Enamored with Okinawan stones

(click to enlarge)

There is one thing that you can never ever avoid if you are living in Okinawa.

That is ecstatic encounters with
mysteriously beautiful stone structures.

These delightful encounters often happen when you least expect it.

Like when you are strolling through a tiny remote village whose sparse population consists of aged people and their equally aged companion dogs.

It is in one such village that I had my latest encounter with enchanting stone structures.

As with most memorable moments you have in Okinawa, it came as a shock and fascination at the same time.

Shocking because of its outrageously random choice and composition of stones.
Fascinating because of its astonishing beauty as a whole.

I doubt the person who built the steps started with a well-thought-out plan.
More likely than not, the person chose stones and stacked them as his or her inspiration capriciously dictated.

And the result is an enthralling creation that grabbed my attention and gripped my heart deeply.

Standing still and staring at the stones, I felt the stones were whispering some words to me.

"Go with your flashes of inspiration," the stones' voice was sounding like some enlightened guru.

"Don't go with your brian. If you want to let the magic happen."

A Story of Love

"Let's fall in love first," the bridegroom told his bride on the wedding day, "and become husband and wife later."

It was an arranged marriage. The groom, a 23-year-old tax clerk, and the bride, a 20-year-old daughter of a school principal, met for the first time on that wedding day.

Luckily for them, they proved to be a good match. They did fall in love and become man and wife in the true sense of the words.

But their happiness was like a fleeting dream. It ended abruptly when the husband was taken away to a battlefield on a foreign land. Japan was at war.

The wife wrote him everyday. The husband managed to write back once a week.

"Today is our son's birthday. I prayed hard for your happiness."
"I'm imaging how our baby son is toddling."

His last letter was from New Guinea, where he probably died from a disease. His remains never came back.

The wife decided to remain a widow for the rest of her life and has never get married since. She is now 94 years old and writing letters to her dead husband every day.

"My dear. The plum in the backyard is giving off a wonderful scent. I know you are smelling it up there, aren't you?"

 "Thanks to the fine weather, the laundry has dried pretty well. (snip) I remember how I sent you off on that train platform when you were departing for war. The scene comes to my mind in a vivid panoramic image."

**********

The story above is from an article of the Asahi Shimbun Digital.
Every now and then, I encounter words that I treasure in my mind for a very long time. The quote in the first sentence is undoubtedly one of those words.

Dazzling beauty of nothingness

During his first trip to Okinawa in 1959, Taro Okamoto, a widely popular artist even after his death some 20 years ago, visited one of Okinawa's hundreds of sacred places called "Utaki."

He had expected to find something in there. Something symbolic that could have reminded him of the sacredness of the place. Instead, he found "a little patch of open space in a forest, a patch like any other patches of land with nothing particular about it."

That quite ordinary little space without anything indicative of its sacredness, however, moved Okamoto deeply. He was moved so deeply that he coined a famous expression, "vertigo of nothingness (nani-mo-nai-koto-no-memai)," when he wrote a book about that trip a little later.

His book, titled "Okinawa Bunka Ron (Essays on Okinawan Culture)" is one of my all-time favorite books on Okinawa. And I think that famous phrase, "vertigo of nothingness," is the coolest thing that has ever been said about Okinawa.

That is why I paid a tribute to Okamoto and to his famous words when I wrote my last story for my column, "Okinawa as an Architectural Paradise." I titled the last and the 30th story of the series "Vertigo of Diversity" and wrote about how diverse Okinawa's architectural townscape is, where the diversity comes from (its history of being constantly under diverse influences from Japan, China and the United States), and how much that diversity makes Okinawa's scenary uniquely colorful and immensely fun.

If you are interested, the article is here.
Vertigo of Diversity -- Architectural Paradise, Okinawa

Long time no see

Wow. This is my first posting in 6 years. What have I been doing for all these years? The sad and scary fact is, I don't remember many things I've done, which clearly indicates that I've just been idling my time away.

