Okinawa City Okinawa (沖縄市)

Readings for November 17, 2008

2008-11-17T16:38:00.003+09:00

We'll start with some interesting news on crime:
"Where can I get a bag?" there has been a recent spate of arrests involving marijuana use here in Japan, most notably being the two sumo wrestlers that were arrested. If I understand correctly, it is not illegal to cultivate marijuana in Japan if you are a Shinto priest. It's not that Shinto advocates the smoking of marijuana, but the use of the plant is necessary for certain ritual purposes. By far, the most abused drugs in Japan are alcohol and amphetamines. In fact, amphetamines were such a problem in the wake of the War in the Pacific that it is illegal to have over the counter cold medicines like Nyquil or Sudafed here because of their potential use in manufacturing meth.

The Elderly Life of Crime - Japan's population is becoming lopsided, with the fastest-growing section of the population being those over the age of 65. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer babies are being born. This means that the university system here is becoming bankrupt, and that health care and social security measures for the elderly are being eroded because the State is reducing the funding for these programs. In response, more and more of the elderly are becoming criminals. I am having hard time finding a better example of why poverty is such a major concern. Typically poverty looks like distended bellies in a remote part of the globe, but the reality is that poverty is pernicious and ubiquitous. And sometimes a rational response to poverty is crime. Being a prisoner here provides not only three hots and a cot, but it also provides a reliable schedule of tasks to be completed and a consistent relationship between those that are jailed and those that treat them within the criminal justice system. Many of these criminal elderly lack precisely these cornerstones to personhood as conceived here in Japan.

Google and the Battle for Nihongo - Google Trends, that fun-filled zeitgeist site is doing well here in Japan. I think it's really interesting to see the rise of English education in Japan and the concomitant rise in katakana-izing Japanese. For those that don't know, the Japanese have a special syllabary (they don't use an alphabet, but combinations of consonants and vowels) so that they can recreate the sounds of foreign languages. As an example my name is Paul but the Japanese don't have an "L" sound in their syllabary so to get as close as they can to my name it becomes Po-Ru. Once you know how to read katakana you would be amazed at how much you can get done here in Japan. That doesn't mean that you can write very much, though. For reading and speaking, katakana is very powerful; for writing and more "adult" reading you must really know hiragana and kanji. Hiragana are the native Japanese syllabary, taken from Chinese characters, and it is from these that katakana are developed. Kanji are the Japanese versions of Chinese characters (hanji). Kanji are awesome for communicating complicated ideas and are simply necessary to be considered as educated as a high school student. But, katakana are used to communicate foreign words (and so, ideas) and this exoticism is tres chic among the younger Japanese. So, even native things get katakana-ized but there is the potential erosion of the use of kanji which is a star in the constellation of cultural artifacts, like Shinto, or natto, that makes the Japanese "Japanese." This "Japanese"-ness is a constant talking point among the Japanese. As an American it's hard for me to relate because when I learn about America I learn about 250 years - the Japanese learn about a period that is nearly ten times as long.

Mail-a-Squid - It seems counter-intuitive that a society that stresses the collective as the Japanese do should simultaneously be so fanatical about the local. The best paradigm for understanding this phenomena (again, part of what makes Japan so "Japanese") is Thomas Kasulis' Intimacy or Integrity. In the above article we learn about the Wakayama Prefecture's fishing cooperative that is trying to promote interest in their region by selling New Year's (a family time like Thanksgiving and Christmas combined) greeting cards made out of dried squid. Dried squid is like the beef jerky of America - ubiquitous.

And Speaking of Processed Meats That Are Ubiquitous in Okinawa - Aww, Spam. The world economy is in a profound shift (which looks like apocalypse for Wall Street) and when the U.S. has to tighten its belt, it also buys a ton of canned meat. This canned meat tendency goes wherever poorer Americans go and Okinawa has become a major Spam-eating center.

Nago's Pineapple Park!

2008-11-14T17:23:00.002+09:00

Back in May we had some guests visit from overseas. We took them to the best place we could think of: Nago's Pineapple Park. Classic.

You get there and can take an electric golf cart from the future which drives itself around a field of pineapples while you are guided by "Pineapple herself" telling you interesting things about pineapples.

Then you get bombarded with pineapple products. The wine ain't all bad, but this is something you want to share with a lot of people so that you only have to drink a little. The best was the pineapple white chocolate.

Two Things I Saw That I Wouldn't See in the States

2008-11-14T17:05:00.003+09:00

I've long harbored a desire to be a new member of the Beastie Boys, and while driving through Naha I thought I'd found my chance when I saw:

Black Candy, Beastie Shop.
Unfortunately it has nothing to do with the Beastie Boys and everything to do with Japanese fighting beetles! These were some of the coolest looking bugs I've ever seen, and they were hundreds and hundreds of dollars! Every year in the mainland there is a big tournament where the kids can have their beetles wrestle. Apparently these tournaments are a source of financial loss for many in the Ryukyus.

The other thing I saw here recently that I know I won't see in the U.S. any time soon was this:

This is the paper place mat that comes on the food tray your given at MOS Burger. MOS is like a WholeFoods-meets-McDonalds kind of fast food chain. If you click on the image and look closely you will see that not only are there all sorts of trivia questions on this mat, but there's even a geometry problem. I was so embarassed at my complete lack of ability in mathletics.

Making Glass at Onna Glass

2008-11-14T16:43:00.003+09:00

We went to the Onna Glass Factory on 58 in Onna-son and I've got photos to show it!

Okinawa is known for its beach glass, Ryukyuan glass I think I've heard it called. In any touristy-shop worth its sea salt you should find at least 10 pieces of glass made here in the Okinawa. I'm not totally fluent in communicating the aesthetics of glass but I can tell you how I understand Ryukyuan glass, which is to say it seems to be generally rustic but the master glass makers here also create amazing sculptures and abstract compositions - way better than Chihuly's stuff that was all over Atlanta for so long.

A lot of the glass I see here is pretty playful, which was what I was hoping to be able to get when we went to the shop. Word to the wise, bring a friend that can communicate in Japanese because there are a number of things you can do at the shop. When you arrive you are greeted by what looks like the gift shop, but is actually the staging area for your experience. Throughout this room are glass works in different shapes and colors and dimensions. The size and color largely determine the cost of the glass making experience.

I chose blue because it's cheap and also because that's the color I think of most when I think Okinawa. I chose to make one that was pretty playful and really not much bigger than a standard "rocks" glass at a bar. It had several divets put into it that accomodated my fingers nicely - ergonomic, but not nerdy; relaxed. Shinpai shinai de, ii sa! Which is the most complicated thing I can say in Uchinaguchi (the indigenous Okinawan language), it means, basically, don't worry, everything will be okay. That's what this cup told me.

So, you walk in and you realize just how committed you have to be to the artform to do this in Okinawa: it's crazy hot in the factory! Crazy hot.

This was another one of many experiences I've had here in Okinawa where I am allowed to do really UNSAFE things with minimal concern. Like walking around these blast furnaces wearing shorts and flip flops.

But don't worry, you really can't hurt yourself because you will be surrounded by, like, a dozen people. Sometimes I felt like I was being corralled by the artisans, bringing a depth of meaning to the old phrase, "like a bull in a china shop."

After you've gone through the several steps for making your piece, they put the glass into a furnace that is less hot than where it can slowly cool over the next 12 hours or so. This way it doesn't shatter. You can pick it up from them the next day.

Kumejima!

2008-11-14T16:15:00.002+09:00

We went to beautiful Kumejima last month to run the 10k portion of their annual marathon. I cannot recommend enough to those of you in the area this race. Hands-down this was the most generous race I've participated in: we were given really nice technical shirts (not the usual cotton tshirt), each of us got a bottle of Kumesen awamori, we got free cookies, and we were given a coupon for 400 yen to use in the food booths after the race was finished. Nice!

Kumejima is west of Okinawa honto, we took the Kumejima ferry from the port in Naha and the trip was about 3 hours. This is a great ferry ride because you pass several other isladns, like Tokashiki and so it feels nice and scenic.

The ferry leaves the port around 8:30 and arrives in Kumejima around noon. We checked into a nice place that had two seperate guest houses. Ours was closer to the Eefu イフ beach and had two seperate rooms and boathrooms. The rooms were just down the street from an internet cafe/video/moped rental place, Lucky Gate.
(ain't much in Kumejima)
Heads-up for lunch: the restaurants in the staging area all keep seperate lunch and dinner hours. That means you should really put your stuff down in the hotel and get to a restaurant before they close at 1pm. We found a nice place, just down from Lucky Gate (my only point of reference now) that was open after 1:30 and we had what chicken tastes like:

We went down to the beach but the coral had all died out (which is becoming increasingly true around the islands). That said, the water was like a bath and the nearby hilss made it quite scenic. I later noticed after my swim the sign that warns about warm water=more jellyfish. Not that I'm saying ignore these signs, but, I've only seen one jellyfish in the Okinawa area during my snorkelings around the island. I think the signs should be heeded, but not keep you from swimming.
On the way back from the beach I saw a couple of bits of grafitti from GUN, who seems to own the entire Ryukyuan Kingdom.

We tried to rent a moped so we could explore the island, but the number of tourists running the race the next day meant that there were no mopeds for us. So, we rented a car and drove around the island. I really dropped the ball and didn't take nearly enough pictures while we were there (which was really only 24 hours). Kumejima has a large number of traditional wooden houses in the Ryukyuan style and they're just gorgeous to take in. If you've been to Ryukyu Mura (the traditional Ryukyuan village theme park) and been inside these homes in the summer you know how awesome they are. Driving around I even saw an owl.

One of the coolest things I've seen in nature has to be the Kumejima Tatami Ishi. These are cross sections of volcanic basalt columns that look like neatly-arranged tatami or turtle carapaces:

There are much better pictures of these online, so I recommend googleing them.

I learned later that after the Japanese took control of the Ryukyu Kingdom during the 19th century they exiled many of the royals to Kumejima.

Food Security in Japan

2008-11-14T13:25:00.002+09:00

I got this video from Matt Armstrong's awesome public diplomacy blog, MountainRunner.

