Hi, I'm Holly.
I know only so much, and I write about what I know.
I am half japanese and half okinawan. I know, I know; it's the same thing right? Wrong.
Yeah, Okinawa is in Japan. But it is a totally different place. It's a totally different island. Kinda like Hawaii, where I live. A person from Oahu can live a totally different lifestyle than a person from Kauai. Oahu for example is a pretty crowded place full of freeways and shopping malls, while Kauai is filled with loose chickens and no places stay open past 9 o'clock. Yeah, well you get my point. Japan and Okinawa = totally different lifestyles.
When I was younger to make it easier for people I would just tell them " Yeah, I'm 100% Japanese."
It was only later on that I learned about the Okinawan culture.
I never knew that back in the day, the Japanese would look down on the Okinawans. Since the Japanese were town folk and the Okinawans are farming folk, the Japanese would call the Okinawans dirty and so forth. [This is from word of mouth so please don't site me on this]
All I know is that when my Dad asked my mother to marry him, my grandparents weren't too happy when they found out that he was Okinawan.
But in time they put the old "values" behind and learned to love my father as a son, not some filthy Okinawan.
So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I am Japanese but I am also Okinawan.
& proud of it.
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lol! i live in Japan and i SO know what you are talking about! loL! okinawa is a completely different island and they even speak practically a different language down there too. I speak japanese and i went to visit okinawa (beautiful place by the way) and i was like WHAT LANGUAGE ARE THEY SPEAKING! lol! id be cool to hear from you!
~kim~
No, most Japanese immigrants to Hawaii from the late 19th century to the early 20th century were not townsfolk. Most Japanese immigrants migrated to Hawaii from rural farming communities in Hiroshima prefecture and Yamaguchi prefecture. So, your assumption that the Japanese looked down upon the Okinawans because they were farmers is incorrect, because most Japanese were farmers as well.
Elderly Japanese, especially those from Hiroshima, followed a strict Buddhist diet in which they were not allowed to slaughter or to consume the flesh of four-legged animals such as pigs. If a person from Hiroshima did so he would be considered contaminated or filthy.
As for why the Japanese viewed Okinawans as "filthy" -- as a whole the following Buddhism is relatively weak in Okinawa, and because the following of Buddhism is weak in Okinawa, Okinawans regularly consumed pork, which was against the Buddhist regulated diet of the Japanese in the early part of the 20th century. This as a result caused some of the early frictions between the Japanese and Okinawan immigrants, which was partly due to this religious reason.
Good for you, I live in Japan, though I am American not Japanese, and was myself confused at first over the diffrence but now (after liveing here a year) I understand the diffrence. It would be like calling someone from Florida and from California the same. Ive lived in both places very diffrent. Im glad you can embrace both cultures.
You are totally right about everything you said in your blog .. even about the Oahu and Kauai thing. First of all, I'm from Kauai ... and I know exactly what you mean when you say that they are two different islands. Why do you think that most young Kauaiians when they decide to go off to college in Oahu or Hilo .. they end up coming back to Kauai? It's because they are not used to the Oahu/Hilo environment.