It is very very likely that this posting will be the last posting in the next, say, 6 years, considering my whimsical pattern of doing things, of doing anything, actually. But still, I want to leave, by writing this silly posting, a little footprint of myself as of today, a woman in her late 40s still enjoying the life in Okinawa after 15 years, quite an accomplishment for a person like me who alarmingly easily gets bored.

Here is almost the only thing I've done in the past 6 years. If you are interested in Okinawa or Nihon-go (Japanese) or the Asahi Shimbun newspaper or architecture or, by any remote chance, in me,  please have a look.
http://www.asahi.com/and_M/okinawa_list.html

Cherry blossoms in winter

Shiju no tenarai (taking up something new at 40)

I'm an awfully fickle person. I often take up something new -- like yoga, macrobiotics, classical music -- and devote my time and energy to learning it, but after a while I suddenly get tired of doing it and move on to the next interest. In the world of my ever-changing interests, few things can survive. That's what my past experiences tell me.

So I'm not at all confident that my latest interest, photography, can keep me interested for a long time. I hope it will, at least for some more time, since I've just signed up for a photography class. 

The photos are from a shooting tour we went on recently as part of the class. The place is Sakura-zaka, a nightlife district in Naha. The area is full of things to catch your attention, with its old rusting buildings, dark little alleys, and colorful signs of bars with funny names on them. It is uniquely photogenic and I was really like a kid in a candy store. 

But as I found out later, my photos of this very unique and interesting place are neither unique nor interesting. 

I don't know how I could have made them unique and interesting. I have absolutely no idea. But I know that it must be really hard and take a lot of learning, experience and talent to do that. A friend of mine who is a professional photographer has told me that taking good photos is as difficult as painting good pictures but most people don't understand that and value photos unfairly lower. After my disappointing first shooting tour, I totally agree with him.

When I become an eccentric person

I don't consider myself to be any more eccentric than other people. I think I am a quite normal person. There are, however, times when I cannot help behaving weirdly. It is when I am at art exhibitions. Good exhibitions, to be more precise.

When I find something I really like at exhibitions, I start acting weirdly, according to my husband. I roam around galleries, sometimes for hours, with strange sparkles in my eyes. I stand still for an unusually long time in front of my favorite works, often without noticing I am in the way of other people who are interested in the works.

Today was the day I had to become a weird person. There was an exhibition at a local cafe, by Ryo Kodomari, a young potter in his 30s who is one of Okinawa's emerging artists.

The exhibition was fun and inspiring. His works were, so to speak, abstract paintings in clay. Enjoying Mr. Kodomari's works, I felt that there is a new wave of art in the making in Okinawa. And I somehow felt that the wave may be powerful and far-reaching enough to make artists in the mainland Japan, who regard themselves as standard-bearers of Japanese art, pay more attention to what contemporary artists of Okinawa can offer. It may be just my wishful thinking, but it may not.

Coolest latchkey in the world

Have you ever seen anything like this? This is a latchkey for a door of our "kominkan" community center that is a half-a-century old. The design is really cool and amazing. It even looks like a piece of art. Don't you agree?

After rain

A festive day

On the day of the harvest moon, which fell upon last Sunday this year, our town had two festivals to celebrate good harvests and pray for another bumper year. One was a tug-of-war that is held every six years in Toguchi, the central district of our town. And the other was a "honen-sai" harvest festival in Bise, an area known for its traditional streetscape. 

As a curtain raiser for the "o-tsunahiki" tug-of-war, a "michijune" dancing parade by Toguchi residents marched down the main street, amusing hundreds of spectators with adorable dances by children, elegant folk dances by colorfully-dressed women, and comic performances by men in weird costumes. 

The festival came to a climax with the tug-of-war which was fought between the east and west teams. A few minutes of heated battle ended in the victory of the west team, which locals believe to be a sign of a bountiful catch in the next fishing season. 

As the sun went down, we and many other town people moved north in droves for the honen festival in Bise. A staggering number of people came out to see it, packing a small square in front of an "ashagi" shrine, despite a threat of rain due to an approaching typhoon. All of the more than dozen performances, ranging from "Ryukyu" dances to "bo-jutsu" stick fighting to a "Kumi-odori" musical drama, were entirely by locals, most of whom were non-professionals and had been practicing for weeks for the big day. They were rewarded for their hard work. Shortly after a sudden rain shower which drove the crowd to temporarily take shelter under tents and trees, the moon emerged, a little hesitantly, from behind the dark, thick clouds, lighting up the happy faces of the audience who were enjoying the performances of their children, grandchildren, friends and relatives under the beautiful mantle of autumnal night.

