Yellow sand

A week ago there was a horrible episode of kosa (yellow sand), blown over from China, and I saw the strangest and most hideous sunset I have ever seen. The sun was a grey-white disc low in the murky sky, and I could look directly at it without any problem. In fact thought I was looking at the moon at first. It was grim. (There are some videos here, but none of them show the sunset.)

The kosa has been getting worse in recent years. When I first came here, I don't remember ever seeing it like that. I was told about it, but never really noticed. But in the last few years it has been clearly visible. It leaves surfaces gritty, turns the sky a sickly colour, and for many people it causes allergy problems.

Kosa is getting worse because of desertification in China, and the sand picks up various unpleasant elements as it is carried over rapidly industrializing areas before descending on cities in China, Korea and Japan. It contains some nasty stuff.

But the real reason for this post is that I was talking about the sand the other day with my friend, and we discovered that neither of us know how to pronounce the word desertification. Both the options we tried sounded wrong. One sounded like China was losing a certificate, and the other sounded like we were talking about the phenomenon of land in China turning into ice cream.

Where do you put the stress?



(Addendum of interest for Japan and Korea residents: I just found this U.S. army site showing the yellow sand levels in various parts of Korea. Yongsan is in Seoul. If it is high there, I imagine we can expect something similar a day or two later here in Japan, and it is probably a good idea to stock up on face masks. I know I was totally unprepared last week.)