More Japan Demographics in the News

2008-10-29T16:35:00.003+09:00

Japan's population is not in crisis yet but there many anticipate that because an inordinate number of people over the age of 65 and many fewer under 21, disproportionately so. One aspect that is feeling this acutely already is the university system of Japan. There has been some speculation in the English language Japanese news media that the university system may even bankrupt. Further compounding this situation is the large number of Japanese people with PhDs that simply cannot find work in academia. The situation is not too dissimilar to that in Europe where PhDs tend to do increasingly-longer post-doctoral positions and so continue to experience diminished returns on their time investment.

To combat this, the Japanese government has been quietly pushing to get more and more foreigners to come study in Japan. Here's an article from the Japan Times discussing the situation a little.

I'd like to share also an article from the Mainichi Daily News that discusses the differences between the internet in South Korea and that in Japan. Apparently South Koreans have yet to feel the wrath of internet trolls like we in the U.S. have come to know it (a South Korean actress recently committed suicide in what some speculate was a revenge suicide - killing herself to show those that angered her).

Being Homeless in Japan: Netcafes, video parlors

2008-10-28T12:12:00.002+09:00

I've been writing a lot at my other blog, KudzuKongzi, lately and noticed that I've been writing a little about Japan as well as the other things I'm concerned with at that blog.

As I've written, Japan's homeless population is a little hard to see in part because they're not faced with only sleeping outside - some may also be net cafe refugees.

Another possibility is that those with minimal family ties in Japan and some amount of savings are taking their money to Southeast Asia where the cost of living is lower and their pensions would go further.

All of this is to say that Labor as practiced in Japan is different from what I'm used to in the U.S. (which is to say, in the U.S. organized labor is a lame duck movement now).

Today, the Japan Times offers a nice explanation about netcafes, 24 hour karaoke boxes, and video parlors.

Rice!

2008-10-03T13:56:00.003+09:00

Rice is central to Japanese life. Even so here in Okinawa, where it's too hot to grow rice (and it takes so much water that it's not realistic to cultivate much rice here).

How central?

The word for rice is the same word for meal. That's how important.

Wanna know what rice looks like when it's harvested?

and it smells AWESOME! It's sweet and kinda nutty smelling.

My labmate recently visited her family in Tokyo and participated in a harvest there, so I have had the pleasure of learning more about rice.

Here's what rice looks like before it's, I dunno, husked? Then the rice is polished until it is super white. I prefer the less refined brown rice 玄前(genmae) but it is more expensive because so many rice distributors manufacture the highly-polished white rice (which is necessary for ritual life here in Japan).

Wanna see what happens when the American military occupies (I mean protects) your island for over 60 years?

You get delicious Taco Rice!

Taco rice is basically a taco from taco bell unfurled from it's shell onto a bed of rice. When I read that before I came to Okinawa I thought, "Really?" as in, "Really, people will eat that?" But I am now a convert: taco rice is oishii (delicious).

Particularly from this place in Onna - Kijimuna きじむな where they have letters patent on taco rice.

Halloween in Japan

2008-10-03T13:50:00.003+09:00

There aren't many American holidays that the Japanese follow, naturally, but they are interested in some.

There's Christmas - apparently this is a popular date night in Japan, supposedly it's romantic

There's Valentine's Day - but this is a holiday where women give men things, and it's really a holiday for men. Because the men have one month to prepare for White Day, where men must give women things and it's a holiday only for women.

Some families go to KFC on Thanksgiving, but it's not really a holiday.

And then there's Halloween:

A time of year when all should remember to carve their pumpkins with the following:

Cultural Differences, East & West

2008-09-26T15:21:00.002+09:00

I've recently come across a great Public Diplomacy blog, MountainRunner, and I really enjoyed the way the information was presented. I'd refer you to the comments section of his blog for any questions on the below; although, of course, feel free to post a comment here.

Blue --> Westerner
Red --> Asian

Opinion

(more after the fold)

Way of Life

Punctuality

Contacts

Anger

Queue when Waiting

Sundays on the Road

Party

In the restaurant

Stomach Ache

Travelling

Handling of Problems

Three meals a day

Transportation

Elderly in day to day life

Shower timing

Moods and Weather

The Boss

What's Trendy

The child

Things that are new

Perception of each other

On Japan-China Relations

2008-09-19T16:41:00.003+09:00

I've intentionally avoided any writing about Japan-China, or the War in the Pacific (WWII), or security issues in the region because I wanted to find the right feel for this story and to read more and understand better the moment in history that I am entering.

I have a friend living in Sichuan, China as a Peace Corps volunteer and it's begun some interesting conversation. My studies include a lot about Classical Chinese philosophies as well as East Asia and politics in general. As I learn more about the history of this beautiful little island I understand better the forces at work in the world over the past 150 years. If you know the history of Okinawa, you know an-awful-lot about the trajectory of the history of the world in these 150 years.

Recently he and I were discussing the constant call from China (particularly) for the Japanese to apologize for the war crimes committed by the Japanese during the War in the Pacific. The Chinese (as well as Koreans and Taiwanese) feel the Japanese haven't apologized enough - even though there have been at least 45 official apologies from the Japanese. And this got me thinking about that dog of a documentary, Yakusuni.

Below is an excerpt from my email to my friend in China:

Of course, some might like an apology a la Australia's apology to the Aborigines; but what we want and what we need are two different things. There was a recent documentary that was released here called Yasukuni which was hyped as this controversial take on the Meiji Era shrine to the war dead. But it was pretty terrible and offered nothing illuminating on the subject. The central issue, clearly, being that Yasukuni was created in a spirit not so disimilar to the West's adoption of fireworks: after the West had cracked open the region, the Japanese decided they'd better start following the West's lead. They saw that the West had perfected the use of the God-King-State Complex with its various Official Organs. By reinstating the Emperor, they needed the pomp of rituals to whup the poor into a frenzy and literally created the myth of the Emperor-God and what we think of Shinto today. Fortunately for Shinto there are some good books in English being written. Hopefully this message will become clearer in our lifetime.

The war between China and Japan was a long time coming and at the beginning of the 20th century this war was seen as expedient for both countries because China clearly was being crippled by the West and hoped to rally its people once more by beating the Japanese. The Japanese, having watched for millennia, accurately assessed the weakness of China and, just like China, hoping to demonstrate to the West who was the top of the pops, waged a war to create the most favorable conditions for them in the face of the West's world domination plans. Immediately it was the conquering of Okinawa and Taiwan, but by taking Hokkaido, Korea, and Manchuria they hoped to keep Russia, France, Britain, and the U.S. at bay. Of course, the West would have none of that.

Okinawa-shi Mentioned at Okinawa Hai!

2008-09-16T21:24:00.002+09:00

I was just looking for some information about if and when this typhoon will be hitting Okinawa and I went to that great resource, Okinawa Hai! and I saw that they had dropped this blog's name.

That was mighty nice of them.

The primary audience of Okinawa Hai! seems to be the military community here and their families and I admire their ability to mobilize their audience to provide content for the site. It's because of this site that I was able to find the only (so far as I can tell) place on the island that offers real, honest-to-god, falafel.

Well, if anyone familiar with Okinawa Hai! reads this, please send my thanks for the hat tip.

Contra Debito Arudou

2008-09-16T13:04:00.002+09:00

I sent the following to the Japan Times and it was published on 7 September, 2008:

Strength in cultural differences

By PAUL BOSHEARS

Okinawa

Debito Arudou's assertion in his Sept. 2 article, "The 'gaijin' debate: Arudou responds," that there is any sort of comparison between the words "n--ger" and "gaijin" are strained, pathetic, and causes more harm than good because, at the root, his argument is tawdry and facile.

Arudou's stated desired outcome is to have his Japanese status acknowledged. What would that look like? At a social event, would a recent acquaintance mistakenly call him "Taro" instead of "Debito"? He has been issued a passport and a health-care card, and is entitled to all the benefits the nation offers. The state has given him what he wants. What does Arudou want from me and the readers of this newspaper?

I appreciate that he plays at fighting the good fight, but in this instance he has seriously offended me. Because, let's face it, Arudou doesn't speak for the "n--gers" living in Japan. He is not a champion of the rights of Filipina sex workers who are brutalized here in Okinawa. He is not the defender of Chinese students or third-generation Koreans who still aren't "Japanese."

He wants to champion the cause of newcomers to Japan. But instead of ham-fisted and ugly similes, we need words that can nourish the imagination of the reader -- words that speak to every human being's basic need to be a part of a community predicated on mutual benefit.

In the American tradition, we can look to the poet Robert Frost for these kinds of words. In "The Mending Wall," we read that good fences make good neighbors. It is in our supposed boundaries -- our cultural differences -- that we find the very source of our mutual strength. That we are the inheritors of rich cultural traditions means that we are better able to meet the needs of our communities.

Conan the Praying Dog!!!

2008-08-29T11:20:00.003+09:00

The week before the 沖縄全島エイサまつり (All-Island Eisa Festival) we drove down to Kannondo Temple to receive a blessing for our upcoming performance and to show proper filial piety to our ancestors.

Japan is not a religious place, in the sense that Westerners mean it, in fact, when Admiral Perry forced Japan to surrender its ports to Western ships he demanded that the Japanese also allow the traders to establish churches as they pleased and that freedom of religion by enacted. The Japanese had no idea what he meant, and so they had to create a word that meant religion in the sens that Westerners meant. To this day the Japanese do not believe themselves to be religious at all, but you will see nearly all Japanese people visiting Shinto shrines, praying in Buddhist temples, and even having Christian wedding ceremonies (albeit Christian in the most "Walt Disney Presents" manner, replete with Cinderella-Princess dress). That's because religion in the Western sense means a way of seeing the world that assumes that there is this world and then there is the more real, more perfect, Heavenly world where God(s) live.

In Japan, as most of East Asia, there is no other world in which you might find something divine. This world is perfectible according to the perfection of practices, i.e. meditation, chanting, etc. And so, when you visit Japan, you will see the red torii gates, the shimenawa (the hemp ropes tied around trees), the zig-zag paper called shide. You will see Buddhist temples and monks walking the streets in the morning silently asking for alms. And the history of Japan is a history of feuding Buddhist temples, of the Imperial Appropriation of Shinto for the justification of becoming a Colonial power (thanks to the Japanese being forced open they came to the West and realized they needed some of that opiate of the masses to get the common folk to die en masse for the Emperor just like the Pope in the Middle Ages).

