This is my obá’s family – the Yagi family. Sitting on the left are his parents (my great-grandparents) and around him are his brothers (my great-uncles). And sitting there, dressed in black, are her grandparents – my great-great-grandparents. My oba is standing between them, to whom she was very attached. She always tells me family stories and has many photos saved, but there was one thing she had never told me – that my great-great-grandmother had hajichi, the tattoo that Okinawan women had in the past.
My great-great-grandmother’s Hajichi
– But hey, why does she have that tattoo?
– Every obá had it.
– But why?
– Oh, I don’t know, I never asked.
– And when she came to Brazil, did anyone say anything about her?
– I don’t think so… I never heard anything.
Talking about hajichi is a very difficult task, as there are no more living sources – what is known today is the result of previous research and photos, many of which are unclear and in black and white. There are several hypotheses and sometimes conflicting information; and in addition, it is known that there was a lot of variation according to the region. All of this makes writing about the subject a complicated – and also challenging – task.
Full title: “China – Ryukyu Relations: presentation at University of Hawaii at Manoa [29 April 2020]”
Preface by Kajiwara: China and Loochoo (Okinawa) have had friendly relations since time immemorial and formal relations since the Ming Dynasty. Yet this relationship is today often misunderstood by both scholars and the public alike. Learn the truth about the historic China-Loochoo relationship from Loochooans (Okinawans). Done as part of the Master of Asian International Affairs, part of the Asian Studies program, at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Editor’s Comment: From 1374 to 1875, for a period of 500 years, the Ryukyu Kingdom enjoyed a tributary relationship with, first, Ming and, later, Qing China. In that span, 347 missions have been recorded. Missions from Ryukyu entered China via Quanzhou and, later, Fuzhou, and traveled overland to the capital in Nanjing or Beijing to pay their respects to the Emperor. To facilitate these missions, the Ming sent large trading ships and “36 families” skilled in shipping, trade, and cultural transmission to Okinawa. Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki’s trip to China with a delegation of Japanese economic organizations in July 2023 is a provocative reminder of Okinawa’s tenuous position between two superpowers, China and Japan, and its historical reliance on diplomacy for survival. In the coming months and years, it’ll be interesting to monitor Okinawa’s development as it rekindles cultural ties with China. -Jim
Katsuji Nakazawa, in “Analysis: Xi throws Okinawa into East Asia geopolitical cocktail” (Nikkei Asia, 15 June 2023), draws attention to the little-known fact that Chinese President Xi Jinping, a quarter-century ago, was acting governor of Fujian Province and played a prominent role in greeting, in Fuzhou, Fujian’s capital, descendants of the original 36 Min families visiting from Kumemura in Okinawa.
Andreas Quast, in “The 36 Clans of the Min-People,” says, beginning in 1392, “These people were sent by the Ming to serve the Ryūkyū kingdom as marine laborers (zhougong 舟工), merchants and ship craftsmen or to take charge of navigation in connection with the large seagoing vessels presented to Ryūkyū by the Ming. They were later joined by scholars and took over diplomatic duties within Ryūkyū’s official tribute trade with China. Their descendants, among whom are found many important families of government officials, cultivated Confucian learning and Chinese traditions down to the end of the nineteenth century.”
“The Chinese Ryūkyū-kan (Liúqiú guǎn in Mandarin Chinese pinyin [aka Rouyuan Yi]) is located in the city of Fuzhou [Taijiang District, Fuzhou, Fujian, PRC]. Along with the nearby Kaido-kan (開戸館) and Kokushi-kan (国使館), it housed visiting dignitaries and scholars en route between Ryukyu and the Chinese capital of Nanjing or Beijing” (Wikipedia, 3/20/24). Additional photos below.
