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Sunday, October 11 (archive)

Today in Japan

Watercolor of a police officer talking with residents outside a neighborhood police box, a vintage radio and red apples, migrating geese and matsutake mushrooms in a basket

What day is it?

  1. 2005年決定Safe and Secure Community Day安全・安心なまちづくりの日

    October 11th is Safe and Secure Community Day. The government picked this date in December 2005. It's also the first day of a ten-day crime prevention campaign run by the police and local crime prevention associations. In 2026, the top goal is stopping phone scams, so you may see posters about them at stations and police boxes.

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  2. 1945年The Apple Song Day「リンゴの唄」の日

    On October 11th, 1945, just two months after the war ended, the movie Soyokaze opened. Its song Ringo no Uta, or The Apple Song, soon became far more famous than the film itself and is often called Japan's first postwar hit. Records were hard to make back then, so the song spread mainly because people kept singing it, including on a radio singing contest.

  3. Wild Geese Return (one of the 72 micro-seasons)七十二候「鴻雁来（こうがんきたる）」

    The old calendar splits the year into 72 short seasons of about five days each. Right now it's the one called "wild geese return." Geese fly in from the north to spend the winter in Japan. Their V-shaped lines in the autumn sky have long been a favorite subject for poems and paintings.

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If someone asks you

Q

Japan feels so safe. Is crime really that low here?

A

On the street, it's pretty safe, and walking alone at night is usually fine. But phone scams are a real problem. In 2025, people lost a record of about 142 billion yen to them. One common trick now is a caller pretending to be the police and asking for money. So Japan is safe on the street, but you still need to be careful on the phone.

In season Matsutake mushrooms 松茸 Matsutake are prized autumn mushrooms with a strong, earthy smell. They grow wild in red pine forests and are very hard to farm, which is one reason they are so expensive. Many of the matsutake sold in Japan are imported. People usually cook them simply, in rice or a clear soup, so the smell stands out.
Micro-season 49 of 72 鴻雁来こうがんきたる Wild Geese Return Wild geese arrive from the north to spend the winter. Their V-shaped formations against an autumn sky are a standard subject in Japanese painting.

Phrase of the day

In an emergency, call 110 for the police.

Sentence of the day

Today marks the start of a ten-day crime prevention campaign across Japan. The streets here are fairly safe, but phone scams hit a record high in 2025. The best advice is simple: if a caller asks for money, hang up.

Related topics

Sources

Earlier days