Before I head to the airport, I walk the streets of Naha City, the capitol of Japan’s southern-most island, Okinawa. As I stalk down the clean sidewalks, several black-haired heads turn. I’m a foreigner, and even in the city where it’s common to see foreigners, especially those on Kokusaidori, or “International Street”, few venture on foot through Route 58 in heels and a knowing stare at Japanese signs.
When I enter Ryukyu Bank, Ryukyu referring to Okinawa’s former name before the American occupation and Japanese conversion, I pull out my ATM card. But halfway through my withdrawal, I see the bank’s elderly security guard approach me from the corner of my eye. “Do you have a Japanese account?” he says in shaky English. I tell him in Japanese that I have an account with a smile, and his shifty eyes aren’t convinced, but as a Japanese citizen, he can’t tell me that I don’t. He curtly nods and quickly exits. Once I finish my transaction and leave the bank, I start to walk faster down the street, returning quizzical stares from Japanese folks.
I’m going to miss this place, I tell myself, because the experience at the bank was commonplace for me there. After five years in Okinawa, I was heading for Naha Airport with no intention to return. Still, the former Ryukyu Islands held memories for me. Okinawa has one thing that has made me grateful to stay for five years: the people. Inside the tanned Okinawans, there is a warm spirit of hospitality and strength that could only emerge from a population facing hardships. Okinawa’s visible poverty in cracked streets and strained relationship with its northern countrymen only recalls their foreignness to a distant government. The Okinawan dialect known as uchinaaguchi was snuffed out after its reversion in 1972 to Japan, leaving today’s students unable to speak or understand what their grandparents uttered. In this way, I felt kindred souls with Okinawans as I struggled to learn Japanese enigmatic customs, language, and traditions.
They, too, struggle with English education, which required foreigners in elementary schools in 2012, and how to deal with foreigners who stay beyond the programs that deposited them there in the first place. While Okinawa has survived World War II and the ongoing occupation of American military bases, the former Ryukyu Kingdom has become a placeholder for American-mixed families, Filipino expats, and Japanese mainlanders escaping the rigidness of Japanese culture. Despite all this, Okinawans hold their heads high, pick up signs protesting the States’s continued occupation, and incorporate Okinawan history and language into the school curriculum. As an American, I was surprised that people stopped to help me on bikes, in cars, on foot when I stumbled to connect with what I knew as normal life and Japanese life. Even senior citizens conversed with me using the English they learned years before U.S. dollars were exchanged for Japanese yen.
“Your Japanese is pretty,” several elderly people told me though I spoke few words in a hushed tone. In the States, it’s so easy to become arrogant and indignant after learning a few words. I learned to be humble in my answers and actions. With a nod and a soft voice, I always said, “Thank you.” Then there were places with beauty, all natural with skyscrapers or manmade buildings in the backdrop. Beaches were easy to find as going from western Okinawa to eastern Okinawa amounted to an hour and going from the north to the south was a two-hour drive using the expressway. With the balance between industrialized advances and traditional culture, Okinawa holds a mysticism passed by witnesses of wartime.
At nighttime, I didn’t venture down to natural beaches. They were haunted by the dead asked to commit suicide during the war, usually seen as ghostly women and children disappearing into the darkened waters. One elder co-worker told me that she used to see the souls from the war. “They look like a blue blaze, a ball of blue really, and they were floating above the houses,” she said softly, returning to the times she had seen in her mind. The elderly, those mostly in their retirement days, said the same thing with matching reminiscent glints in their eyes, warning me to stay away from parks at night too. “You can bring home ghosts if you’re not careful.” But in my bags and in my body, I’m bringing home fond memories. As I walk, nearing the airport, I wish I could return to the people who have helped me and kept me warm and shielded from the hardness of living abroad. Their stories, histories, and strength in overcoming disparity have been engraved into my heart. Okinawa will always be a place that fosters gratitude.
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