How to Read “天災は忘れた頃にやってくる”
tensai wa wasureta koro ni yatte kuru
Meaning of “天災は忘れた頃にやってくる”
This proverb means that natural disasters strike again when people have forgotten the terror of past disasters and their vigilance has weakened.
Disasters have a certain cyclical nature, with major earthquakes, typhoons, floods, and other events recurring at intervals of decades to centuries. However, human memory fades with time, the generation that directly experienced disasters ages, and eventually those memories are lost from society. Then people begin to neglect disaster preparedness, build homes in dangerous locations, and take disaster prevention measures lightly. It is during such periods of complacency that disasters occur, as if seeing through human psychology. This proverb is mainly used regarding natural disasters like earthquakes and typhoons, employed in contexts that teach the importance of constant preparedness and vigilance. Rather than mere coincidence, it expresses the frightening nature of disasters as an inevitability that occurs when human psychology and natural phenomena cycles overlap—words filled with deep insight.
Origin and Etymology
This proverb is widely known as words spoken by physicist and essayist Terada Torahiko (1878-1935). Terada Torahiko was also a disciple of Natsume Soseki, a person who combined the cool observational eye of a scientist with literary expressive power.
He witnessed the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923) and natural disasters of the early Showa period, and while engaging in disaster research as a scientist, he deeply contemplated the relationship between human memory and disaster cycles. While scientifically analyzing natural phenomena like earthquakes and typhoons, Terada was concerned about how people allowed memories of disasters to fade.
However, there are no definitive records showing that Terada Torahiko actually left these words in writing, and it is highly likely that this expression was compiled by later people based on his thoughts and statements. Nevertheless, it became established as words representing his spirit of warning about disasters, and remains a maxim frequently quoted in the field of disaster prevention today. It can truly be said to be words befitting Terada Torahiko, where scientific thinking and deep insight into humanity are combined.
Interesting Facts
In his famous essay “Natural Disasters and National Defense,” Terada Torahiko also quoted another proverb about the optimistic nature of Japanese people toward disasters: “Once past the throat, the heat is forgotten.” He used multiple proverbs, not just one disaster experience, to express humanity’s forgetful nature.
Also, the background to this proverb’s creation includes numerous major disasters that struck Japan from the Edo period through the Meiji and Taisho eras. There was an interval of about 70 years from the Great Ansei Earthquake (1855) to the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923), and it was an era when people truly experienced disasters occurring “when forgotten.”
Usage Examples
- Just because there have been few earthquakes recently doesn’t mean we should let our guard down, since natural disasters come when forgotten
- While organizing disaster supplies, I remembered the saying that natural disasters come when forgotten
Modern Interpretation
In modern society, the meaning of this proverb has become more complex. With the development of information technology, records of past disasters are preserved in detail and can be accessed at any time. The accuracy of weather forecasting and earthquake prediction has also improved, making situations of disasters coming “when forgotten” less likely to occur than before.
However, new problems have also emerged precisely because we live in an age of information overload. There is a phenomenon where people become accustomed to disaster information flowing daily, causing their sense of crisis to become numb. Also, excessive dependence on science and technology can create complacency that “it’s okay because we can predict it.”
Furthermore, in modern times, this proverb has come to be used in fields other than natural disasters. It is quoted when sounding alarms about various risks that occur cyclically, such as economic crises, pandemics, and cyber attacks. Particularly during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic spread, this proverb was frequently used in contexts pointing out that lessons from past pandemics had not been utilized.
Precisely because information overflows in modern society, we may need to reconsider the essential meaning of this proverb so as not to lose sight of truly important lessons.
When AI Hears This
In modern times, we are witnessing a remarkable phenomenon called “the acceleration of forgetting.” With information flowing by the second on social media and news cycles turning over within days, our memories are fading at an unprecedented speed.
From the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011) to the Kumamoto Earthquake (2016) was 5 years, and from the Kumamoto Earthquake to the Noto Peninsula Earthquake (2024) was 8 years. What used to be considered “when people had forgotten”—intervals of several decades—has now shortened to less than 10 years in modern times. Yet our speed of forgetting is even faster than that.
For example, while the tsunami footage from the Great East Japan Earthquake remains vivid today, the struggles of reconstruction and the lessons learned have already faded from many people’s memories. On Twitter (now X), hashtags about major disasters get buried under other topics within just a week.
In other words, the human tendency to forget easily, which Terada Torahiko pointed out in 1935, has been super-accelerated by modern technology. As a result, we have entered an era where natural disasters strike not “when people have forgotten,” but “before people forget” or “while people are in the process of forgetting.”
This reversal means that maintaining disaster preparedness awareness has become more difficult. Precisely because we live in an age of information overload, we need to make conscious efforts to preserve our memories.
Lessons for Today
What this proverb teaches us today is “the importance of being prepared” and “the meaning of passing down memories.” Not just disasters, but various difficulties come to life cyclically. It’s important to prepare for the next trial especially during good times.
In modern society, we can apply this lesson at both individual and organizational levels. At home, this includes checking disaster supplies and confirming evacuation routes; for companies, it means reviewing crisis management systems and formulating BCP (Business Continuity Plans)—there are many things that should be done precisely during peaceful times.
This proverb also teaches the importance of transmitting knowledge across generations. If you have experienced disasters, you have a responsibility to pass those memories and lessons to the next generation. Conversely, if you haven’t experienced them directly, you need an attitude of listening to ancestral wisdom and continuing to learn.
Forgetting is a natural human activity, but consciously keeping what must not be forgotten in memory and translating it into action—such a proactive attitude may be the way of life this proverb asks of us.
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