But Okinawa is not Japanese in this way. Okinawa has a long tradition of women shamans that acted as mediums between a world of the dead and the forces of life and death. More prominently over the past several hundred years, the Ryukyu Kingdom ("Okinawa" before becoming a colony of Japan) looked almost completely to the great power in the region for the past millenia, China. From China the Ryukyuans learned statecraft, which meant they learned Confucianism. Confucianism holds as a central tenet the veneration of those that came before us, our ancestors; and this resonated with the (now) Okinawans. So into Confucianism were the Ryukyuans that the Chinese gave as a symbol of affection a plaque to hang above Shuruijo (the castle where the Ryukyuan Emperor lived) that says this is the land of perfected propriety, which is a high honor in the Confucian worldview.

And so the Okinawans never really built many Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples. When the Japanese formally colonized Okinawa in the 19th century they brought with them a real need for a Buddhist temple, but the only place that colonizing Japanese would want to live in this (to their minds at that time) backward place was the capital, Naha. And so today we have Kannondo* Temple where Conan the Praying Dog lives.
*Kannon is the Japanese name for the Chinese Guan Yin, or the Sanskrit Avalokitesvara, do just means (the/a/on) "path of-"

Kannondo is a Zen sect (apparently, according to the world news reports) and I am not surprised by this praying dog business because there is a classic Zen parable where a monk asked Master Joshu (as he is known in Japan):

"If there is no world beyond this one (no heavenly, or Nirvana state - Nirvana being a Hindu belief), then everything must be of the same nature as the Buddha. Do dogs have Buddha-nature?"
To which Joshu answered, "Mu," which is a negation but also not a negation.

This is a very famous koan that Zen students must consider as they develop their understanding of the Zen path. So, of course, Kannondo next to Shuri Castle will have a dog that prays, why not?

The monk who watches out for Conan (who is named, apparently, after Sir Conan Arthur Doyle, not the Barbarian, or Mr. O'Brian), was super nice to us and in exchange for translating a letter he received in English from someone in India, he gave us some nice postcards which I will be sending out soon.

Here's the graphic evidence, you're moment of Zen, if you will:

We even made it onto Conan's personal webpage:
http://gasshouken.ti-da.net/

ぜんざい Zenzai!!!!

2008-08-19T16:18:00.002+09:00

Zenzai is not an esoteric branch of Buddhism, it does not require you to contemplate a koan.

It simply requires that you enjoy the coolness that this Okinawan desert offers to beat the heat. But, I'm going describe something that you're going to think is repulsive. After moving here I realized that I know next to nothing about Japanese cuisine (even less about the rest of East Asian food) and maybe I understand why now: were you to write an article about it, no one in America would eat it.

Hell, look at sushi. I work with gaijin that, although they live here, refuse to eat sushi, because it's raw. I can't believe it.

Anyhow, this summer I've picked up another research project: finding the most delicious zenzai on the island. I'll let you know who the winner is later in the year.

So what is zenzai? Take a look:

Okinawan zenzai is made from shaved ice, little balls of mochi (which is a really sweet rice ball-type-cake), sometimes condensed milk (so sweet and yummy), and kidney beans that have been stewed in a sweet syrup.

I hadja until then, huh?
"Sweet kidney beans? Don't we make spicy chili in a tomato sauce out of kidney beans?"
Yeah, but you'll just have to trust me that zenzai is awesome. Below is my favorite zenzai recipe so far, from Blue Dog Cafe in Takahara, it features a coffee/cocoa base. Yummadumdum!

Cultural Differences

2008-08-19T16:08:00.002+09:00

When my wife and I came for the interview here last year we saw a funny picture:

Yeah, a bumper sticker of a pot leaf that says, "DRUGS" oh those wacky teenaged Japanese!

But then when we moved here I saw it everywhere:

and then even in one of the conference rooms here at the Institute!

I started asking around and learned that the Japanese like this shape, they associate it with American "Cool Stuff." But they don't know what it means. Kinda like those Americans that get "Kanji" tattoos, where they think it says something like "Vicious" or "Fast" but it really says "Sushi."

The Amazing (& Delicious) Dragon Fruit

2008-08-19T15:56:00.002+09:00

I moved here and was convinced by the phrase "sub-tropical environment" that I would be eating mangoes and papayas and all manner of delicious fruit all the time. But that's just not the case.

The soil of Okinawa just isn't that rich and the fresh water supply is not that consistent, apparently. So, the farmers have taken a very conservative approach to cultivating new crops: stick with what we know works-kind of thinking.

So, while mangoes do in fact grow here, they are quite expensive (like $60!) because they can be sold to the mainlanders on export very profitably.

What does grow here that is delicious and this summer is cheap and everywhere is the dragonfruit:

You split them down the middle to reveal something that looks like a beat and a potato with lots of seeds and super juicy:

cut this in half (so you've quartered the dragonfruit) and you should find that you can basically peel the fruit out of it's skin:

then dig in! Be aware that these things will stain so maybe use a utensil:

I'd been seeing what I thought were just enormous cacti in everyone's gardens this spring but now I know that they are the source of this delicious fruit:

all's I can say is おいしいそう! (oishii so, it looks delicious!)

Really Loud, Large Bugs

2008-08-19T15:50:00.002+09:00

We have them in the South, too. But it seems like the (what I always thought were called cicadas) weren't this loud. Maybe it's 'cause we're all jammed in together and so the noise seems much closer.

Here there are two kinds of these bugs and they're locally known as semi and kuma(bear) semi.

Here are some Crocodilehunter-style videos of the wild life here in Okinawa:

and why not a video of this lizard, too?

Japanese Surfers

2008-08-19T15:42:00.004+09:00

There's a scene in Lost in Translation where the character played by Bill Murray is at a party in Tokyo and he's just been told that his host likes to surf, "You surf?" That's how I felt too. I mean, surfing is, of course, really only done in a few places: Hawai`i, Australia, maybe Costa Rica, and then maybe Florida; I don't know. My understanding is that surfing only exists in these few places.

Then I moved to Okinawa and noticed that the locals really like surfing-related stuff. I figured it was due to being in a sub-tropical environment. But then, while in Kyoto, I was told that the owner of our guest house met many Japanese surfers in Bali and these surfers had begun their careers in Okinawa.

But whenever I went to the places where I thought I was told there was surfing I saw only placid ocean.

Then a tropical storm was in the region and the surf was up:

Obon=Eisa

2008-08-19T15:27:00.002+09:00

So last week was Obon, like a Japanese Dia De Los Muertos, where the spirits of our ancestors return to us and we offer them food and drink and entertainment.

The offerings go on the family altar, usually some fruit and some rice (this is when you put your chopsticks in the rice sticking up), a glass of water and/or some sake (or awamori in our case).

The entertainment?

Eisa, of course.

We live in Okinawa City, which boasts the best Eisa teams in the country; so each section of the city (Goya, Takahara, Awase, etc.) has a team that goes through the neighboroods playing during Obon.

I was working on the last blog when I heard something, I opened the window and this is what I saw:

I grabbed my wife, who was recording another gorgeous song, and we ran downstairs to find the dancers. And what do you know? They came to us!

These teams rely on the patronage of the neighborhoods, so they will come around with a collections box. We live next to a conbini (convenience store) so we bought them a 6-pack of beer and a few liters of water and gave them Y1000 (we're not sure what we're supposed to give so this seemed to cover all the bases).

So, what happens when two Eisa teams meet while doing the rounds? Well, they have to battle, of course.

The two teams will face off where both teams have to try to maintain the rhythm (because although the songs are the same name, each group has a slight variation of the traditionals). If someone on your team gets off beat you lose and your whole team has to get out of the way and let the others through. To determine this a crowd is really necessary and so the teams really try hard to avoid heavily trafficked areas unless they think that they are rock-solid.

We went to the Goya neighborhood (near Koza Music Town) because we heard that the two best teams in Okinawa, Goya and Senda (spelling?), have a tradition on the last night of Obon of squaring off. On the way we saw these folks:

Yonabaru Rope Pull (Best Day Ever, 2.0)

2008-08-06T23:40:00.004+09:00

So, we went down to Yonabaru to witness the 400 year old tradition of an all-city tug of war. I really wanted to see the big rope (that takes a year to make) and just take some pictures, maybe have a beer and that would be it, really. But I was wrong. It was much more than that.

First off, any where I go I will be singled-out and subsequently press-ganged into the affair. That's what I get for being 6'6" and so gaijin. (There's this one guy that renounced his American citizenship and has been writing editorials for years now in the Japanese newspapers about how unfairly he's treated in Japan for not being Japanese (looking). But, maybe I've been here for too short a time, I always feel welcome wherever I go in Okinawa and I can barely say, "my name is Paul, sorry my Japanese is so poor.") But I've digressed....

Yeah, just as I'm watching the guy giving the instructions on how to do this whole tug o' war thing (I had assumed this was a practiced team I was looking at), then I'm told that I need to put on this hachimaki (head band) and go pick up the rope for the parade through town.

I felt bad because the guy they paired me with was nearly a foot shorter than I and so he really couldn't carry the rope with me. There I am in the hot, hot sun in this procession with this enormous rope. The rope's so big that there are people standing on it, dressed in ancient ceremonial garb. All I can think is, "great, this guy's gonna get killed 'cause I drop the rope or I'm making the rope tilt too much." Meanwhile there are all these photographers and tourists coming up and taking pictures of this giant white guy carrying the rope being followed by a much smaller, slightly embarrassed Okinawan.

We get there and I'm freaked out: there are hundreds of people there waiting around and I know that we are to drop the rope by dropping the heavy logs that we've had propped on our shoulders to carry this enormous rope. I know that I have to be careful because they are going to throw the logs backwards (toward me) and then we are to start pulling as quickly and as hard as we can.