Zhou Kunmin*: “The friendship between China and Ryūkyū has a long history. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Chinese-Ryūkyūan foreign trade once held an important position within the sphere of world trade. In 1370, Quanzhou established the ‘Overseas Trading Department,’ and in 1405, it opened the ‘Station for Those Coming From Afar’ (later transferred to Fuzhou, and known as the Ryūkyūkan). Placed under the jurisdiction of the ‘Overseas Trading Department,’ this station hosted the Ryūkyūan missions and stipulated that Ryūkyū shall only pass through Quanzhou Port. More than a hundred years before the ‘Overseas Trading Department’ moved to Fuzhou, Quanzhou played an important role as a hub for China and Ryūkyū. The Ryūkyūan envoys and visitors who traveled to Quanzhou passed on their culture, regional products, and written language to China, and at the same time, they spread a wide range of Chinese ethnic cultures to Ryūkyū. The exchange spanned a wide range, including commerce, agriculture, science, religion, culture, arts, architecture, and medicine. Influenced by Chinese folk customs, Ryūkyū became a Land of Courtesy (Shurei-no-Kuni), which values courtesy” (*from “A study on the origins of Okinawa Karate and Southern Shaolin Boxing from Quanzhou,” March 2015, translated by Andreas Quast).
Excerpt from Asahi Shimbun, 5 July 2023: “BEIJING–Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki is visiting China as part of a business delegation amid growing interest in Okinawa’s historical ties with China, sparked by remarks by Xi Jinping, the country’s supreme leader. Tamaki on July 4 paid his respects at the former site of a graveyard here for people from the Ryukyu Kingdom (1429-1879) who died in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties. ‘I offered prayers with hopes to strengthen the bonds between China and Okinawa and help create an era of peace and affluence,’ Tamaki, who is accompanying a delegation of a Japanese economic organization, told Japanese and Chinese reporters. The independent Ryukyu Kingdom, which was turned into Okinawa Prefecture in 1879, was in a tributary relationship with the two Chinese dynasties. Tamaki will travel to Fuzhou, the capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, on July 6 to meet with local leaders and visit the Fujian-Okinawa friendship hall, which opened in 1998 to promote exchanges in business and other areas. The Okinawan governor’s trip to China is garnering particular attention because Xi, the Chinese president, referred to ‘deep interactions’ between the Ryukyu Kingdom and Fuzhou in June.”
Additional photos of the Ryukyu Pavilion in Fuzhou, Fujian province:
The Ryukyu Pavilion in Fuzhou, Fujian province, describes the history of exchanges with the Ryukyu Islands. (Photo by Katsuji Nakazawa, Nikkei, 15 June 2023.)
The main hall of Ryukyu House in Fuzhou, by LuHungnguong, 22 July 2009.Ryukyu House in Fuzhou, by LuHungnguong, 22 July 2009.Ryukyu House in Fuzhou, the hall, by LuHungnguong, 22 July 2009.Main hall of the Rouyuan Yi, by Yumeto, 20 Oct. 2023.Model shinkōsen in the Rouyuan Yi, by Yumeto, 20 Oct. 2023.Ryūsō and Okinawa dolls and lacquerware in the Rouyuan Yi, by Yumeto, 20 Oct. 2023.Rouyuan Yi, by Yumeto, 20 Oct. 2023.Ryukyu tomb stone in Fuzhou, China, by LuHungnguong, 22 July 2009.Ryūkyū gravestones in the Rouyuan Yi, by Yumeto, 20 Oct. 2023.
The cache of artifacts was discovered in the attic of a veteran’s home after he died. The items were turned over to the F.B.I., which arranged for their return eight decades after the war.
Three [this photo and the two below] of 22 historic artifacts that were looted following the Battle of Okinawa during World War II. A veteran’s family discovered them in Massachusetts while going through his personal items after he died.
By Emily Schmall, NY Times, 19 Mar. 2024; 20 Mar. 2024
During the brutal Battle of Okinawa in Japan, in the final months of World War II, a group of American soldiers took residence in the palace of a royal family who had fled the fighting. When a palace steward returned after the war was over, he said later, the treasure was gone.
Some of those valuables surfaced decades later in the attic of the Massachusetts home of a World War II veteran, whom the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not identify in announcing the find last week.
The veteran’s family discovered the cache of vibrant paintings and pottery; large fragile scrolls; and an intricate hand-drawn map after his death last year, and they reported the discovery to the agency’s Art Crime Team.
Geoffrey Kelly, a special agent and the art theft coordinator for the bureau’s Boston field office, was assigned to the case and brought the artifacts to the National Museum of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The recovered items were returned to Okinawa in January, and a formal repatriation ceremony is planned for next month in Japan.
