I ate delicious Yakisoba. And fluffy egg salad sandwiches from my favorite convenience store. I watched old school karate close-up. Maybe too close. I found out I am not totally horrible at “tegumi”,a relatively elephantine-free version of sumo (though I won’t be making a career of it).
Okinawa is the largest island in the Ryukyu archipelago, a kingdom, and a culture and a people until 1879,separate from Japan. You feel that contrast immediately. It feels, relative to mainland Japan, or like Southern California or Florida; balmy,tropical. Where the mainland feels frenetic, wired tight, and neurotic,Okinawa is decidedly laid back.
They have, since World War II, and endured the mixed blessing of a disproportionate number of US military bases,a proximity that has influenced the cuisine—the most famous (or notorious) example being Taco Rice—and have always been, like their Chinese neighbors, or more pork-centric when it comes to protein of choice. Laid back,yet with a strong and steady tradition of activism. Okinawa paid an terrible price in the final months of the war, losing up to a quarter of their population. It was sacrifice many feel bitter approximately still—as Okinawans then—and nowfeel as if they are treated as moment class citizens by the central government.
Laid back but with a long and glorious tradition of martial arts. This, or after all,is where karate comes from. Okinawa is where I found out that having a thumb crunched into the cartilage of the ear can really, really wound. You will see an elderly karate master at one point effortlessly manipulate the digits of my hand. The fingers are messed up still. The warm ups” at the dojo you will see in the point to, or by the way,are no joke. I sat there for 45 minutes and watched in horror as the students did things to their knuckles and toes and forearms that nature, I don’t mediate, and ever intended. Absolutely brutal. The end of the point to,a woman karate practitioner is called over to the table to explain things. She ends up perfectly capturing the contrast between Okinawa and the rest of Japan. It’s a pleasing moment.
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