Somehow they are able (I still don't understand even though I was right there in the front) to thread the two loops together and then, completely by surprise to me, they start tossing the logs over their shoulders. I'm wearing flip flops and there are really big logs being thrown at me and I'm being bumrushed by the villagers as we being this all city tug o' war. I'm sorry there are no photos or videos of this singular experience, I am happy to report that I was not injured nor did I lose my flip flops. We won the first one, I didn't realize there would be a second one (including picking up the rope and threading them together again - even getting the people back up there on the rope!) and so the second one I was wiped out. But it's good because both sides got to win.

Then the second competition really gets going. Each side has a couple of standards on long poles with flowers. The musicians and dancers get everyone all frenzied up and the two sides see who can endure hoisting their standard up the longest. Crazy site.

At the end everyone takes a bit of the rope and puts it up at home or their business for goodluck for the next year.

We got some waters and drove to the 10,000 Eisa Dancers Parade in nearby Naha and that was pretty awesome. Then we went to an Okinawan restaurant and we ate the yummies like goya champaru (stirfried bitter melon with tofu) and mimiga (the skin of pig's ears), and listened to a guy play sanshin and sing the Okinawan standards, like "Haisai Ojisan (Hey Uncle)" and "Shima No Uta (Island Music)" and then we topped it off with my new favorite desert - Okinawan Zenzai, but that's another blog posting in itself. Before returning to our homes we made a night time visit to Shuri Jo, the ancient capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom. It was a beautiful site, all lit up at night.

EISA

2008-08-06T22:53:00.006+09:00

So, my wife and I and some folks from the lab are participating in an EISA team and we've been practicing for about a month or so... and it rules.

This weekend we went down to (Yonabaru first, but that's the very next blog) Naha to see the end of the 10,000 Eisa dancers parade.

Eisa seems to have derived its name from a Buddhist chant and is celebrated at the end of the Obon festival as a "one last hurrah" for the ancestors. More at wikipedia.

So the original Eisa dances would have looked something like this:

This team is from Uruma City, where we work.

Okinawa has, over the last century, been developing a more and more energetic dance:

The central region of Okinawa Honto (the main Island) is really renowned for their Eisa teams, and so I feel really honored to represent Okinawa City in the Zento (All-Island) Eisa Festival at the end of August.

Typically the Eisa team will have the sanshin players and singers, big drummers (that's what I'm practicing), the smaller drums, dancers (female and male dances are slightly different), and then a clown-like character that whips everyone into a frenzy. We feel fortunate to be able to participate as usually women are not allowed to play drums and this is really more of a young man's event - oh, and usually no gaijin.

Where we practice is in an old folk's home and I really enjoy getting to practice in front of them because they get all jazzed up and start clapping and singing and I really feel like I'm participating in a deeper human community. I feel honored to welcome their ancestors for one last dance until they come next year. Even more profoundly, sometimes, I feel trusted, a deep trust that is easy to overlook maybe. Some of these folks can't leave their rooms, so they sit up in their beds and they dance and sing and clap. Maybe they will be the ancestors that will come next year during Obon. On the opposite of the spectrum, though are these little kids running around, also practicing these dances and the cycle is just really moving. That's when I feel the strongest need to show my ki-ai that's what all the shouting is about: it's the bellowing of the living, it's a connecting of the heart and the body and mind in an affirmative SAH and I feel so much more alive and grateful for that gift.

In my confucian studies I've come to understand that truth means something different, perhaps more, in a confucian world. What is true is behaving in a way that is true to those who have come before you (those you learn the Eisa dance from) and behaving in a way that can be trusted by those to come (the kids who watch us and practice what we do). And these practices really deeply resonate with me on this level, I feel like this is the most concrete expression of that definition of performative truth; and I feel more convinced that this is the notion of truth that more people should come to know and express.

Eating in Okinawa

2008-07-14T22:12:00.015+09:00

Here's a little bit about what my diet looks like here in Okinawa
Okonomiyake

"Okonomiyake? Have you tried it? It's like a Japanese pancake." This is how I've heard a few Japanese folks explain this delicious little number. This is really more of an Osaka food, and I've only had Okonomiyake in Kansai Airport, so I may not have the best frame of reference... still, I thought that the Okonomiyake place in Misato was awesome. Rumor has it they're moving to Takahara, which is much closer to where I live. Here's another photo to give you an idea of what's in it (basically everything):

Nothing about the above suggests pancakes to me, but then I was looking through my photos and remembered what the pancakes at Caracalla in Chatan look like:

Even includes ice cream on top. So maybe Okonomiyake and pancakes are a lot alike. We prefer ice cream, fruit, and syrup; they prefer octopus, mayonaise, scallions, and slightly sweet soy sauce.

Cook It Yourself
You saw it in Lost In Translation, and it's true: they make you cook your own meal, sometimes. Actually, you have that option at the Okonomiyake place above. Here are some other CIY foods:

Hiroshima-style Noodles
They're so nice they left this little card in eigo (English) for us
Basically, you get to make your own broth. You pick, to some extent what will go in your soup, but you get to really jack up the spice if that's your style.

Yaki Nikku
Wanna grill out, but you don't have a lawn, or a grill, and you don't have anyone over to your house? Yaki Nikku to the rescue. There are many yaki nikku places here in Okinawa and for the most part it's the same game: order meat you like cooking, order vegetables that you like cooking, and, voila, your paying to do the job of chefs across America!

Above left is the plate o' steak (very thin, so try not to overcook) and then a little duck and steak cooking.

Food from Other Places
The Japanese are really into eating food from everywhere else, so long as it has mayonnaise included (I'm told it's the younger generation that are responsible for all the mayo, I'm just sayin the learned it somewhere).
There's Thai:

and Mexican:
This is a burrito that has been deep fried, topped with avocado and served with a sesame/mayo dressing. Que Sabroso!
You can even get French-ish foods, like croissants stuffed with hot dogs

Also Featuring Hotdogs
Try the uma no suteki up in Kin Town at Gate One, it comes with a tempura (which is a Portugese food, actually) hotdog, that is, a lightly breaded, deep fried hot dog:

Food from Here
You're in Okinawa, you have to have Okinawa Soba, once you know how to read "soba" in hiragana, you will realize that you are surrounded by shops that sell Okinawa Soba.
"But I thought soba was from Japan, not just Okinawa."
You're right, but in the mainland, soba is made from buckwheat and so the noodles are brown with a slight purplish color to them. In Okinawa they use something other than that, they look like thick spaghetti, and, unlike in the mainland, Okinawa soba is served hot. The Okinawans are known for their pork and so your soba will undoubtedly have a nice hunk of it in there:
This one also has fish cake in it. I don't know, just eat it. Be sure to put a nice dose of the Awamori hotsauce (next to the bones bowl in the left picture) in their as well as some chili pepper. When you're done put the bones in the little bowl that comes with it, feel free to suck the marrow, it's oishii (delicious)!

Didn't You Say Horse a Minute Ago?
I sure did, sir. Uma nikku (horse meat) is not really popular, but it is available, just like goat (yagi) you can get it as a sashimi (thinly sliced and raw). You will hear frmo me when I have uma sashimi, I promise.

Uma Suteki (horse steak) with tempura hot dog
Below, Yagi Sashimi (thinly sliced raw goat meat)

Really the horse steak was just alright: it was slathered in an A-1 type of sauce and so I wasn't really to pick up on any major gaminess or anything. The texture of the steak was a bit different though. It was more lean and there was more sinew in there than you get with beef. Maybe this was most like minute steak. The goat sashimi, however, was off the hook! You have to have it with the skin on their because that hide texture makes the whole experience amazing.

That's a lot of Meat
Yeah, so maybe you want to try something a little more heart healthy, like this taste kimpira rice burger from MOS Burger. Kimpira is a medley of root vegetables (burdock root, lotus root, carrot) that are marinated in what I think is soy sauce then served on two rice patties with a sheet of sea weed instead of a leaf of lettuce. This is definitely my favorite food at MOS:

Or maybe you want to cook. It's the summer time so right now you can monster sized Moui (Mo-ee). It looks like and is about the size of a water melon. It is also known as winter melon and is used in a lot of Chinese cooking. Just peel it, slice it to about 3 cm and cook with carrots and mushrooms and a generous helping of salt. Be sure to ladle out the bitterness that will clump at the top of the broth as it boils.

How About Fruit?
I'm glad you asked. Being from the States, I am accustomed to the most ridiculous variety of fruits and vegetables available to me at any time of year. Now that gas prices are climbing I'm glad I've moved to a part of the world that respects a little more the basic truth that you can't get oranges all year long, you just can't. Eat local. It sucks, but that's how nature intends it.
Here are some fruits that will be available in Okinawa at some point or another:

Biwa

Biwa is known as loquat and is related to the kumquat. Both are of Chinese orgin. Loquat (biwa) is perhaps the most delicious thing I've eaten this year so far. Simply peel the skin (you can use your fingers) and reveal this small little peach looking fruit. In the center is a large stone like a lychee's pit. Don't eat it.

Mikan
These are like clementines and are also known as mandarin oranges. If you've only had mandarin oranges from a can, let me tell you something: you are missing out. Mikans are easy to peel and are like tiny drops of citrus-flavored sunshine.

Passion fruit

Oh man, late June/early July is passion fruit season. I thought this was a made up fruit, something that Snapple and Sobe concocted in a factory near the New Jersey shore. I am delighted to inform you that I was really wrong.

You'll know the passion fruit is ready when the skin starts to feel like it is wrinkling (like when your fingers get all pruny in the bath tub or when you're snorkeling)
Cut the little guy in half and grab a spoon to slurp out this amazing fruit. If it's a little sour, try it with honey.

Rose Apple
or renbu (レンブ), maybe denbu (デンブ) This is a strange fruit. You have to soak it in water for a few hours because there are more than likely many ants inside it. Once you've taken care of that you've got this bell-shaped fruit that tastes a little like a sour apple with the firmness of celery. You can put it on a salad for a nice little something.

Desert
You're in Okinawa, it's really hot here, you want desert but the idea of eating one of those faux cheesecakes that everyone sells is nauseating, why not have Okinawa zenzai. Just like with soba, Okinawa has taken something from the mainland and done something better.

