September 24-30 2009 / Okinawa

(this entry was written over the span of a couple of months, so please bear in mind that the earlier parts were written quite a while ago and many things have changed since then.)

Dear reader, it’s been many months since we last saw each other. Of course (but unfortunately), I’ve just been so busy living my life that blogging wasn’t ever able to make it to the top spot on the priority list. Now it’s finally made it.

It’s been raining for a week, which made me a bit slow and listless. That ended when I found out that the reason for the rain was in fact the approach of Typhoon Number Eighteen, which is now about two or three hours away from passing by me, close enough for me to be in the “violently strong wind” area. At the center of the storm the speeds are supposedly over 150 km/h. I’ve got my balcony door just sliiiightly open so I don’t miss the climax of this natural disaster.

Today is also my birthday. Been a while since the last one. So much has happened since then. Good things. Things like settling down, making new friends and deepening existing relationships. Things like progress in music, studies and dance. Things like realizing every day how lucky I am to live this life. Bad things. Things like becoming disillusioned with the idea of love, the fraction of interesting people in the world seemingly dwindling the more people I meet (editor’s note, January 12: now you may realize the importance of the meeting I described in my previous blog entry!). Things like neglecting contact with many of my beloved ones. Things like still not having a mirror, a chair and normal sheets despite having lived in this little apartment for a year.

Admittedly, the bad things took longer to think of, and I was hesitant about the last one. Indeed, 2008-9 has been amazing. Part fiction part fact, my now 10ish-year-long streak of each year being more awesome than the previous continues relentlessly. I’m sure you agree there is an infinite amount of exciting possibilities in this life, but the question is how good are you at grabbing them as they fly by you? Terminal velocity, split decision, do or die, DO DO DO! But enough with the reflection. Let’s get to what I’ve been itching to share with you, to the point of not really telling my IRL friends much about it in fear of losing the creative energy needed to write this blog entry.

The story is Okinawa. It’s been exactly a week since I came back from that most southern prefecture of the Japanese archipelago, where I spent the last week of my summer vacation. A beautiful, beautiful week. Let’s recount the week’s events while enjoying some eye candy, and I’ll add a couple of thoughtful personal comments as we go.

The first thing I fell in love with as I exited the airport in my friend Tomo’s car with her extremely cute daughter in the front seat, was her extremely cute daughter. And then the trees of Naha. I forgot the name, but Maputo has the same (or at least strikingly similar) trees with red/orange blossoms and small leaves spread out in the shape of big leaves that kind of create a canopy. And the Tropical Smell, which has been a part of me since I first set foot in Mozambique in 1992. Oh! I love the tropics.

We went to pick up her other kid and then dropped me off at my hostel, smack in the middle of Naha. Hostels in Naha (Okinawa’s provincial capital with about 200k population) are very cheap and wonderful and I highly recommend them to everyone (especially one called Base – see later on). I spent an hour or two walking up and down Kokusai Doori (International Street), one of the main arteries of the town, taking my time to choose a restaurant while listening to street performances of Okinawan music and trying to form a first image of what kind of people inhabit the island (difficult).




After food, it was bar time, and though I do enjoy Japanese bars very much, I felt like a foreign bar might be a better place to orient myself on the first night. That turned out to be a wise decision, since Paul, the ex-backpacker-for-11-years owner of the bar (called ‘Rehab’ – “the process of restoring people to society”), gave me the invaluable hint that Saturday night on Akajima (one of the small islands just off the West coast of the main island) might be well worth it. Read on. But before we get there, here’s a sample of the people I ran into that night. Not-quite-twice-my-age P. from Scotland, high school English teacher and folk/blues/rock guitarist; N., a girl my age from Hokkaido who’d come to Okinawa a year or so earlier on vacation, decided to move and moved. Nurses and doctors are in high demand all over Japan, so it seems being qualified for either allows you to live wherever you want in this country; and, a fascinating first in Japan, Y., a girl slightly younger than me with what you could consider a genuinely messed up youth: useless parents, no money for high school, working odd jobs around military bases – which gave her fluent, albeit dirty, English -, now living with her anti-social, uneducated and unemployed younger sister who never leaves the house, as well as with her two fatherless daughters. And she was a positive person. I was moved, because it’s one thing for me to always be positive – I’ve had the best youth imaginable – but another thing for someone with no reason to believe that there is anything good in this world to do the same thing. I was refreshed, because Japan is full of identical people with identical lives and identical thoughts and no real problems (more about that and the counterarguments another day). I was hooked on Okinawa.