“It’s an exciting moment when you watch the scrolls unfurl in front of you, and you just witness history, and you witness something that hasn’t been seen by many people in a very long time,” he said.
Verified by Smithsonian experts as authentic artifacts of the erstwhile Ryukyu Kingdom, a 450-year-old dynasty that ruled in Okinawa as a tributary state of the Ming dynasty of China, the F.B.I. turned the items over to the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. Its cultural heritage specialists returned the precious pieces to Okinawa.
“Very few items survived from that kingdom,” said Travis Seifman, an associate professor with the Art Research Center at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. “Recouping heritage, recouping cultural treasures, knowledge of their own history is a really big deal for a lot of people in Okinawa.”
The Ryukyu Kingdom ruled Okinawa from the early 15th century until 1879, when Japan annexed the kingdom as a prefecture.
The cache of 22 artifacts from the 18th and 19th centuries includes two portraits of Ryukyu kings — the only two of as many as 100 painted that are known to have survived the war — “an incredible find,” he said.
A typewritten letter, written by a U.S. soldier who was stationed in the Pacific theater during World War II, was found with the artifacts and indicated that the items had been taken from Okinawa, authorities said.
The letter described smuggling the pieces out of Japan and trying — and failing — to sell them to a museum in the United States, said Col. Andrew Scott DeJesse, the cultural heritage preservation officer who accompanied the artifacts back to Okinawa.
The veteran, who was posted in Europe, found the artifacts near a dumpster, Colonel DeJesse said, and recognizing their value took them to his home in Massachusetts.
“Samurai swords, katanas, things on military personnel, that was always accepted,” Colonel DeJesse said, describing how American commanders approved service members’ war trophies from the battlefield.
During World War II, cultural heritage investigators known as Monuments Officers were in Europe tracking down millions of artworks, books and other valuables stolen by the Nazis. Officers were also stationed in Japan, “but the looting of heritage sites,” Colonel DeJesse said, was “not really known,” adding that Americans weren’t the only ones who took items from war zones.
“The Japanese Empire was doing it all over the place. So were the Nazis, so was the Soviet Union. It was done systematically,” he said.
After the war ended in 1945, Bokei Maehira, a palace steward, returned to the palace to check on the heirlooms — which included crowns, silk robes, royal portraits and other artifacts — that he and others had hidden in a trench on the palace grounds. He found the palace reduced to ashes, and the trench plundered, he wrote in an academic paper published in 2018.
Among the loot was “Omorosaushi,” a collection of Ryukyuan folk songs that dated back centuries.
In 1954, the United States joined dozens of other countries in signing the Hague Convention, a treaty brokered by the United Nations to protect cultural property in armed conflict.
Still, Colonel DeJesse, who served two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, said that part of his and other heritage officers’ work is training military commanders and soldiers who are unaware of that obligation.
“It’s a major problem. We advise them, ‘Hey, don’t touch it, don’t pick it up. It’s someone else’s. Just like you wouldn’t want your own church, your own museum looted,’” he said.
The government of Japan registered other missing Ryukyu Kingdom articles with the F.B.I.’s National Stolen Art File in 2001. They include black-and-white photos depicting a collection of significant Okinawan cultural patrimony that, according to Professor Seifman, “are in many cases all that survive of sites and objects lost or destroyed” in World War II.
Among the items registered were the scrolls found in the Massachusetts veteran’s attic.
The veteran’s family, to whom the F.B.I. has granted anonymity, will not face prosecution.
“It’s not always about prosecutions and putting someone in jail,” Mr. Kelly said. “A lot of what we do is making sure stolen property gets back to its rightful owners even if it’s many generations down the road.”
The following list of Okinawan proverbs were found here.
Ataishi turu atairu. – We get along well with those we can get along with well.
Achinee ya tankaa mankaa. – Business is a two-way street.
Aramun jooguu ya duu ganjuu. – One who eats plain food is healthy.