Zenzai is a mixture of adzuki beans (the red beans of red bean paste fame) and mochi and shaved ice. It sounds gross, but it's really the only thing other than snow cones that cures what ails me in the summer time here. The best part is the little mochi ball (sweetened, pounded, super chewy rice dough).
Somethings I Just Can't Eat Yet
In the U.S. we will usually have beer and maybe some queso dip, or some pretzels, or some peanuts. Here you can have smoked almonds and... yes, smoked fish:

Mayonnaise, the Food Group
Maybe you are in the mall and you want something to eat, something pasta-y but also combining an aesthetic that the gaijin just won't get. Why not try this?
Mayonnaise sauce with Cod Ovum and seaweed on noodles.

Or maybe this crepe stuffed with tuna salad and maybe (shudder, shudder) chocolate ice cream?
No?
Maybe just tuna and mayonnaise crepe?

I saw this in Kansai and thought it was something else, now I know it's just Jingrish:
it says Ass, but it should be asparagus.

Okinawan Microcosmos

2008-07-10T10:04:00.004+09:00

I loved the film Microcosmos and so inspired I took my handy　携帯電話 (cell phone, FOMA P905i) which includes a video camera and I went to some beaches. Here's one of a snail:

And here are some following crabs:

Best Day Ever!

2008-07-09T23:24:00.003+09:00

So today I went to work and that was alright. But then things got fun-ner:

After work we headed up the hill to the Goya area of Okinawa City where we had our second practice with the Gaijin Eisa team. We're really delighted to be able to participate in this oh-so-Okinawan tradition because for the most part you're not allowed to dance Eisa after the age of 25. We will be performing at the end of August as part of a really large Okinawa City Eisa Festival. Here are some photos:

Then we met up with Miyagi-san and had Yaginiku, goat meat soup. The Japanese used to eat a lot of goat meat, but since the end of World War II this meat has been replaced steadily by beef. It's still eaten in some places, including Okinawa. Part of the reason goat meat has lost its favor is because goat meat has a pretty strong smell. That said, you can put some fresh mugwort in the soup and that not only adds a nice flavor it also changes the aroma a bit.

The belief is that goat meat will reinvigorate the consumer and is to be eaten after strenuous activity. And I gotta say I did feel pretty jazzed up afterwards. After a delicious bowl of goat soup with the mugwort and ginger and awamori hot sauce I knew I had to try it, goat sashimi:

I'm not sure how well you can see from this picture, but there are two cuts of goat sashimi here. There were a very few cuts that were a deep red, almost purple, very thinly sliced and were heavenly. My favorite, though, had to be the thick cut from the back of the goat which still had the skin on it, nice and thick. What an amazing texture! It was like eating a celery stalk made of goat meat - incredible and three totally different experiences.

Usually your told not to drink anything cold with the goat meat as it can be pretty fatty and there is a fear that drinking cold liquids will congeal the fat and give you a bad stomach ache - so usually you drink hot tea with it. But this taste experience lacked one thing. That's right, wasabi ice cream.

We went to Gelo Bello and saw that they have a new exhibit, this time from Dr. Cue. We watched some Spongebob Squarepants and called it a night.

What To Do in the Event of an Earthquake

2008-07-09T10:09:00.006+09:00

I live in Japan and that means earthquakes will happen. Although historically Okinawa has not sustained the same magnitude of earthquakes (and their subsequent destruction) as in the mainland, we are far from immune to them.

For example, yesterday we had a pretty significant earthquake here. The seismic effects of the quake (whose epicenter was north and west of the main island, Okinawa Honto) was measured at JMA 3. JMA stands for Japan Meteorological Agency. At JMA 3 the following are likely to be observed:
"Rather strong. Slight shaking of houses and buildings, rattling of doors and Japanese sliding doors (shoji). The water surface of a vessel can be seen to ripple. Felt to be slightly surprising, and sleeping persons wake up, but they do not run outside or feel afraid. Many people outside feel it, but some pedestrians may not." (This is from an explanation of the scale here)

We were in our 日本語 (Japanese language) class when the quake began and it lasted for about thirty seconds. It was bizarre feeling the earth move around like that, like being drunk and then laying down.

I'm including a link to a .pdf that gives pretty great information about what to do if an earthquake strikes:

If outdoors

Avoid stone walls and vending machines
Get away from buildings and go to the nearest open space

If at the office

Protect your head with a cushion and get under a desk
Get away from book cases, and tall furniture; the best places are uncluttered hallways and lobby areas
Watch for objects underfoot (such as broken glass or sharp metal)
Don't use an elevator, use the stairs; if you're in an elevator, use the emergency phone

At the Supermarket

Cover your head and get away from aisle displays that might fall on you
Get under a sturdy desk or near a support column
Do not rush to the exit: follow instructions issued by the store personnel

When Driving

Pull over to the left (or whatever side you drive on)
Do not leave the car until the tremors subside
Close your windows, turn off the car, and leave the keys in the ignition with the doors unlocked
Do not try to evacuate by car

The big worry with an earthquake is being crushed by walls or vending machines or other large pieces of furniture or building frontages.
The next biggest concern is that gas lines will be ruptured and cause serious fires; so, turn off the gas as soon as you can.

[UPDATED 12:18pm]
Here's an article from Scientific American the same magazine my wife was published in last year.

Bull Fight!

2008-07-02T22:52:00.006+09:00

Okinawa is the bull fighting capital of Japan. Who knew? It's not like in Europe, with matadors bleeding the bull to death. Here it's more like sumo wrestling (they even purify the ring with thrown rice), or maybe more like bull arm wrestling.
Here's the beginning of the first match:

So, basically, the bulls are brought into the ring, and brought to face the other bull and then they should lock horns and start to wrasslin' and for the most part that's what happened. Although in this clip all that happened was the other bull got too afraid and was led out of the ring.

But, in the third round one of the handlers lost control of the bull and it was gored by its opponent and that was pretty sad to see happen. The bulls are for the most part spoiled rotten by their owners and so I'm sure the bull will be fine, but it was hard not to feel a little bad for him, 'cause I'm sure that it hurts like hell.

Haari in Onna-son

2008-07-02T22:47:00.010+09:00

So, about 2,500 years ago in China there began this festival of racing boats across a river. This has become part of the annual Summer Harvest rituals of East Asia since antiquity. The tradition comes to Okinawa by way of China, with whom the Okinawans have strongly identified over centuries of trade, but that's another post.

The point is: Every year on the Lunar calendar 5/5, East Asia celebrates this festival. In Okinawa they call it a Haari, others call it Matsuri, I call it fun.
Before the race can begin the village assembles at the village shrine (where their ancestors dwell) and ask for them to join in the celebration, then they play drums and walk to the harbor's kami (something like a spirit) shrine and ask for favorable conditions and their influence to get a really good race going. Then a costumed group goes out into the water to show how its done:

Our Institute is currently building an amazing facility in Onna Village and to be good neighbors we entered two teams (one boys and one girls) for the race. This race is not so much about having a bunch of strong folks as much as having a tightly synchronized group.

The men did really well, but there were some really great mens teams out there. The women's team did even better than the men's but, were just 4 seconds short of the finals.
We didn't win the cup (made of Ryukyu Glass, of course) filled with Orion beer. But we did win two gorgeous fish, and we promptly ate them as sashimi and in a soup at the after party.

Cell Phones in Japan

2008-06-05T16:31:00.003+09:00

There can be no doubt that the cell phones in Japan are better than any other in the world. And that's common knowledge now. The big news for Americans, I think, is that Apple has finally signed a deal with Softbank to sell the iPhone here in Japan.

This will be pretty interesting to watch over the next 12 months because the last 12 months has had a lot of debate about the success of an iPhone here. No one would argue that Apple won't make a nice buck here, but there is a question as to the "wow" factor of an iPhone in Japan. The only advantage that an iPhone would have here over other cell phones would appear to be that handy little touch screen interface.

In response, DoCoMo, the leading cell phone service in Japan has released lots of PR about its new phones and new services to meet the expectations of the market. One such response can be found here.

The video's a little long but I think it's worth watching as it shows you some of the plans they have for how cell phones will interact with people in the not-too-distant future of Japan. It starts on a small island that looks an awful lot like Okinawa (there's a guy wearing a kariyushi shirt later at the airport later), and that's neat.

But what I'd like to point out is the granpa. Or what an ideal grampa in an ideal future would look like in Japan. He would of course be physically fit and take his grandson to a waterfall. But he would also have two, count 'em: two, girlfriends. One, of course, will be a caucasian blond woman. Now, these won't necessarily be romantic relationships. Part of what is lost on Westerners with the allure of the geisha is that older Japanese men don't want sexual partners in geisha, they want companionship and eye candy for other older Japanese men to envy.

But that's for a later discussion.

Also, a discussion of the role of Okinawa in WWII is going to be necessary in the future. But it's gonna be kind of an emotional bit of writing - because it's a pretty intense story.

Record Shopping in Okinawa City

2008-05-29T16:31:00.004+09:00

This is a special post. My old friend, Alex, asked me if I would talk a bit about record shopping here Okinawa and this turned out to be one of my favorite things to do for this blog. So, please, if you are curious about something, like getting groceries, or driving, please don't hesitate to put me on an investigative report!

Okinawa City is the music capital of Okinawa. Recently, Okinawa has become the fertile birthing grounds of many of Japan's top pop performers. Since the 1970's Koza has been at the heart of the Okinawan music scene. So, I went down to Park Avenue Arcade in Koza to do a bit of record shopping.

First off, Japan has the second largest media industry in the world, after Hollywood. So, there's a lot to choose from. And, it's all in Japanese. Which is tough if you don't know how to read Japanese and don't know who plays what kind of music.

Fortunately for you, Tsutaya (which is like Japan's Blockbuster Video) has an extensive music rental section. That's right, you can rent all the cd's you want. Right next to the cash register where you rent the discs are a big ol' pile of cd-rw's. I've yet to rent a cd, but this will be my preferable manner in which to introduce myself.

But, back to Koza.

So, while my wife was away for a week in New Zealand, I decided I'd go check out the record stores one night. My first thought was here:

Teruya Music on Park Avenue is awesome. There's a great selection of both Western and Japanese music AND a really great instrument store. You can buy a Buckwheat Zydeco album, something off the Pop Charts here, an accordion, a digital delay, and head on to greatness.

