KAGOSHIMA
Caitlin lives and works here
"When she pictured the city now and tried to describe it in letters to friends or family back home, she saw only the eerie noon darkness that reminded her of old industrial Pittsburgh photographs, and in the face of that dense gloom she saw an irrational drive for control--hosed sidewalks, dusted fruit and vegetables, chamois-glossed cars, courteous queues, pressed uniforms and white gloves." (PAGE 15)
The city of Kagoshima is located on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan.
| Kagoshima Prefecture lies at the southern tip of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main islands of Japan. Long referred to as Satsuma, the region was under the powerful rule of the Shimazu family for hundreds of years and served as a base for trade with China and Southeast Asian and European countries--even to some extent during the closed-door years of the Tokugawa shogunate. In Ash, through a government sponsored teaching program, Caitlin is assigned to Kagoshima City, long a prosperous castle town and now a city of half a million that extends well into the steep surrounding hills. The city has a moist, mild climate, is often slammed by typhoons, and sits on the western side of Kinko or Kagoshima Bay, across from the looming volcano Sakurajima. Sakurajima's activity dominates and defines the city of Kagoshima. In times of heavy ash people do, as Caitlin writes to her father, greet each other with ash small-talk. Depending on prevailing winds and the whims of the volcano, daily ash-fall in Kagoshima City varies from a light dusting to a thick and immobilizing blanketing with lapilli "bombs" that occasionally shatter car windshields. The plus side of all this volcanic activity is that the region is dotted with hot-springs; there are more than 200 sources of hot-springs or onsen within Kagoshima City itself. |
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Sakurajima • Iso Gardens (Sengan'en) • Kirishima and Ebino-Kogen • Local pottery
KICS (Kagoshima International Citizen's Society Web Page):
http://www.minc.ne.jp/kics/
Japan Information Network:
http://jin.jcic.or.jp/
Kagoshima Prefecture's homepage:
http://www.pref.kagoshima.jp/home/pref/english/