Teachers and students with what is now Shuri High School re-enact a pilgrimage made by the king of the Ryukyu Kingdom in Naha on Dec. 12, 1930. Umbrellas and a palanquin used by the Sho kings were used in the parade, as the Sho family rented them. Participants, with headbands on, dress as kingdom bureaucrats. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Ichariba choodee. – Once we meet and talk, we are brothers and sisters.
Uya yushi kwa yushi. – Parents and children teach one another.
Kaagee kaa ru ya ru. – Beauty is skin deep.
Kamuru ussaa mii nayun. – The more you eat, the more you gain.
Kuu sa kana sa. – Small things are lovable.
Kuchi ganga naa ya yakutatan. – A smooth talker is a good-for-nothing person.
Kutubaa. Jin chikee. – Spend words as efficiently as money.
Kutuba noo ushikumaran. – A word can’t be recalled once spoken.
Young women in Itoman around 1925. They are selling fish caught by their father or husband, putting it in a cargo they carried on their head. It was common for relatives of fishermen to wear striped kimono. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Shikinoo chui shiihii shiru kurasuru. – Let’s live helping each other in this world.
Shinjichi nu ada nayumi. – Kindness will never be wasted in any way.
Jin too waraaran kwa tu ru waraariiru. – We can laugh happily with our children, but not with money.
Chu uyamee ru duu uyamee. – If you respect others, they will respect you.
Choo kukuru ru dee ichi. – The heart is the most essential human quality.
Kanei Uechi, left, and Kaei Akamine perform karate in an exhibition match at an athletic field in Osaka’s Minato Ward around 1933. Uechi exhibits the core “kata” (form) of his Uechi Ryu training style. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Tusui ya tatashina mun. Warabee shikashina mun. – The old should be treated with due respect. Children should be treated with gentleness.
Tusui ya takara. – The old people are treasures to us.
Miitundaa duu tichi. – Man and wife are one flesh.
Nuchi nu sadamee wakaran. – Only God knows one’s term of life.
With cargo on their heads, two women walk on the street of what is now Naha around 1935. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Machushi garu ufu iyoo tuyuru. – One who waits patiently will catch a big fish.
Miinai chichi nai. – We learn by watching and listening.
Mii ya tin niru aru. – Our fates are as registered by heaven.
Munoo yuu iyuru mun. – Speak well of others.
Yaasa ru maasaru. – Food is delicious when one is hungry.
A rural area of Okinawa Prefecture around 1925 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Duu nu duu ya duu shiru shiyuru. – You know your body best.
Choo kani ru deeichi. – Common sense is essential.
Yii kutoo isugi. – Do good things quickly.
The Naha post office in Naha around 1928. A Hinomaru flag and a notice sign for an important ceremony were placed at the entrance. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Chira kaagi yaka chimu gukuru. – Kind hearts are better than fair faces.
Yuu ya shititin mii ya shitinna. – Even if you hide yourself from the world, don’t lose sight of your real nature.
Nmarijima nu kutuba wasshii nee kuni n wasshiin. – Forgetting your native tongue means forgetting your native country.
Ashibi nu chura saa ninju nu sunawai. – The more the merrier.
Acha nu neen chi ami. – Tomorrow is a new day.
Yikiga nu kutubaa shuumun gaai. – A man’s word is his honor.
Mookiraa kwee michi shiri. – Once you have made a fortune, know how to spend it.
Dancers of the traditional combination dance, dating to the Ryukyu Kingdom, pose for a photo believed to have been taken in 1925. They gave a performance for Prince Chichibu, younger brother of Emperor Hirohito, when he visited Okinawa Prefecture. The performance was apparently given on the premises of the residence of the Sho family, the former royal family of the Ryukyu Kingdom. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
From Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa, edited by Michael Molasky and Steve Rabson, translated by Davinder Bhowmik, University of Hawaii Press, 2000. Source: books.google.com
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Okinawan Festival in Honolulu will once again be held virtually. Here’s a quick glimpse of the Hawaii United Okinawa Association’s (HUOA) two-day schedule of events. For more information, go to www.OkinawanFestival.com.