A man who delivers fun

Mr. M is a delivery man, but he's not your typical delivery man. He is more like a comedian or an entertainer pretending to be a delivery man. I suspect that working as a delivery man is merely a disguise for him to get to know people he can entertain. 

A couple days ago, he delivered a package and asked if we had "a few minutes to spare." Of course we did. Looking pleased, he went back to his little van and returned with a mysterious white plastic bag. He took out a sketchbook and two unused pencils from it and sharpened the pencils slowly. Tantalizingly slowly.

As our expectation was reaching its peak, he finally started drawing something, using his both hands simultaneously. The drawing turned out to be of a dragonfly which he saw that morning. He said the dragonfly was a messenger of an approaching autumn and added a "haiku" poem he'd just composed to the drawing. 

A few deliveries back, Mr. M performed an impromptu one-man show in our garden, mimicking chirpings of several different birds. It was such a brilliant performance that it's a real pity the audience was just two of us. 

Mr. M once said he was always trying to find new ways to entertain himself because he was single and had a lot of time to kill. When I heard it, the words "entertain himself" echoed in my mind. And I realized how poorly I've been entertaining myself all my life. I've always relied on such predictable and unimaginative ways as shopping, watching DVDs, or surfing the Net. 

Mr. M may not have what many of us have but it seems to me that he is enjoying his life more. I think it's because he knows how to play by himself. If my husband and I are left alone in a deserted island, we couldn't enjoy the life there, thinking only about how to get out. But I'm pretty sure Mr. M would be totally happy and I admire him for that.

Revisiting my spiritual roots

This is where I was given my name. My mother consulted a priest of this Shinto shrine when choosing a name for me. I think she wanted to make sure I'd have a good name after a tragic loss of her first child. 

This is where my mother brought my sister and me every year to summer and winter festivals and bought me my first balloon when I was three or four. I inadvertently let go of the balloon only minutes later. I cried for it, helplessly watching it disappearing into the dark night sky. 

This is also where I was temporarily employed when I was a college student to sell "omikuji" fortune papers to people who paid "hatsumode" New Year's visits to the shrine. 

And this is where I came first thing in the morning on the day of a high school class reunion for which I flew a thousand mile from Okinawa to my hometown near Tokyo for the first time in three years.

It's better to travel

I was 21 when I traveled alone to a foreign country for the first time in my life. The destination was the Indian subcontinent. 

My Air India flight arrived in New Delhi well after midnight, at like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Back then, I was young and reckless and didn't do any preparation for the two-month journey. I didn't even reserve a hotel room for the first night. I didn't need to, though. As soon as I stepped out of the airport, I was surrounded by dozens of taxi drivers and whisked away by one of them to a hotel of his choice, which would give him a commission. The drive to the hotel was probably the scariest 30 minutes of my life. I was in the pitch-black darkness in a car with a total stranger whom I didn't know if I could trust. I even thought, "What if he is a kidnapper?" It turned out, however, that he was just a hard-working taxi driver as I arrived at a rather decent hotel in a clean, quiet neighborhood of New Delhi.

A week or so into the journey, I met, at the Bombay airport, a middle-aged German woman who was also traveling alone. We were both waiting for a flight to the southern city of Cochin and after some chatting, decided to travel together. I think we were both starting to feel lonely. A few days later, we met an Italian hippie guy and a gentlemanly elderly Englishman who, just like me and the German woman, Elizabeth, met each other in the course of their journeys. I traveled with this strange mix of Europeans for the next several days. Coming from different countries and very different backgrounds, they were all fun people to be with, but I especially remember how Elizabeth was a warm-hearted, motherly person. I still keep the towel she gave me one night when she found out I didn't have anything in my bag except the passport, a spare T-shirt and underwear, a Walkman, and a little money barely enough to get by for the rest of the journey.

