My friend Elizabeth came through with an explanation of Sanrinbou, which I wrote about on April 13th. Elizabeth's lived here for 35 years--she knows everything!
"SAN RINBOU... written with the characters for "three" (SAN), "next door" (tonari, also pronounced RIN) and "dead" (shinu, also pronounced BOU). part of a larger, very complicated system of superstitions. especially bad news for building houses (thought that 3 houses to rt, left, front, back would all burn down to the ground if built on such a day."
It sounds a little bit like my mother's cursed lasagne--every time she makes lasagne, the neighborhood suffers a catastrophe, usually a house on fire.
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