2:00 pm (Hawaii Time) Welcome / Opening Statements Greetings from Special Guests Performance: Kilauea Okinawa Dance Club Special Performance – Radio Okinawa Miuta Taisho We Are HUOA Club Feature Performances: Hawaii Okinawa Shorin-Ryu/Shinden-Ryu Karate Association We Are HUOA Club Feature Hawaii Okinawa Center 30th Anniversary
2:00 pm (Hawaii Time) Welcome / Opening Statements Greetings from Special Guests Tingsagu nu Hana Music Video Performances: Ryukyu Sokyoku Koyo Kai Hawaii Shibu | Ryukyu Koten Ongaku Nomura Ryu Ongaku Kyokai Hawaii Shibu We Are HUOA Club Feature Performance: Hawaii Taiko Kai 120th Anniversary of Uchinanchu in Hawaii Performance: Paranku Clubs of Hawaii | Chinagu Eisa Hawaii
This video is from the webinar, “Shaping Okinawan Identity and Community in Hawaiʻi During World War II,” held on 18 May 2020 from 5:30-6:30 PM (HST). The photos are especially fascinating. For details on this presentation, see “Okinawan POWs in Hawaiʻi – 5/18/20 5:30pm HST.” This webinar was sponsored by the King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center.
Shaping Okinawan Identity and Community in Hawaiʻi During World War II
Monday, May 18, 2020
5:30-6:30 PM Live Webinar — Zoom
Brandon Marc Higa, JD, BA, MA; Director of Resources Development at Kapiolani CC; conducted post-graduate research on the U.S. military base presence in Okinawa Prefecture; currently pursuing a doctorate in law. Kelli Y. Nakamura, PhD; Assistant Professor at Kapiʻolani CC, History and Ethnic Studies; research interests include Japanese and Japanese American history.
To join the live webinar, please register using the sign-up link. You can also visit our Facebook page or Youtube channel to view the live stream video on May 18, 2020.
The King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center invites you to join Kelli Y. Nakamura and Brandon Marc Higa as they share stories about community building between Okinawan immigrants and Okinawan prisoners of war in Hawaiʻi. They will discuss assimilation policies enforced during Japan’s Meiji Restoration Era (1868-1912) to contextualize Okinawan people’s treatment as a minority within a minority. Continue reading →
Al Toma is a member of the Okinawan Genealogical Society of Hawaii (OGSH), which is part of the Hawaii United Okinawan Association (HUOA). He says that the new Okinawan database just went online. This means that we can submit an electronic request for information about our issei ancestors through the OGSH website.
Here’s the text from form 1 below: Hi! We are the Okinawan Genealogical Society of Hawaii (OGSH). Along with the Okinawa Prefectural Library (OPL), we are providing this FREE resource to find your isseis! All our volunteer members can provide help in Okinawan genealogical research, koseki request preparation and non-commercial translation services. Continue reading →
UPDATE 9/4/21: DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, THE 2021 TAIKAI WILL BE POSTPONED UNTIL 2022 October 30 to November 3.
Ryukyu Shimpo, 1/17/20: Governor Denny Tamaki announced during a regular press conference on January 16 that the 7th World Uchinanchu Festival is planned to be held October 28-31, 2021. The governor encouraged world-wide participation and support: “The festival unites uchinanchus (Okinawans) globally, and provides an opportunity to demonstrate the Okinawan chimugukuru (spirit) to the world. We will work to further the preservation effort and expansion of the global uchinanchu network.” The 7th World Uchinanchu Festival is scheduled to fall on October 30, which was declared World Uchinanchu Day during the previous festival.
Note: The electronic version of this book is available free at play.google.com. The following excerpts are from pages 381-385 and 409. -js
Élisée Reclus, edited by A. H. Keane, The Earth and Its inhabitants, Asia: Vol. II, East Asia: Chinese Empire. Corea, and Japan. N.Y., D. Appleton & Co., 1884.
Click image to enlarge.