But the best place I found, which I should realize is a no-brainer, is this used cd-shop:

I walked in and the first thing I noticed, was that there were tons of records, not just cds. Probably equal amounts of both. Then I noticed that there was this incredible noise playing. Literally, it was this crazy, droney, loopy stuff. I thought, "Sweet, lots of records, odd music playing, this is gonna be like visiting Matt Benard at the CD Warehouse."

Except Matt spoke my language and we were old room mates. Eventually I was able to ask who it was that was playing, Jim O'rourke (whom I'd only just recently seen when I was looking at the Tenorion youtube clips here and here). That's when I started to get really excited because I saw that they had a copy of his Tzadik (a record label I like very much because of it's "avante-guard stable) release. Then I saw a large collection of Smog's stuff on Drag City Records. Then they started playing this old 45 from Trojan Records (an old school reggae label from the 60s).

I was really floored because this is a used cd shop. These were used cd's. The only Westerners near here other than me and the folks from work are the guys on base (the street parallel to Park Avenue is Gate 2 street that takes you onto Kadena Airbase). In fact, walking around Koza I saw this graffiti that had been intended for the guys on base:

(there are a lot of rapes and bad things being visited on the Okinawans in this area by our service members, and I will address this later).

So, who's buying these cd's and then selling them? I'm stoked to meet them.

What did I buy? Because I'm curious to know more about Jim O'rourke, I get an album with and Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth) on it. They put together a trio with Mats Gustafsson called the Diskaholics Trio. Click here for more information and to have a listen.

Ryukyu Mura

2008-05-29T16:14:00.007+09:00

My co-workers and I went to Ryukyu Mura, which is like a traditional Okinawan Village Themepark. Before being called Okinawa by the Japanese, these islands were called Ryukyu. They were an independent, but poor, kingdom which had its golden age a couple hundred years ago when it was trading freely with China, Korea, Japan, and most of South East Asia. The Japanese conquered Okinawa in the late 19th century and has been slowly eliminating the indigenous culture since then. This village presents a Disney-fied version of what is "Traditional Ryukyuan" living. That said, I highly recommend visiting here, because it's a beautiful park and it's a lot of fun. Especially when they start doing the traditional dances, etc.

The Okinawans don't think of themselves as Japanese, they have a very unique culture that is a blend of indigenous ways of being and heavy influences from both Japan and China. Champuru, mixed, culture. Here you can see the influence of Chinese dragon dances, brought to Okinawa you get something a little different:

When the Japanese conquered the Ryukyus, they forcibly disarmed the population. Prior to this, there had been Okinawan samurai-warrior-types. From this the Okinawans developed the martial art system, Karate, which means "empty hand." In order to teach this deadly art, the Okinawans had to find ways to make it seem like they weren't doing anything particularly lethal, like dancing. If you watch in these videos carefully you will see that these dances are also very much like the movements that you learn in karate:

Here is a bit of the Eisa dance, which is pretty rousing:

No party is done in Okinawa until everyone dances as a group. This is when the really giant gaijin (not-Japanese), me, was picked out of the crowd and had to dance with everyone:

Dragon Boats! (Haari)

2008-05-29T15:42:00.005+09:00

Our organization, in a sign of community affection, is entering this year's haari (Dragon Boat Race) in Onna-son. But I'm not entirely sure how we'll fare in the competition. Largely this concern comes from my total lack of dragon boat experience, and I think you can see that in these photos:

not really sure how to hold the paddle, exhibit A

exhibit B (although, to be fair, these folks were much better than we were)

20080522_second_haarii_training%20067, originally uploaded by paul.boshears.

Grafitti Around Okinawa

2008-05-25T23:51:00.002+09:00

Some of these are from Okinawa shi, some are from Ikei Island. We took a long bike ride to Ikei Island which I am now referring to as "The Trail of Tears."

Junk Food!

2008-04-29T17:08:00.003+09:00

I'm not really sure why, but there are vending machines everywhere in Okinawa, everywhere. And they all sell drinks or cigarettes:

I like the Georgia brand Vintage iced coffee (ice-u ko-hee)

but I've never tried the THORPEDO:

Crunky tastes like a Nestle Crunch bar

Glamatic and Whiteen are pretty okay. Much easier on your mouth than the Xylicious which a friend in Hawai'i described the intense mint flavor as, "having your tongue attacked by ten samurai." But, in Xylicious' favor I have to say having a gum that whitens your teeth that is black is pretty cool.

Shisa Dogs

2008-04-29T16:48:00.005+09:00

The picture in the masthead I took when I first visited Okinawa in 2007 and I didn't really know much other than these lion/dogs were a traditional Okinawan decoration/amulet. They are everywhere:

at intersections

at bridges (this is leaving Ikei Island)

Entrances (this is from Ocean Expo Park)

this one is at the entrance to the Peace Park's Peace Museum.

The story of the shisa is a really interesting one and I suggest you read more at this wikipedia entry.

Coffee Jelly Frappuccino and the Meaning of Personhood in Japan

2008-04-29T16:12:00.003+09:00

This is Starbucks Japan's newest product offering. It looks kinda like a Frappuccino, but there's something weird going on in the bottom, right?

According to their website it's, "a jelly-filled cup of Frappuccino fun." I worked for about 7 years at Starbucks before and during my college years and so I had to try this.

My initial hope was that it would be like a Frappuccino and bubble tea, y'know? I love Frappuccinos (that's how I ended up working at Starbucks, oh the magic of the Rhumba Frappuccino) and I love taro bubble tea - put the two together, it must be delicious, yeah?

Well, the jelly is exactly that. I was hoping this was an artifact of translation (since I've yet to learn what you call those "bubbles" or "pearls" in bubble tea in English) and was really not prepared for the coffee jelly. They scoop it into the drink and then add Frappuccino to it. The jelly is not very sweet, and that's a good thing because the Frappuccinos are terribly sweet.

For those of you wondering about Japanese cuisine, this drink is a great entry point. The Japanese love texture, seemingly above all else. That's why you can have a beautiful-looking meal and bite into it and realize it's cold (which is what happened one morning when I ordered the French breakfast at a lovely hotel here). The point is not that the flavors together enhance one another - unlike in Chinese cooking or in Italian sauce making - but that each ingredient really speak for itself and being brought together it is aesthetically-pleasing.

The site, then, of what is good and beautiful in Japanese food is not primarily in the mouth. Or maybe more true, the palate is not so simply localized and instead exists throughout the body in a manner that we simply don't understand as Westerners on first encounter (we've yet to develop our palate). This lack of refinement is already known when the Japanese deal with Westerners, that's why we can completely blunder our social interactions - they have the same attitude of permissiveness when they raise their children. But, at some point, just as with Japanese children, we will be expected to start behaving properly and demonstrating our cultivation of what it means to be Japanese, their mores, their language (verbal and nonverbal). This social sense of who we are, I would argue, is fundamentally more of an aesthetic ordering than what we in the West are expected to demonstrate as we become who we are.

Grafitti in Okinawa

2008-04-29T15:41:00.003+09:00

in Takahara at the Kanahide/Toys R Us

The following are from a stroll through Chatan, south of America Village:

The above is from the parking lot of Jet City Burgers, which has to be my favorite place to eat so far because they always have interesting music and supremely nice folks working there; and it's on the freakin' beach!

Apologies for Radio Silence

2008-04-29T15:32:00.004+09:00

Please accept my apologies for not having posted anything here for the last two weeks or so (and since my readership is largely family, I promise to get you a nice gift from Japan). I was asked to give a paper at the University of Hawai'i on April 12 as part of the Comparative Continental Philosophy Circle's celebration of Graham Parkes and this has kept me very busy over the past month. You can read the working paper here.
Today is a national holiday so I will churn out some posts I've been sitting on for the past month.

War Is Over if You Want It

2008-04-20T11:25:00.002+09:00

Okinawa is an occupied island. And this can be read in two ways: the U.S. controls, what seems to be, most of the island (and so there are really large bases all over the place - in fact, you can't google maps the northern part of the island); but the Japanese also occupy Okinawa. The Okinawans are a distinctly different ethnic group and the Japanese are very quick to point out they aren't "really Japanese." But that's alright, ultimately, because teh Okinawans are a peace-loving people. They erect war memorials to all sides of the WWII conflicts and make concerted efforts to discuss peace making at all public venues. In the spirit of the Okinawans I present the following:

Here's a link to what seems to be the shortest war in history (38 long minutes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War

Here's a link to a story about a french nuclear physicist that staged a one man invasion of the island of Sark in Britain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sark

I just thought you'd like to know that the world is big enough for these kinds of events.

From the above, we get this interesting legal device; maybe the Uchinanchu (Okinawans) could use it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clameur_de_haro

What happened to my music posting thingy? I'm listening to "Illinois" by Sufjan Stevens and I wish that I had some new music.

Wasabi Ice Cream

2008-03-25T21:59:00.004+09:00

I first noticed this place after I had gone to Krishna in Plaza House for what seems to be the best curry in Okinawa City.

It's a fun looking place, but I don't really eat a lot of ice cream as a rule. But one night I thought, "what the heck," and am I glad! I first had the blackened sesame ice cream, which tastes kinda like peanut butter, but with a delicious smokiness. Then I saw this:

Wasabi flavor. There's real wasabi in there, they blend the ice creams right before you. They also offer juices and smoothies and advertise that this is all additive free, low in sugar, calories and fat (hmm...)

Other flavors include:

green tea
turmeric
sea weed
purple sweet potato
okinawan sugar cane and soy flour
and a bunch of more traditional flavors

Oishi Desu!

Their website is:
http://gelobello.ti-da.net/

Southeast Botanical Gardens

2008-03-25T21:13:00.008+09:00

The Southeast Botanical Gardens in Chibana are great. Really great. It's very cheap (about 1,000 yen, but they give you 500 yen in credit at the gift shop), and it has some really neat things to see:

like this cactus-y tree (?)

Okinawa has gorgeous flowers and lots of orchids (which you note immediately after you leave the airplane in Naha).
Here's something called a Jade Plant

There are so many gorgeous things to see at this place that I kinda gave up and just started taking pictures of things that were of interest to me like these guys:

On the left is the bottle palm, I don't know what that is on the right. In both is some kind of tropical mistletoe.

These two above were in the Enchanted Forest section.