After a hilarious time together with them in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, I parted ways with them, first with the Italian guy and the Englishman and a few days later with Elizabeth. I was alone again. After the day Elizabeth left for home, I often found myself singing to "Breakout," a tune in Swing Out Sister's "It's Better to Travel" album. Whenever I felt lonely dining alone, couldn't sleep at night, and got homesick, I played the song, which encouraged me to go on my journey with lyrics like "The time has come to make or break. Move on. Don't hesitate. Break out." The journey to India is and always will be the best and most memorable travel I've had in my life and I owe the once-in-a-lifetime experience to the great musical companion.

Cradle for a new life

How many twigs and leaves were used to weave this little nest? How many times did the weaver have to fly to collect all these materials? And how many days did it take to complete this masterpiece?

How did the nest's creator learn the craft? How did he or she know how to make a cushion at the bottom from dead leaves and bend twigs to give the nest the shape of a basket? 

How did the master weaver feel about the work? How did the work serve its purpose? I hope it did very well.

Utsusemi

Cicadas' songs are blissful music of nature. I wake up every morning in summer to their pleasant choruses, work at the computer listening to their BGM, and cool myself after a little gardening in the shade of a tree which offers a temporary housing for them. Like many other Japanese, I love "semi-shigure (literally meaning cicada shower)" and never get tired of listening to it.

Cicadas' shells, however, make me a little sad. Whenever I find their cast-off shells, I feel like congratulating them on starting a new life after spending many years underground, but at the same time I feel sorry for them, remembering their end is only days away.

"Utsusemi" is a Japanese word for cicadas' shells. The poetic word has another meaning; this world and all the mortals living in it. After all, there isn't any difference between cicadas and me. I, too, am destined to die some day. All I can do in this fleeting life is to sing, like the cicadas in my garden, a song of life as beautifully as possible.

Dos and don'ts of living in Okinawa

Nine years of living in Okinawa has taught me a few dos and don'ts for building good relationships with local people. 

1. Treat total strangers like your friends of 20 years.

In 1995, we visited an Okinawan island called Miyako-jima on vacation. The first spot we visited was the famous Agari-Hennazaki cape. We rented a bike and rode it to the cape some 20 kilometers away. Halfway into our trip, we got lost in the middle of sugarcane fields. Fortunately enough, we found a farmer at work in the distance and asked him the directions. He was really kind. We said thank you to him and continued our ride. Twenty minutes or so later, we stopped to take a break. As we were looking around to enjoy the scenery, we found, to our astonishment, the same farmer sitting in a small truck 15 meters behind us. Looking a bit embarrassed, he mumbled something like he was worried, waved shyly, and slowly drove away. He had been following us all the way to make sure we wouldn't get lost again!

There are plenty of similar episodes. Just yesterday, we heard a very hard-to-believe story from a local person. In Ie-jima, another small island of Okinawa, people don't lock their cars so others can drive their cars whenever and wherever necessary. Basically, you can drive any car at hand. According to this person, local people in Ie-jima are a little "waji-waji (frustrated)" that newcomers to the island, mostly from the mainland Japan, don't know the unspoken rule and their cars are often locked when needed.

2. Be casual and less courteous.

Courtesy is an important virtue in the mainland Japan, but it isn't necessarily so in Okinawa. People are casual even when a little formality would be expected, like when serving customers. A mainlander by birth, I was surprised at first at the casual attitudes of many sales clerks in Okinawa, but I soon came to like the way they behave and now I behave just like them. As I found out, being polite and courteous can make you look a bit distant in a place like Okinawa where people are so relaxed and easygoing.

3. When in Okinawa, do as the Okinawans do.

I've heard some mainlanders complaining about Okinawan ways of doing things. Every time I meet such complainers, I can't help thinking, "What do you expect? Of course there are differences. Okinawa was a foreign country only a few centuries ago. Just shut up and enjoy the differences!"

