Twisted Humans, A Family Curse & Strange Houses

I decided to embark on this 'Strange' series by anonymous author and Youtuber Uketsu (雨穴). There are three books, not exactly connected to each other. There's a fourth 'Strange Maps' (October 2025) that should have its English release coming out in 2027 Q1.

I began with 'Strange Houses' 「変な家 1」. This was first published in Japanese in 2021, and was translated to English by Jim Rion and released in 2025. It's a short novella at 144 pages. 

I took a look at Uketsu's youtube channel, and gave up after 15 minutes. I'm not a very podcast or video person. I'd rather read the book, which is a summary of the whole concept. It's also much faster. 

This book isn't very imaginative in terms of a plot twists or developments. Any reader who fancies herself an amateur detective and is into solving mysteries would know what comes next. But as far as the stories go, they're fairly Japanese in terms of phenomenon unique to the country. It's not complicated, but the intriguing draw of oddly built houses and their dark history is truly irresistible. 

From the first strange perfect house with an odd dead space between the walls and windowless child's rooms, the journalist-mystery-author and his architect and draughtsman friend Kurihara investigated a few other strange houses. They have windowless rooms, bizzare hallways and trap doors. They hint at a dark history of the family who have commissioned these houses, including locking a child in a windowless room and hid its existence completely. 

In four chapters and an afterword, the book utilized floorplans to illustrate the discussions and outline how they solved each mystery. The first chapter had me doubling up in laughter — A house that is intended to hide the murderous intent of its occupants, including using their child to kill. Then the discovery of a second house with a similar floor plans followed, and a third.

The author and Kurihara went to the houses as well. The first known house in Saitama built in 2016 and was burnt down within 2 years, and the next one in Tokyo built in 2018. The timelines matched a story that Yuzuki Katabuchi talked about. Yuzuki had approached them in order to find out what happened to her sister Ayano. They also realized that Yuzuki's grandparents' home followed a similar layout, with a hidden room behind the altar.

Through their investigation of neighboring houses and the neighbors, they found out that the houses were owned by a family named Katabuchi. Keita and Ayano had young toddler named Hiroto who was about 1.5 years old, and another child about ten years old who might not have been registered or their biological child. 

It all unfolded from there. The Katabuchi family was old, and traditional and burdened with a family curse known as the 'Offering of the Left Hand'. A branch of the family splintered off from the main branch, and became more successful. The entire 'Offering of the Left Hand' nonsense was started by a family feud, incest, a fake mystic, a missing left hand in children born of incest, genetics, child murderers, and pure stupidity that lasted for generations.

We have Yuzuki Katabuchi's sister, Ayano Katabuchi who lived in that house in Saitama. Ayano was the designated successor.  taken from her original family at 12 years old. She vanished, and only resurfaced eleven years later, when she was in her early twenties. Ayano Katabuchi was married to a man named Keita. He took her name when they married. And their child was named Hiroto. Ayano and Keita were in love, and tried very hard to resist what the Katabuchi family asked for them. They didn't want to kill anyone, and they didn't want a child to kill anyone. 

In the end, Ayano's husband Keita killed everyone dedicated to the lifting the family curse in order to protect her and their child, and Momoya. Keita went on the run, and nobody knew where he went. Yuzuki and Ayano's mother Yoshie, isn't innocent either. She might have been a snitch, and was working with her ex-husband's family. This was a total family drama and tragedy stemmed from ignorance and superstitions. Humans are truly evil when they are petty, jealous and competitive. 

今年端午的鹹肉粽子

Chinese rice dumplings are one of those things that I really like, but I don't want to eat a mountain of it. I only eat Hokkien rice dumplings for the savory intense flavors. It's hilarious when every year in May and June, when the Double Fifth Festival comes round, and I find a few rice dumplings in my freezer that are from the previous year. Hahahah 

But last year, I made concerted effort to eat them before this year. And I didn't anyhow stock too many. So this year, I only found two in the freezer before the new ones came in. Hahahaha. Two are fine; they're like psychological safety keepers in case I suddenly need food. Like how I always keep an unexpired can of spam in the larder. Heh.

This week was rough. The quarter is closing, and it's hectic for both the husband and I. Cleaning up Choya's liquid poop or taking her out to poop and seeing her in pain added to my stress. I told the husband to compartmentalize and let me handle it. He needs to expend more brain cells to sort out his work. He has been on calls till midnight, and up again at 7am. 

We needed easy and quick meals. We have sous vide chicken breasts frozen, and these are easy to thaw out to add to any meals. I steamed sweet potatoes and grilled pumpkin. So we have easy carbs too. And rice dumplings came to our rescue. I'm very lucky to have the friends' Papa Tan's rice dumplings again. It's a privilege to receive these homemade gifts when the friends' parents are still robust enough to make them. 

I also hopped in on the shipping when J ordered rice dumplings from Joo Chiat Kim Choo. They offered mini-sized dumplings too. Perfect. I can't eat that much glutinous rice! Got five pieces for myself. I generally don't need any additional sauces to go with rice dumplings. I'm conscious of sodium levels and such. But adding a dash of sambal or XO sauce is often fun. 

Metronidazole Round 3

Choya got the runs again. Round 3. And the culprit is a clostridium overgrowth. Again. Within two months of the previous bout, and a week of tapering off the last bits of metronidazole. WTF. She has gut dysbiosis, so it isn't strong enough to bear any bit of clostridium overgrowth. If I don't heal the gut and make it resilient enough, she's not going to be able to fully heal.

I was glad that I made the call to take Choya to the clinic at 8pm to do a fecal swab and insisted on antibiotics on standby. The fecal swab was absolutely necessary to eliminate a parasitic infection. She is clear for giardiasis, amebiasis, and worms, eggs and other parasites. That fulfilled our socially-responsible obligations to her fwens. 

I know Choya too well, so I recognize this kind of diarrhea. Once it begins, it wouldn't stop. This is not something ProKolin/ProMax or psyllium husk can heal. She didn't have much appetite and she was in pain with terrible tummy spasms. Purging 6x in 18 hours, and in this worrying manner made me give her the first light dose of metronidazole at 2am. It worked. That gave her some rest and sleep.

She didn't have the runs the next morning. That 9am walk was to decompress. She also ate a small meal. I'm almost glad that it didn't turn into hemorrhagic gastroenteritis. Most things don't faze me. Except Choya. Seeing her in pain made my heart break. 

I was desperately trying to trace back what the triggers could be. Too much cheese... a too-rich dehydrated surf clam and white bait? A blade of grass that she licked that held terrible bacteria? Thunderstorms? Where did I go wrong? When this dog also has chronic IBD, stress and anxiety can also cause a clostridium boom. The tapering off from the previous round was done with just tiny sprinkles; they wouldn't have had this effect of allowing clostridium overgrowth this fast within a week. I need to be stricter with food, and also not allow her to lick or sniff that much. Boring is the word.  

I had a little cry, and got on with it. I'm going to throw everything in the arsenal to sort out her gut dysbiosis. No more complacency. I have never once felt resentful for this choice to stay in town to be with Choya. I'm glad I'm around to handle this one. The husband wouldn't be able to do so. This is crunch time at work for him, and I'd rather him focus on that. I have no issues to be the one to manage the dog. She's Momma's girl.

All right. Here we go again.