This has to be one of my favorite signs (next to the sign at Naha Airport that states puddings are not allowed):

But the real highlight has to be the carp. They're disgusting.

So I took several videos:

You can feed them, there's a vending machine (of course) full of fish food and it's gotta be the best 100 yen you can spend.
Here's me gettin' more riled up:

and here is their bizarre crescendo:

The website for the Southeast Botanical Gardens:
http://www.sebg.co.jp/e/

Cultural Differences

2008-03-25T20:44:00.006+09:00

We went to Katsuen Castle Remains in Uruma City. Katsuren is a World Heritage designated by the U.N. and it's a beautiful place. The castle was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and was the home to the great Amawari... you gotta go there, it's free and you can get brochures in English if you so desire.

Here's a picture as we begin the ascent:

It's pretty steep walking up there and as you can see from above, it's a flat drop on the side.

When I got up there I was really struck by two things:
1) Okinawa's gorgeous!
2) there's nothing keeping me from being blown off this castle!

Here's what I mean:

This is the Castle Wall, it's at me knees, and from this picture it's hard to tell, but there's a straight drop just three feet in front of me (refer to the first picture in this series).

Maybe this will clarify what I mean:

The kid is standing at the edge of the Castle Wall and just a foot away from his feet is a significant drop.

In the U.S. this would never happen. I guess we're simply too stupid as a people to know better...I'm not really sure why American society is such a litigious one. Maybe it's the lack of Nationalized/Socialized Healthcare, I dunno. But I do know that this also wouldn't happen in the U.S. because we're so eager to enter lawsuits:

This is a chainsaw plant, I took this photo at the Southeast Botanical Gardens. It's just laying there, waiting for you.

Of course, I am not saying that things should be different here in Japan. I am saying that it's interesting how our two societies are able to function so differently. I'm glad to know it's possible.

Graffiti in Okinawa City

2008-03-23T11:51:00.004+09:00

Found in Okinawa City on Awase Bay Street

These three were found in the Park Avenue area near Koza

These with JMO(0?) were found near Ike Island

Getting an Inkan Registered

2008-03-22T10:48:00.006+09:00

The Japanese prefer personal seals (sometimes they are called inkan, other times they are called hanko - I'm not sure why the two names) over what they feel are easy-to-forge signatures. There is some flexibility for gaijin on this matter, though. You can establish a bank account, a cellphone contract, even a lease with your signature, but there's a caveat:
If you start an account with an inkan/hanko, you are forever bound to using that same stamp for the term of your account (no signing one month and stamping another), so don't lose your inkan!

You can buy inkan in many places and there are inkan stores that will make a seal to your specifications, typically in less than a week. It seems that if yours is a Western name, it's likely you will get an inkan that is in romaji (the alphabet), I am guessing that all others will have their names transliterated into katakana (the Japanese syllabary). Here are some examples of inkans/hankos:
This is from the ANA Visa people and it's the organization's official seal.
This is from the Roshi (Abbot), Fukushima, of the Tofukuji monastery there are several seals on this fan.

You should only use your inkan for official documents, don't go slapping it on any old thing (which was my first impulse). For that, you use an unofficial stamp (again you can buy these all over the place), they are called sanmonban. You use sanmonban for signing for packages, maybe as a neat little embellishment to a letter to your buddies back home, whatever.

Here's an informal stamp that I use:

It says "Po-Ru" which is the transliteration into katakana of my name.

To register your inkan you must go to City Hall (near Koza here in Okinawa City) and present your gaijin card and pay some money. In Okinawa City you receive a Hibiscus Card (like a credit card) which is used to further verify your address. Here's where in City Hall you go to register (also the same window to get a gaijin card, by the way):

You go to the window there, don't worry, they speak English, and tell them what you'd like to do. They will ask for your identification and Hibiscus Card and then tell you how many tickets to purchase:

I guess it wouldn't be right to give the municipal authorities money outright, so they have this ticket system in place. You put your money into a vending machine next to the window and select the tickets you want and then present the tickets you've purchased to the office clerks. You'll notice that you rarely just put money into someone's hands in Japan.

Bullfighting Capital of Japan

2008-03-22T10:38:00.006+09:00

Uruma City is the bullfighting capital of Japan, and it's the immediate eastern neighbor of Okinawa City. We work in Uruma City, which is where I saw this manhole cover:

Then, on the way to Ike Island (also part of the Uruma City district), I saw this man brushing his huge bull on the side of the highway:
He's going to be fighting on the 31st of March.
But the bull fights are a little different here, instead of being killed my matadors, they buck-up against other bulls, maybe like sumo wrestlers? They try to knock each other out of the ring, I guess. I'll be sure to fill you in!

Getting a Cellphone

2008-03-22T09:59:00.005+09:00

The laws in Japan were changed recently (I think in 2006-7) requiring all aliens (not Japanese citizens) to verify their identity, your certificate of alien registration (gaijin card).

The DoCoMo (the largest cellphone service provider) website says you may also enact a contract using the following:

Japanese Health Insurance Certificate
+
Utility receipt
or
Certificate of Residence
or
Certification of Information Recorded on Foreign Resident Registration File
+
Credit Card

None of that is true, I can assure you from experience. If you are an alien trying to get a cellphone contract in Japan, wait until you get your "gaijin card." We tried several times to get a contract enacted and brought everything, including paystubs, certificate of hanko registration, and our visas from the Ministry of Justice. Just wait until the gaijin card is available.

The contract took about an hour to complete (someone was on the phone with us while we reviewed the terms, translating) and they even charged the phones and switched the menus to English for us. We told ourselves before we moved to Okinawa that we would treat ourselves for working so hard last year and get a really cool cellphone. That means we could have saved a good amount of money by just taking an older phone, but we ruminated for several weeks and comparison shopped, and we decided in the end to get the P905i:

If you look carefully you'll see that it does a number of things.
We can start by commenting on its high-def screen.

This is particularly nice because we can watch tv with the phones (and so save a few hundred dollars instead of buying one)

And we also save money by not having to buy a digital camera or a video camera (the HP camera that we've had for a couple of years now is just as good as this one!)

But I think what really sold me was that I can use the phone in the U.S., Australia, Europe, South America, and most of Asia. I can send and receive email overseas (it does cost a it more), and I can make video conference calls on my freaking phone!

We can record tv with it, we can pay for stuff with it (the phone's like a debit card), we can surf the web and download music and movies (it uses Windows Media Player), it's got GPS applications, it's got video games....every day we learn something new about this phone. It's like a new hobby. The manual is, like, 600 pages and available in English as a pdf (which you can review on your cellphone).

White Day

2008-03-16T17:07:00.002+09:00

So there's Valentine's Day in Japan, but it's not quite like in the U.S.

In Japan, Valentine's day is the day that women give men chocolate, and it's pretty free of the stresses of Valentine's day in the U.S. But, then there's White Day.

White Day is the Japanese Valentine's Day, for the ladies. On White Day the men are expected to give the ladies a little chocolate, maybe a small gift. But, again, you give these gifts to all the ladies that you interact with on a daily basis and so it is somewhat freed from the stress of finding a Valentine like in the U.S.

I work in an office with several wonderful ladies and so I thought I'd do right by them and by a box of chocolates for them to share.

I found a nice box, it even had a nice little message on it and that little symbol I see on gifts. I thought, "sugoi, I've found just the right thing, the ladies will be pleased." Wrong. The following morning another Westerner asked one of the Japanese speaking ladies what the message on the box I purchased for them said, and she quietly shared that it says, "Congratulations on Passing Your Examinations." Being the wonderfully polite woman she was she also said that this was a good gift I got because this is the time of year when students are taking exams...but we both knew that it was pretty funny.

The box I bought is on the far right side:

St. Patrick's Day in Koza

2008-03-16T16:51:00.007+09:00

Who knew that there was a St. Patrick's Day Parade in Koza, Okinawa City? There sure is. I missed the parade but did get to stroll around the Park Avenue area. Koza is the music capital of Okinawa and what says Erin go Braugh more than crumping (a highly-stylized street dance from the West Coast of the US)?

Not only is there a parade, but there's live music all day and night and a little flea market where I saw this:

Instant Coffee in Okinawa

2008-03-15T14:57:00.008+09:00

As I've mentioned before, I love coffee and I have been really tickled that coffee is so readily available here in Okinawa. It's in the vending machines (one in the neighborhood in front of my apartment) both hot and cold, it's in the restaurants; there's even Starbucks! The "American Village," just like in America, has something like 3 Starbucks all within a two minute walk of each other!

In my office we have a reserve of instant coffee, but it's not Sanka, it's Blendy:

Blendy comes in these little tea bag-looking things, and I thought, at first, that's all I did: let the bag steep. But then I looked at the above directions and realized, no; this is way cooler than that.

Here's the bag. You pull this tab (one on each side) and it makes little wings:

The "wings" hang on either side of your mug, and you rip the top of the bag off:

Now it's time to take your cup and bag over to the hot water maker:

Put some hot water in and let nature take it's caffeinated course:

Enjoy!

Okinawa City's Ephemeral Art

2008-03-12T22:30:00.011+09:00

I'm from Atlanta, GA where we have a thriving graffiti scene, so I have been very pleased to see that Okinawa has quite a lot of this public art as well.

I'm really enjoying riding my bike or walking around town and snapping photos of what's up.

By far, the most prolific person or group has got to be RASKA followed by GUN, NER (also NEVER?), and I see a lot of SUBZERO splashed around.

Let me know if there are others I should be seeing and what are some good spots. Clicking on any of these photos should open up a larger viewing. Oh, and these were all taken with my P905i cell phone camera, thus the strange angles sometimes.

Cormorant Fishing: Pros and Cons; Exploding Snakes

2008-03-11T15:01:00.003+09:00

Okay, so this post will have very little to do with Okinawa in particular, except that I became aware of this subject while wandering through Best Denki and saw a game show that featured it.

Cormorant Fishing is an ancient art that is still practiced in Japan. The master trains the birds to live with people, wear a "leash" of sorts, catch and throw-up large fish for the master fisherman. Pretty cool.