The next day, my friend picked me up in the morning to take me around the southern part of the main island. The day consisted of visiting several war and peace memorials, planned around a cozy Okinawan lunch in a beautiful little restaurant hidden away where no tourist would find it, but very popular with the locals. Much as I enjoyed lunch, that pleasant feeling was greatly outweighed by the much more serious feelings the two memorials left me with. Let me elaborate a bit.

The first memorial we visited was the Himeyuri Peace Museum, founded by the Himeyuri Alumnae Incorporated Foundation – explicitly without any governmental funding, as my friend sharply noted while we were parking. The Museum stands at the site where used to be a girls’ high school. When WWII was well underway and the Japanese realized that an American invasion of their territory was going to happen very soon and first in Okinawa - the southernmost part of Japan - the national government decided to wage a war of attrition: try to delay an invasion of mainland Japan (the center of political and economical activity) for as long as possible, no matter what the cost. In other words, the official policy was: “Fuck Okinawa, who needs that shithole? Let’s use high school girls for a meat shield.”



In the spring of 1945, before the U.S. invasion in May, girls from two high-class high schools were recruited into the Okinawa Army Field Hospital. Besides their usual classes, they were now also taught how to treat wounded soldiers, how to fire guns (I saw real footage of one of those lessons…girls in school uniform firing machine guns: Battle Royale comes to Earth), and of course that Japan would win the war no matter what and their purpose in life was to serve the nation (the usual propaganda films etc.), just in case they didn’t particularly feel like dying for no reason.

Long story short, the invasion started and Japanese mainland soldiers began dying in swarms. The schools, now an official army division in themselves, started helping out the Japanese army (running through battle lines to deliver messages and such), until on June 18th the army, apparently changing tactics, suddenly dismissed that “division” and left the students with nowhere to go, seeing as how their towns were in the middle of being bombed to pieces. So the head teacher of the schools decided to call everyone together and perform the beautiful speech “You are free to go! I hope at least one of you can make it alive”, after which disappearing from the scene himself.

The students, feeling very patriotic thanks to all those interesting movies, said to themselves “I have to serve the country I have to serve the country I have to serve the country” and continued to care for the soldiers in the underground cave complex a.k.a. Army Field Hospital. By now there weren’t that many soldiers left, but at least those merely missing an arm or a leg were kind enough to ask the girls who dragged them into the caves from the battlefield why those fucking bitches couldn’t take better care of the mainland heroes who came to save them. A sentimental detail that was enough to make this Dutch dude shed a couple of tears, was that the Himeyuri girls, truly believing what they were told - that the war would end very very soon -, were still carrying their school supplies with them because they expected to resume normal classes at any moment. Plus of course that good old war-time classic “Surrendering is betraying your country, and besides, the Americans are going to gang-rape us: that nice countryman of ours gave us a hand-grenade, so let’s blow ourselves up!”, which was also quite popular among high school girls in this specific episode of Japanese history.

Out of the 240 students and teachers who made up the two high schools these girls came from, 226 died.

Before learning anything about Okinawan culture, which I did during the rest of my holiday, visiting this memorial was the first step towards my understanding of the Okinawan refusal to be considered Japanese (or at least its recent aspects), and the crazy complicatedness of the political and personal, human relationships between Okinawa, mainland Japan, and the U.S. (quoting Wikipedia: “The total area of the 14 US bases on Okinawa is 233 square kilometres (90 sq mi), occupying 18% of the main island. Okinawa accounts for less than one percent of Japan's land, but hosts about two-thirds of the 40,000 American forces in the country”).

