竹富島

Taketomi Island ("Prosperous Bamboo") in the Yaeyama chain of islands in Okinawa attempts to preserve Ryukyu (Okinawan) culture. The 7km long by 2km wide island with a population of 300, one third of whom is over 70, has no need for convenience stores.


The inhabitants still sweep the streets outside their own homes keeping the beautiful island in pristine condition, despite the daily influx of hundreds of day-trippers from the mainland via nearby Ishigaki.

The main village of Taketomi has beautiful, walled bungalow-style homes with terracotta-tiled roofs, topped with the ubiquitous shisa. The rocky walls surrounding the houses are alive with colorful bougainvillea and hibiscus plants.



Taketomi-jima is known for its beautiful beaches, aquamarine sea, butterflies and the local minsa, an indigo fabric used in kimono obi (belts).



© Johannes Schönherr & JapanVisitor.com


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米軍沖縄を撤退、日本１９４５年以来徴兵制導入

United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced today that all US military forces will be pulling out of Okinawa. All US bases, facilities, and land will be returned to Okinawa, in a graduated withdrawal to begin this summer and be complete by the end of 2012.

The surprise announcement came after tense negotiations between the Obama Administration and the new government of Yukio Hatoyama.

"In close consultation with our Japanese partners, we have come to a detailed and comprehensive agreement that will in two years remove all US troops from Okinawa. This will end more than 50 years of US bases in Okinawa," Gates said.

The presence of the bases - and the accompanying crime, noise, and general disruption - has been a thorn in the side of many Japanese governments and the bane of life for residents of the smallest Japanese prefecture.

US forces are set to move air operations to Guam, and land troops to an uninhabited island near Hawaii.

To appease Hatoyama's coalition partners, among them the People's New Party, the US originally agreed to the proposal that Camp Futenma's functions be moved to the US Marine Corps' Camp Schwab in Nago, also in Okinawa.

However that would have involved constructing a helicopter runway in an inland area within the camp. Environmental groups and local activists squashed that.

At that point, both sides appeared to be out of ideas.

A solution emerged from an unlikely source: Tokyo governor and revisionist historian Shintaro Ishihara. He suggested that, in exchange for a complete US withdrawal, Japan itself agree to carry more of the defense burden.

Ishihara: "Young men in Japan today are make-up wearing, vegetable-eating, testerone-deprived, cell phone-obsessed mamma's boys. This agreement will rid Okinawa of the colonial power, and at the same time put our boys back in uniform - and make men out them. It's a win-win situation for Japan."

Japan's Self Defense Forces (SDF) are now preparing for an onslaught of conscripts. All 18-year-old males will have to register, and beginning January 1, 2011, enlist for a period of one year.

Both sides immediately agreed to Ishihara's proposal, though vocal protests are expected in leftist circles in Japan and demonstrations are scheduled this week at Kyoto University.


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思いやり予算

The Japanese language has nothing equal to good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon profanity.

Insults are more often the result of using impolite verb forms, rolling your Rs in a bad imitation of a mobster, or saying to someone that s/he has for example "short legs."

However, Japanese can hold their own when it comes to subtle put-downs. Hyper aware of status and position, Japanese can be casually cutting with the best of them.

One is the infamous "sympathy budget."

Usually, this is rendered in quotation marks or as the "so-called sympathy budget" in the Japanese media.

What it refers to is the portion of the budget that is devoted to supporting US troops stationed at one of the many bases in Japan. According to politicalaffairs.net, "the total amount of Japan’s payment for the stationing of U.S. forces in the FY 2008 will be 620 billion yen (about 6 billion dollars)." (Note the lack of quotation marks.)

The term is said to originate with the late Shin Kanemaru, who in 1978 defended the payments by saying they are done "out of sympathy." He was at the time the Director-General of the Japan Defense Agency.

The money spent is a source of irritation for many Japanese, particularly in base-heavy Okinawa. Thus, the popularity of the put down.

Needless to say, the term is not popular in the US Embassy.


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