381 The Riu-kiu (Lu-chu) and Goto Archipelagos.
Siunanguto and the small Linshoten group adjacent to Kiu-siu, belong geographically to the Riu-kiu Archipelago, which is better known by its Fokien name of Lu-chu, and which the natives themselves call Du-kiu,* that is, ” Land of the Precious Stone,” or of the ” Transparent Coral,” as the term may be variously interpreted. The geometrical curve described by all these islands between Kiu-siu and Formosa, the radius of which corresponds to that of Nip-pon itself, probably represents the remains of a highland region by which Japan was formerly connected with the mainland. Lu-chu comprises a number of secondary groups, the two most important of which stretch about half-way from Kiu-siu to Formosa, and form the so-called “Kingdom” of Lu-chu. Politically, this “kingdom” is at present a simple Japanese department, while the southern group of the ” Three San ” (Nan-san or Sak-sima) is still a subject of dispute betwen China and Japan. The Mikado’s government, however, seems now disposed to surrender these islands to its powerful neighbour. Continue reading →
DATES: Aug. 31, 9am-5pm Aug. 31, 5:30pm-9:30pm – Bon Dance only. Select food booths will be open. All other booths/rooms will be closed. Sep. 1, 9am-4pm
My maternal grandmother’s last name was Za. She was reportedly from a place called Zyasu, somewhere near Tomigusuku in Okinawa. Could Za be a variant of Zaha, which you have on the list? My grandmother emigrated to Oahu in the early 1900s, and unfortunately we don’t know how Za was written in kanji.
Hi, Marla. The only kanji for Za that I could find is 座 (hiragana ざ). Possible Romaji pronunciations Za, Jōyō, Jwa. I’ll add Za to our list of Okinawan surnames and hope that someone will have more information for you. I’ll also publish this as an article for greater visibility. Please keep me updated if you learn anything new. -Jim
Thanks a lot, Jim! My mom once told me that my grandmother pronounced it more like “Zha,” as in Zsa Zsa Gabor’s name, but an aunt said it could also be pronounced “Ja.” So, it’s a mystery. I also wonder if Zyasu is the correct place name, since I couldn’t find it on a map. Maybe it was destroyed during the war.
Gena Hamamoto, archival researcher on a forthcoming 5-part PBS series on the history of Asian Americans, is looking for photos of A’ala Park in the 1950s-60s. She’s also interested in photos or footage of Chinatown during the ‘50s-60s, or even home movies during that era. The series is co-produced by the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), WETA and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), with Series Producer Renee Tajima-Peña.
Ukwanshin Kabudan 7/11/19 announcement shared by Rodney Inefuku 7/12/19:
The Bon Dance at Jikoen [731 N School St, Honolulu, HI 96819] offers Ukwanshin an opportunity to hold its annual fundraiser with a food booth that will feature an all-Okinawan menu. This is a good chance to sample authentic Okinawa cuisine outside of Okinawa. On the menu will be Kandaba Jūshi (rice soup with pork and sweet potato leaves), Uchinā Soba (noodle and pork dish) and a new item: Rafutē bowl (glazed, slow cooked pork with rice and condiments). Please come by to grab a bite to eat from the Ukwanshin booth.
As an Army-occupying-force member from 1966-72, who married a lovely Okinawan gal and moved my family to Hawaii in 1972, I read and re-read the article, “Younger Okinawans are more tolerant of U.S. military presence, study finds” (Star-Advertiser, April 21)1, with puzzlement and finally, dissatisfaction.
Older Okinawans would very naturally resent U.S. occupation because they managed to survive one of history’s most horrific wartime slaughters of civilians — and then endured (as did my wife as a young woman), for example, walking along a sidewalk and being groped by GIs in the 1950s-60s. Continue reading →
Thomas Feldmann is writing a biographical book about Ankō Itosu (1831-1915), “one of the most important characters in the development of modern Karate.” As part of his research, he’s seeking answers or leads to two questions:
1. In the 1880s, when did Ryukyuan officials (scribe, Chikudun Pechin) usually retire from the Ryukyuan (later prefectural) government?
2. What was the usual life expectancy in the Ryukyus in 1910-1920?
3. Looking for a historical map of the Ryukyu Shuri area showing the different villages such a Gibo, Yamakawa, etc. On the web, there are some, but they cannot be used properly.
Please share information or leads with Feldmann. You can reach him at hoploblog@gmail.com. Or you can post responses or comments in the discussion section attached to this post.
