3/27/05: Okinawa and Fire Festival

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful time in Okinawa with our friend, Aya. Okinawa prefecture is a string of subtropical islands and home to beautiful beaches and scenery. While very Japanese, it is influenced by nearby China and the U.S. military presence, but mostly it is unique because of its past independent existence as the Kingdom of Ryukyu. Viewed as the Latin America of Japan, its people are energetic, expressive and enthusiastic.

Aya took us to Shuri Castle where the king governed from the 15th century until the 1870s when the Japanese mainland began absorbing the kingdom and stifling its history. The castle was destroyed during WWII, but has been lovingly restored and is an impressive site. Okinawa was under U.S. jurisdiction until 1972 when it was returned to Japan and the islanders exchanged their dollars for yen and their passports switched from American to Japanese.

We spent a good part of the next day at Aya's beautiful home where she showed us how to play Sanshia (Okinawan guitars), a gorgeous instrument covered in snakeskin. Later on we went to Gyokusendo Kingdom Village which depicted traditional Okinawan life with its crafts, foods, dance and music. The kids got to form drinking glasses and do Bingata, a way to dye cloth with vibrant colors and designs using a rice paste stencil.

We began our Sunday with a list of places to go to, but ended up spending the entire day at the aquarium. We had been warned by an aquarium enthusiast at Sony that he had visited many of the world's aquariums and Okinawa's was the best. He was right! The collection of sea life was impressive and fascinating.

Ryukyu cuisine is a combination of Chinese and Japanese cooking styles. Aya took us to a fresh food market where we could negotiate prices with the vendors and then bring our purchases upstairs to the restaurant floor. We had our fish prepared in a Ryukyu style sweet and sour sauce. What a fun way to have a meal!

Our trip was over quickly, a few weeks later, back in Nagaski prefecture, we attended a fire festival in the town of Chijiwa. The entire village dressed in elaborate costumes and carried torches to a shrine. The festival depicted the samuri times where the coming of age was 15 and the boys began training as samuri.

School is over for Bridget and Eric. It was a good experience and they already miss their classmates. The Japanese school year ends late March and begins again two weeks later. We won't be beginning the new year and will crank up the home schooling schedule until Dave's assignment wraps up the end of April. We're squeezing in a trip to Australia and will be back in Vermont by mid-May. Time has zipped by!

Photos at: http://photos.yahoo.com/~iverlink Folders called March Okinawa and March Fire Festival

Blog at: http://iversonjpn.blogspot.com/

February 2005

Greetings! I don't know where February went. Hope you are all well. I heard the northeast got lots of snow. We are very jealous!

Despite our cool and rainy weather, February 3rd was the first day of spring. The Japanese tradition is to throw soy beans or peanuts around the house to chase out bad luck. The school seemed particularly interested in ridding itself of bad luck and Bridget and Eric got to throw peanuts at their classmates and particularly at the kid with a red devil mask on. I bought the supermarket kit (mask and nuts) and our two experts had a great time destroying our apartment. I don't know if they felt it was good luck or bad luck, but I had them clean the place afterwards.

The following week we celebrated the Chinese New Year in Nagasaki's Chinatown district where a beautiful Lantern Festival was held. All the streets were decked out with intricate lanterns strung overhead. The main display was in a park and featured oversized lanterns and glowing statues. It was quite a sight and the hustle and bustle was augmented by the street venders hawking their wares.

The next celebration was Valentine's Day, and here it is not a romantic day. On February 14th, women give men (co-workers, friends, etc.) dark chocolate. White Day, March 14th, is the reciprocation day when men return the favor, only they give the women white chocolate. White chocolate signifies sweetness (like the women), while the dark chocolate is supposed to be more manly.

We had a fun weekend with Underhill friends (the Exlers) visiting us and sharing a slice of home. We spent a night at a Japanese ryoken (inn/hot spring resort) and took in the local sites. The Holland theme park, Huis Ten Bosch, was awash in tulips, so I got some great photos. Later on we went to the well-done Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. It didn't take many images from August 1945 to scare the pants off of us. I'd like to think that if we had a museum like this in every country in the world, the public would ensure that there were no more nuclear weapons.

Anne and Josh also got to experience a pachinko parlor. Japan's entire landscape is being taken over by tasteless, yet creative and fantastically-built architecture. These huge buildings are cartoonish and garish on the outside and unbelievably loud and smoky on the inside. Players line up in front of vertical pinball machines and insert a stream of ball bearings. If the player is extremely lucky, they win hundreds of ball bearings and can exchange them for cigarettes or candy at the counter. These goodies are then taken to an outside window (gambling is illegal in Japan, you know) and traded for cash. I read that pachinko is now the single largest industry in Japan, outpacing cars and computers.

We are off to Okinawa this weekend. We are visiting Aya, our Vermont Japanese language tutor. She is back home after finishing her master’s degree at St. Mike's. Okinawa's climate and culture is unique and I expect will differ in many ways from the Japanese mainland. We are looking forward to seeing Aya again!

All our best,

barbara

Photos at http://photos.yahoo.com/~iverlink folder called February2005.

Blog at http://iversonjpn.blogspot.com