After the aforementioned tropical, delicious, cool, soothing lunch, we moved on.



The next monument we visited was the government-funded Peace Memorial Park, which is about World War II in general (with a strong “war is bad” vibe to it) and the Okinawa part of WWII in particular, with honorary tombstones engraved with the names of the thousands of people that died during that time. Interestingly, not only are the names of civilians and soldiers mixed, also are those of Americans and Japanese. Sort of like a “in death, all humans are equal” philosophy. Though I like the basic idea, the families of all the Koreans who were imported in to Japan, forced to work as soldiers for the Japanese army and consequently died, didn’t! I hear they came to the Peace Memorial en masse to protest, and with success: all the Korean tombstones have been moved to their own “section” of the Park. In the eyes of the Koreans as well then, “Japan” was the Bad Guy of WWII.




My suspicion that the Himeyuri memorial was more authentic and less propagandistic because it was independently founded was proven right to a certain extent. The Peace Memorial Park was indeed more pro-Japan. However, I must admit I was positively surprised by the care given to the Okinawan side of the story. Though not nearly as brutal and explicit as the Himeyuri memorial, there was still considerable attention for all the wrong that has been done on Okinawa. But more than that, the Peace Memorial is fucking HUGE!!! It’s truly of monumental proportions, with beautiful gardens and an amazing ocean view. Nice for an afternoon stroll, but maybe a bit too far detached from the reality of the war. Too “easy”, if you will.





Before heading back to Naha, we stopped by an amusement park of sorts, “Okinawa Culture Land”. Managed to catch and even participate in some nice traditional music & dancing (see pic). In the evening then, we picked up my friend’s kids on the way home, and I had dinner with the family in an American-style restaurant run by the Blue Seal ice-cream brand, which of course included a great all-you-can-eat deal on said brand of superawesome ice-cream.











Later that same night, I met up with N., the Hokkaidoan girl, and we drove around a bit to see what Naha looked like after hours, with off-duty soldiers and tourists flocking to the American-style food & drink arcades.



The next morning, I was to set off by ferry to the much smaller and relaxing Kerama islands, where I would spend a couple of days in pure bliss. Until the boat arrived at the first island (a little over an hour off-shore), I was hesitating about which one to go to first, but settled for Aka, the smallest of the populated islands (Zamami, where I would go the next day, is only about 15 minutes further). Akajima, as it’s called in Japanese, was one of those beautiful experiences that will stay with me forever. Pure peace.






There were a bunch of pickup trucks at the harbor when we arrived, and most of the people that got off the ferry seemed to know which one was theirs, so pretty soon I was the only one left standing with no idea where to go. Scored a map and started walking towards the beach. On the way, I ran into a group of people heading in the opposite direction and quickly became friends with one of them called Kazu. He was to become my closest buddy during the entire trip.







Kazu was also in on the special party that would be held that night at the Beach Bar, which Paul (the bar owner) had told me about back in Naha. Later that day, we met up for dinner and proceeded to the party, which was much fun with music and dance performances, a whole bunch of interesting characters (including Paul) and both sunset and moonrise visible from the same tiny secluded bay. Paradise, if you will.
















At some point in the night, people began moving towards their sleeping places. Since I didn’t have a reservation a guesthouse, but more than that didn’t have the required money, I was prepared to sleep anywhere. I ended up tagging along with a 10-something people group lead by Paul & his friends, who were all going to camp on another beach. That beach had no real path leading to it, which meant some drunk stumbling through the jungle (a couple of personal injuries, lost shoes etc.). The destination was more than worth it though; I’ll let the pics speak for themselves. Huge campfire, all kinds of drinks, people coming and going from tents doing who-knows-what, and good stories to share.







The next day I moved on to Zamami, the next island the ferry stops at. Bigger, more developed and more touristy than Akajima, it was still paradise. I rented a tent and camped 10 meters away from one of the beaches. In the evening, I bought a bagful of beers and chatted up a couple that was camping next to me. Okinawa-born Japanese of mainland descent, it was very interesting to hear their perspective of Okinawa life.






















