Although I generally like my adopted country of Japan, there are a few aspects of life here that aren’t so much fun. Hay-fever season and being so close to nuclear-happy North Korea are two of these, and a third would be 黄砂 kousa, the “yellow sand” that blows over from China. Known as Asian dust, yellow sand or yellow wind (I swear that’s what it’s really called), it’s a weather phenomenon whereby fine dust is blown from the deserts of Mongolia eastward towards Japan where they irritate people’s eyes and make our cars filthy. While the dust is usually not a major concern, this year has been extremely bad, causing the sun to disappear in the dust clouds and making actual sand dunes appear around J-List. Among other problems, jumbo jets cannot fly when contaminated with the dust and must be meticulously cleaned before they can fly, which costs several thousand dollars.
“Yellow sand” blowing from China is a problem in Japan.
