Green Eyed Gaijin: Osaka Ryukyu Festival

Yesterday, Noco, Gandhi, and a Japanese girl named Miyuki took me to a very special Okinawan Festival. The festival is only once a year and celebrates the culture of all the Ryukyu islands. Wikipedia says that the Ryukyu Islands are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan. Okinawa is only one of these islands, but it is the largest of the chain. From 1429 to 1607, the Ryukyu Islands existed as the Ryukyu Kingdom. In 1879, the Meiji government announced the annexation of the Ryukyus, establishing it as Okinawa Prefecture and forcing the Ryukyu king to move to Tokyo.

So the Ryukyu islands have a culture and language somewhat distinct from mainland Japan. There is also great biodiversity on the islands and in the sea. However, there has been significant controversy and tension related to the presence of American military bases on Okinawa.

Anyway, the festival had dancing, called the eisa dance with traditional drumming. There were a lot of different performers that did pretty similar dances with traditional Okinawan music. In one of the dances there was a tiny little boy dressed in the festival clothes and holding a little drum! But he didn't really dance or drum he mostly just stood there. Lol. He was so cute. He must have been about 2 years old.

So confused looking. So cute.

There were performances of traditional music played with the sanshin, an instrument that originated in the Ryukyus and is the ancestor of the Japanese 3-stringed shamisen. Noco plays the sanshin and has had sanshin players perform at the bar. It's a very folk kind of music. There was also singing in a distinctive Okinawan language. Although most Okinawans speak mainland Japanese with an Okinawan accent, there are also little-used Ryukyuan languages completely incomprehensible to most Japanese.

There were lots of food stalls with some traditional food and some general fried foods. I had a sausage burrito thing and some shaved ice, and sampled a bunch of other things from Noco, Gandhi and Miyuki. Not very healthy, but yummy! The weather was HOT HOT HOT. I drank lots of iced water and sat in the shade most of the time.

Noco's pic's from the day!

The best part for me was when Noco's friend's band played. They do a rock/ballad style with just guitar and piano. He was pretty much a Japanese hippie in baggie clothes and long, wavy hair. lol. Before he started to sing, he said in English, then in Japanese, "We are not Americans. We are not Japanese. We are humans." Even though I didn't understand much of the lyrics, that was the feeling I got from the music and his voice and it was quite moving. Cultural differences aside, in our hearts I think humans are basically alike. He sung for peace and unity, pleaded for mutual understanding instead of anger and destruction. Given the history of U.S.-Japan relations, the message was especially relevant. It was a performance full of both sadness and hope and I was really quite moved. I cried for the second time in two days.