new and there have been many irate owners finding that their new car is now parked deep in the ocean.
The droppings of the mysterious animal that were used in the making of Kumejima awamori are now much less abundant. They are sufficient only to make enough awamori for local use. The export trade is finished and many people are without the income that they used to have. The number of inebriated people has reduced though which has been some relief to welfare agencies.
As there is no longer any seaweed to curl around swimmers’ feet, it’s no longer possible to introduce new people to invisible swimming. Only those who had previously obtained their shoes and had their feet remodelled can be invisible swimmers now.
In other parts of the country this has resulted in a rise in the number of frustrated swimmers who can’t overtake others in the pools. Further, authorities can also now see swimmers who once would have been invisible. They get great pleasure from giving an electric shock to any person they see trying to swim past the person in front of them.
Seeing more people in the pools, authorities mistakenly believe the numbers in the pools have increased. They have therefore introduced restrictions on entry or limited the time people can spend in pools. Swimmers now receive an electronic tag that records time spent in the pool. If they exceed their allotted time they must exit the pool immediately. Repeated transgressions are dealt with by being made to watch an eight hour film of the 1878 Okinawan traffic changeover.
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