At about 1 pm the following afternoon, I ran into Souichi, a diver kid who I’d met at the Beach Bar party two nights earlier; he was showing two long-time female friends of his around, who had come to visit from their hometown in Shizuoka. I joined them and we hung out around the beaches…just chilled – best feeling in the world. We made it back to Akajima in the late afternoon and went snorkeling close to the harbor in a spot that is known for its 90% sea turtle spotting chance. After some searching we did indeed find one, and it was quite wonderful to take a deep breath, swim five meters down and chill with it, imagining that it was my friend.














That night it was beach bar time again, and this time I had a couple of nice quick deep talks, including one with one of the surf instructors on the island. It always gives you a warm sense of not-aloneness when you run into people who have arrived at the same conclusions about life as you, despite having come a totally different way and often being a different age (though of late I seem to be more in sync with people older than me rather than younger…or maybe that’s just my fantasy). Until about 2 am, there were plenty of people, but the bar closed around 3ish, and since I didn’t have any other place to stay, I decided to try the only thing around: the beach. Though it was warm enough, at some point it started raining, and my first experience of “trying to sleep while naked parts of your body are being rained on” taught me that it’s very hard to fall asleep in such circumstances. So I climbed up to the bar’s tree platform that provided some shelter thanks to the branches and leaves above, and managed to fall asleep despite the smallness of the platform and rain still occasionally hitting my face. But when the rain stopped, it was just about time for sunrise, and I moved back to the beach and slept for five beautiful hours, just me and Mother Nature. The sound of the waves … even without closing my eyes, I can hear it now, louder than my humming external hard disk or the soft jazz playing in the background as another Couch Surfer is trying to find some rest in this stranger’s home.









Tuesday, then. A pretty dead day on Akajima, but I was headed back to the mainland anyway. Souichi saw me off at the harbor. I hope I’ll meet him again sometime, but he’s not very responsive to my e-mails. Oh well, long distance friendships are tough anyway (says the boy who just fell in love with a girl living halfway across the globe…life is one big joke isn’t it?). On the mainland, I found a very good hostel (free bikes, internet, musical instruments, good kitchen, etc.) called BASE (see pic). Highly recommended for your stay in Naha.






That evening – my last -, I met up with Kazu, who was back at work in his hospital now, and we visited our dear friend Saki in her newly opened and very stylish restaurant. Saki…another wonderful character who moved from Okinawa straight into her private little spot in my heart. We met at the beach bar party on Saturday, where she’d given a little singing performance. A very creative and energetic lady of perhaps 29 or 33 years of age; the kind of girl I’m taking an interest in more and more lately: with a strong personality, dreams and fantasies, a willingness to be free while at the same time being serious, productive and hard-working. Screw the students. After talking a lot to the girl who was the focus of my previous blog entry, I realized that being friends or lovers with someone above your own age can have great educational value, more than I had previously thought. Unfortunately, student life and working life are usually quite out-of-sync, so it requires extra effort to maintain any sort of relationship between two such people. But let us all face our challenges! Live, learn, become stronger, repeat!





Anyway, after dinner and some drinks, Kazu left for home, having to start work again early the next morning, and Saki took me to another bar run by a friend of hers. It had recently been redesigned, with the top floor acting as an art gallery sometimes and the whole place having an artsy/literary-and-very-cozy atmosphere. The bar owner, a rough but sweet man in his sixties with a recently new-born daughter, had interesting stories, and he ordered me to send his greetings to his good friend in Kyoto, a bar owner in a place around Pontocho, I believe Ikeyan knows more or less where it should be. I still haven’t delivered his greetings, and feel like I really must soon. The amount of genuinely interesting bar owners in this country is staggering!

After saying goodbye to Saki, I got back to my hostel at 5ish, took a nap, then the plane back to Osaka and one wonderful week was over.

I feel so alive.