MANOA VALLEY THEATRE COMES TO THE HAWAII THEATRE CENTER
MARCH 28 – APRIL 7, 2019
a musical drama
book by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione
music by Jay Kuo
x
Inspired by true events, Allegiance is the story of the Kimura family, whose lives are upended when they and 120,000 other Japanese-Americans are forced to leave their homes following the events of Pearl Harbor. Sam Kimura seeks to prove his patriotism by fighting for his country in the war, but his sister, Kei, fiercely protests the government’s treatment of her people.
An uplifting testament to the power of the human spirit, Allegiance follows the Kimuras as they fight between duty and defiance, custom and change, family bonds and forbidden loves. Continue reading →
Saturday, 23 March 2019, 6:30 pm – 7:45 pm Forum Featuring Yasuhiro “Denny” Tamaki
Windward Community College
45-720 Keaahala Road, Kaneohe, Oahu
Hawaii Hale ‘Akoakoa, Conference Rooms 101, 103, 105 Free and open to the public.
Governor Yasuhiro “Denny” Tamaki
Ukwanshin Kabudan is honored to welcome Yasuhiro “Denny” Tamaki, newly elected Governor of Okinawa Prefecture, to the 5th LooChoo Identity Summit. ʻImi ni Miru Uchinā” – Kukuru uchiawachi chibaranaya! “Our dreams for Okinawa joins our hearts together to go forward!” Keeping this thought in mind, Governor Tamaki graciously accepted Ukwanshin’s invitation to participate in this Summit. This is his first trip to Hawaii, and he is looking forward to meeting with the Hawaiʻi community to share what is happening in Okinawa. Continue reading →
Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki will be meeting with Hawaii residents on March 21 at the Pagoda Hotel’s International Ballroom from 6:30-8:30 PM and on March 23 at Windward Community College from 6:30-7:45 PM. The events are free and open to the public. Governor Tamaki will be aided by an English translator. For a better idea of who he is, here are twenty facts about him:
1. He is the current Governor of Okinawa Prefecture.
2. He has long been opposed to the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. He is against the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to another location in Okinawa, a position consistent with his late predecessor Onaga.
3. He was born in Uruma, Okinawa, on 13 October 1959, to an Okinawan waitress and a U.S. Marine father who left Okinawa before Tamaki was born.
4. He was born Dennis Tamaki (玉城 デニス Tamaki Denisu) but later changed his legal name to Yasuhiro Tamaki (玉城 康裕 Tamaki Yasuhiro) when he was 10 years old.
5. He never met his father. He attempted to search for him, but was unsuccessful.
This article has served to satisfy my uncomfortable, itching curiosity about a dimension of Ryukyuan history that, as far as I can tell, remains relatively obscured. To disclose the source of my interest in this history, I must confess to once being one of the ‘entrenched’. Now long since departed, questions remain and a haunting irritation remains. For this reason, I read with interest and with gratitude for the author’s scholarship.
It was not till long after I left that I learned about Bernard Jean Bettelheim. The historical narrative I was able to piece together with my limited research skills struck me as incomplete. Does anyone besides myself find it incongruous that someone so notorious in Okinawa, and so obscure elsewhere, should be memorialized near the grounds of the (now destroyed) dwelling where he basically ‘squatted’ for so many unwelcome years? Further, am I the only one who is suspicious of his easy ingratiation with Commodore Perry later on?
My opinion is that the answers to these questions are not trivial, but may well offer the insights that can decisively open a way to resolving the contemporary conflict and dilemma that currently burden so many, not only in Okinawa, but beyond as well.
To read the PDF version of The Okinawas1: Their Distinguishing Characteristics, click the image below.
From the cover:
Okinawan Studies No. 2
The Okinawas: Their Distinguishing Characteristics
Confidential
Office of Strategic Services
Honolulu, Hawaii
March 27, 1944
University of Hawaii Library
f
GN635
R95U5
no.2
To read the PDF version of this book, “The Okinawas: Their Distinguishing Characteristics,” click this image.
The following introduces the “List of Okinawan Names and their Characters” in this book (pages 7-17), gathered from the Nippu Jiji Nekan (Honolulu, 1941) and Inagaki Kunizaburo’s Ryukyu Showa: Continue reading →
liuchiuan 