THE TEA CUP SEISMOGRAPH (Biographical)

I've written about my first trip to Japan before in 1965 (You Are So Lucky).*  Near the end of that 10 week stay, a Japanese scientific colleague, Dr. Hajimi Kurasawa, and I were in the city of Shimabara in the southern island of Kyushu to sample the active volcano Aso.  While there, we visited the White Castle of Shimabrra restored in 1964.**  This area was a hot bed of Christianity in the 17 century.  The Shogan decided he didn't like this "foreign" religion in his domain so he went after the Christians and they holed up in the White Castle.  The Shogan couldn't take the castle in a five month siege so he bought the cooperation of

White Castle of Shimabara

the Dutch fleet nearby, and they shelled the castle, breaking the resistance.  Then the Shogan put a cross in the ground and had the captives stomp on it.  If they refused, off with their heads.  If they stomped on it, he felt they weren't good enough Christians to worry about so he let them go.  You could buy souvenirs of the "cross on the ground" in the trinket store.

We moved on to Kumabara and stayed in a Japanese inn in the huge caldera of Aso Volcano, which contains the active volcano Naka-Dake where we were to collect samples.  In the morning, there was an earthquake.  If the epicenter of an earthquake is off to the side , the surface movement is back and forth such as we experienced in Tokyo.  If you are over the epicenter, however, the movement is up and down.  Our earthquake at Aso was up and down!  I sat there Japanese style and watched the window and wondered when it was going to pop out.  I also worried a bit that we were on the second floor and what if it collapsed?  It was that severe.

(picture courtesy of National Geographic)

It seemed, of course, that the shaking went on forever, however, it must have been much less  than a minute.  Well, when the shaking stopped I looked at my Japanese colleague and his Yukata (sleeping robe) was wet in an embarrassing place.  Tea had spilled out of his cup, wetting the groin area.  So I laughed and said that you
were scared, eh, pointing at his crotch?  Then he laughed and pointed at mine and said that he guessed I was scared too.  Sure enough, the crotch area of my Yukata was wetted also.  I said that we could make a tea cup seismograph rating the strength of an earthquake by how much tea was spilled from a tea cup.  Actually, the Chinese had invented a directional seismograph about 132 AD *** though ours would measure magnitude as well.

Incidentally, Kumamoto has its own castle, the Black Castle of Kumamoto.****  Though it is a fine castle, it does not have a history like the White Castle of Shimabara.

Black Castle of Kumamoto

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-are-so-lucky.html
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimabara_Castle
*** http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/science/seismograph.htm
**** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumamoto_Castle