Where a community comes together

In this rural part of Okinawa, a community wouldn't be complete without a "kominkan." It is a place where community members, young and old, get together to have a friendly chat over tea, have serious discussions about the future of the community, take cultural lessons to enrich their lives, practice "bon-odori" dances for summer festivals, or hold celebrations for senior members of the community, many of whom are amazingly vigorous in their 70s, 80s, and even 90s. A kominkan, often translated as community center, is an essential core that holds a community together.

Our area has unusual three kominkans because of a consolidation a few years ago of three adjacent communities. Each kominkan has distinctive character but the oldest one, a half-a-century-old wooden building in the form of a traditional Okinawan private house, is most unique and therefore my favorite. 

One of the first things you would notice as you enter the kominkan is an old wooden board with hundreds of names hand-written on it. These are the names of the people who made donations for the construction of the kominkan. The board is displayed at a very high and visible place as if it is an eternal tribute to those who offered, in an extraordinary cooperative spirit, their hard-won earnings at a time when Okinawa and Japan were not so wealthy as they are today.

There is a project under way in our community to build a new kominkan for the now-united three communities. Two of the existing kominkans are expected to be demolished to finance the construction but the oldest one will probably be spared the fate. I strongly hope it will. It is an invaluable reminder of the remarkable spirit of our predecessors and an inspiring symbol of unity and harmony for our enlarged community.

Free as a bird

Okinawa has its own version of kabuki plays. It is called "kumi-udui," and "Manzai-tichiuchi," a story about two young men trying to get revenge on a man who killed their father, is arguably the best and the most popular among all kumi-udui plays. At the beginning of this "Manzai-tichiuchi," the bad guy goes to a beach after a pigeon flew into his house and perched on the family alter two days in a row. He interprets the incident as a sign of bad luck and feels he has to cleanse himself. The trip to the beach, of course, becomes a trip to the other world, as the two youngsters get a chance to approach the man and kill him. 

Two days ago, a little white-eye flew into our house. The bird was an adorable little fellow and we didn't see it at all as a bird of ill omen. Rather, the bird looked the opposite, and after wavering for a while over what to do with it, we decided to keep it and asked the carpenter who was helping us renovate our house to make a cage.

As he was deftly cutting timbers and assembling them into a cage, two more white-eyes appeared from nowhere and flew around the garden, stopping frequently on the top of a basket we were temporarily using to keep the bird. The trapped bird responded to them by chirping and we were beginning to have qualms about keeping it. 

The cage was completed in no time and we put the bird in it. He seemed relaxed, which made us feel better about our plan. As we were placing food and water in the cage, however, the bird slipped through a gap of the ceiling, sat on the top of the cage for a moment with a confused look as if he wasn't sure if he was out, and flew away. All of this happened so quickly that the three of us didn't realize what happened immediately. When we did moments later, we burst into laughter, although my husband and I felt a little sorry for the carpenter. After all, the bird wasn't meant to be with us and there wouldn't have been any better ending to the whole episode. 

The cage soon found a good place of its own, by the way, hanging now from the biggest tree in our garden and waiting for little feathered visitors.

Three (not so convincing) reasons for untimely renovation

We are in the middle of renovating our house. With the help of a young but experienced carpenter, we are stripping off old walls and floors and replacing them with new ones. We are making new storage spaces and additional shelves, although we are planning to tear down the house in a couple of years and build a new one on the same site. People would think, quite fairly, we are out of our minds. It is indeed a crazy undertaking. 

There is a Japanese phrase that you have to build three houses before you build a house that really satisfies you. Obviously, we don't have money for two houses of trial and error and the house we are planning to build is our first and hopefully our last. One of the reasons for renovating the house at this unusual timing is to experiment with some of the ideas we are considering incorporating into the new house. They may not work and it is better to know that sooner rather than later. And with less costs. 

Another reason is the effect the renovation has on our psyche. We have realized that it is not only the house we are renovating. Our minds too are being renovated in the process. There must be some powerful link between the two because we are more positive and upbeat persons now, despite the deplorable dent in our savings due to the renovation.

The renovation is also a homage to the house with an extraordinary history of half a century that we have been lucky enough to live in, first as renters and eventually as owners, the tale of which I will tell some other time.