But, while reading today's edition of The Japan Times online I came across a great English-based blog "The Blog from Another Dimension" and a posting entitled "Cormorant 0, Fish 1" here and learned that instincts ain't all that great. (SPOILER WARNING: obviously, from the title, the bird doesn't get the fish; better still, the bird dies trying to eat the fish! You gotta see it to believe it.)

And then, at the bottom of that page, in the comments section, a link to an article posted by the BBC wherein pythons, not indigenous to Florida, are just as avaricious as the above cormorants. The snake ate an alligator, and exploded. Here.

Karaoke Box!

2008-03-09T23:51:00.004+09:00

We had a colleague that was returning to his home in New Zealand this weekend and we decided that we'd send him off with a bang. Rumor has it karaoke means "empty orchestra."

Karaoke boxes are a great way to have fun here in Okinawa, and if you get a group it can be economical too!

We had about ten people, we rented a room for a few hours and had all we could drink, each of us put in maybe 1200 yen. What a deal. And, you can get food delivered to your karaoke room also.

Here's how it went down (sorry, if this is too embarrassing):

Zanpa Cape Park

2008-03-09T01:10:00.008+09:00

Here's a video from the cliffs at Zanpa Cape Park (about thirty minutes north and west from Okinawa City).

I have to apologize for the sound (it was crazy windy) and I took these videos not so much to show you the beauty of Okinawa as much as to show what my cell phone can do (take video clips!)
(WARNING: THE SOUND'S PRETTY LOUD, ADJUST YOUR VOLUME)

Here's another, from the top of the light house at Zanpa Cape Park (it's only 200 yen to go up there and it's really something else):

I took these using my cellphone, a Panasonic P905i. These are available from DoCoMo and they are totally awesome. These clips are short probably because I'm not using an SD card which would give me upwards of 6 gigs of memory plus whatever memory it has now (I've got probably 50 photos and another video clip on their right now).

Cleaning Your Okinawan Apartment (Lesson 3)

2008-03-08T15:15:00.011+09:00

Japan has a wide variety of micro-climates, due to its numerous mountain ranges as well as its immense amount of coastline. Tokyo is on the same line of latitude as Atlanta, GA with equally hot and humid summers.

Okinawa is like living in central Florida, only more humid.

Humidity is common to most of Japan and so the Japanese have all sorts of neat devices for reducing the amount of moisture that gets trapped in your clothes, your bedding, your closets, and so on.

Here are some of the products we've found so far:

This is the ol' zo-san (Mr. Elephant), put it in your closet, behind a curtain, pretty much anywhere and it will start collecting the moisture in the air. The top part looks like it's filled with little Styrofoam balls (don't take the paper covering off by the way) and the bottom (seemingly by magic) fills with water:

The picture above this one is of our closet and you'll notice there's some kind of wooden palette next to zo-san:
You place your futon on this every morning so that air is able to circulate and it doesn't get too funky. Believe me, you have to get at least one of these or else you will be sleeping on a moldy, funky bed. We were here for, maybe, seven days and we found that there was, not a little, a lot of moisture under our futon. Soaking.

What's crazy is this (February) is supposed to be one of the driest parts of the year in Okinawa. It did rain here for about two and a half weeks straight when we first arrived, so that may account for some of it. We'll come back to bedding in another post; but I did want to show several other moisture-reducing gadgets that we've picked up along the way including this one that you put under your futon:
This is basically a sheet of those desiccant packets that you find on shoe boxes it has a small plastic patch on one side that changes from blue (dry) to pink (wet) telling you to do two things: 1) air-out your futon and 2) air-out the desiccant sheet. Okinawa gets plenty of sunshine, so don't worry.

You can hang this bad boy in your closet:

and you can put these in your suits:

How To Clean Your Okinawan Apartment (Lesson 2)

2008-03-08T14:38:00.007+09:00

We love being in Okinawa, and we love coffee.

We love using our french press coffee maker in Okinawa, but our land lord was specific in asking that we not try to put waste down the sink. Back in the U.S. most of new apartments have a disposal; but in Okinawa there is something else in the sink, it's almost like a Russian doll:

You take the first lid off and find a little basket:

So, you've got this basket, "probably there to catch food going down the drain, that's cool."
But, what's that underneath the sink basket?

You can take that thing out too and what you are left with looks like a toilet plunger turned inside-out and a couple of inches of water. Don't take the water out! That's there to keep the pressure and to ensure that no unseemly smells start rising up from the bowels of the drains.

But you do want to clean this area out weekly because food will get in there and it will slowly decay and a little biosphere will become a big biosphere pretty quickly. Life is teeming on a sub-tropical island.

While we were exploring the grocery stores we noticed in the cleaning supplies section this little guy:
inside are these little fellas:
These are "sink socks" for lack of any ability to read Japanese. We assume that you use them to reduce the amount of food that gets stuck in the sink basket.

Ground coffee not only gets stuck in the sink basket but also passes through it and will clog your sink drain. Not knowing how to A) look-up a plumber in Japanese, B) assuming we could do that, we don't know how to say, "Hey, we have a clogged drain;" we opted for preventative measures, namely, putting this little sock on our sink basket:

30 of these come in a pack, so you get about a month of coffee protection!

How to Clean Your Okinawan Apartment (Lesson 1)

2008-03-01T17:25:00.011+09:00

Not being the cleanest person in the world, by any stretch, but there is something about moving into a new apartment that begs for some regular, simple cleaning. Maybe it's the size - apartments tend to be small in Japan (a lot of people, a very limited space available to them) - maybe it's the attention to detail, the consistent demand that everything be "kawai" (cute). Maybe more so it's my fear of an ant infestation, or living in a cloud of fruit flies. Back home I would simply buy pesticide, or if it's really bad, contact an exterminator. But to do those things requires a lot of know how we simply don't have: we're illiterate and don't speak Japanese and so won't be calling or buying any products or services for a while.

So we clean to avoid the embarrassment of asking one of our fluent friends, "Could you ask tell me how to get an exterminator? We have these giant cockroaches living in the bathroom."

The best strategy, then, is to make sure the place doesn't invite bugs in the first place; so clean up.

We were very fortunate to have someone assist us in getting our apartment and not only is it perfect, but she also set us up with a few little things that go a LONG way, like paper plates and cleaning supplies.

Today we'll focus on cleaning the floor. Our apartment is western style, we have linoleum flooring and so makes cleaning pretty easy. We're also glad because we don't have to worry as much about the tatami becoming infested with bed bugs or ticks or what-have-you.

What did we get for cleaning the floors? That modern marvel, the Swiffer!

That's the brand name for it in the U.S. at least.

This is a great little tool, it's like a velcro broom.

Simply put one of these on there:

they come in packages like this:

and then follow this fun little illustration's example:

You'll be surprised at how quickly its gotta be changed:

To reduce the frequency of cleanings, we recommend you follow-up quickly with the "wet-wipe" version; or maybe it's the mop version (again, we are illiterate in this country so...):

Welcome to Okinawa City　(沖縄市)

2008-02-29T13:31:00.007+09:00

Welcome! This site is intended to share with you some of what we have learned so far living in Okinawa.

Okinawa Ken (Prefecture) is a beautiful archipelago of subtropical islands south of the Japanese mainland and just north and east of Taiwan. Okinawa is the largest island in the archipelago and Okinawa Shi (City) is the second largest city on the island. Flights from Naha, the capital of Okinawa Ken, can have you to Taipei in less than two hours; Seoul, South Korea in about three hours; Beijing, China in about four hours; and Tokyo in about three hours. Okinawa lies almost exactly equidistant from both Tokyo and Manila in the Phillipines.

Okinawa Shi neighbors the beautiful village of Kitanakagusuku and the newly formed Uruma Shi (City) which is along the coast at Awase Bay.

For those of you that are fluent in Japanese or are Uchinanchu (Okinawan), please share any corrections or insights.

This blog will somewhat chronicle my stay in Okinawa over the next several years. I will provide some pretty simple things at times (like, "how to use a Japanese washing machine," or, "how to reduce the humidity in your apartment,") as well as more touristy things (like, whale watching tours). There will be regular photos and videos as well as useful links and what have you.

Ultimately this will be a humorous site as most of what will be shared will be informed by the humiliating mistakes made by an author that is wholly illiterate in Japanese. Enjoy!

Okinawa City Okinawa (沖縄市)

Readings for November 17, 2008

Nago's Pineapple Park!

Two Things I Saw That I Wouldn't See in the States

Making Glass at Onna Glass

Kumejima!

Food Security in Japan

More Japan Demographics in the News

Being Homeless in Japan: Netcafes, video parlors

Rice!

Halloween in Japan

Cultural Differences, East & West

On Japan-China Relations

Okinawa-shi Mentioned at Okinawa Hai!

Contra Debito Arudou

Strength in cultural differences

Conan the Praying Dog!!!

ぜんざい Zenzai!!!!

Cultural Differences

The Amazing (& Delicious) Dragon Fruit

Really Loud, Large Bugs

Japanese Surfers

Obon=Eisa

Yonabaru Rope Pull (Best Day Ever, 2.0)

EISA

Eating in Okinawa

Okinawan Microcosmos

Best Day Ever!

What To Do in the Event of an Earthquake

Bull Fight!

Haari in Onna-son

Cell Phones in Japan

Record Shopping in Okinawa City

Ryukyu Mura

Dragon Boats! (Haari)

Grafitti Around Okinawa

Junk Food!

Shisa Dogs

Coffee Jelly Frappuccino and the Meaning of Personhood in Japan

Grafitti in Okinawa

Apologies for Radio Silence

War Is Over if You Want It

Wasabi Ice Cream

Southeast Botanical Gardens

Cultural Differences

Graffiti in Okinawa City

Getting an Inkan Registered

Bullfighting Capital of Japan

Getting a Cellphone

White Day

St. Patrick's Day in Koza

Instant Coffee in Okinawa

Okinawa City's Ephemeral Art

Cormorant Fishing: Pros and Cons; Exploding Snakes

Karaoke Box!

Zanpa Cape Park

Cleaning Your Okinawan Apartment (Lesson 3)

How To Clean Your Okinawan Apartment (Lesson 2)

How to Clean Your Okinawan Apartment (Lesson 1)

Welcome to Okinawa City (沖縄市)

Welcome to Okinawa City　(沖縄市)