Screw the cover-ups

I am not Okinawan, but I'm glad the governor there stands up for his people. Imperialism, "nationalism" and all isms that are dishonest don't have a place in today's world. Not when information flows so freely and lies only last so long. Japan may have conquered Okinawa a few centuries ago, and Japanese culture permeates the islands ... but there's something about island people that won't allow their history to be buried. Ever.

From Wikipedia

2007 passage change on forced World War II suicides
Japan orders history books to change passages on forced suicides during World War II.[11] In June 2007, the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly officially asked the Ministry of Education of Japan to retract its instruction to downplay the military's role in mass suicide in Okinawa in 1945.[12] More than 100,000 people in Okinawa rallied against the text book changes at the end of September. According to the Kyodo News agency, it was the biggest staged rally on the island since its 1972 return to Japanese rule. Okinawa governor Hirokazu Nakaima spoke to the crowds, commenting that the Japanese military's involvement in the mass suicides should not be forgotten.[13]

Ancient fashion in Japan

In the back of my mind, I've always wondered if the original inhabitants of Hokkaido and Okinawa shared any common threads.

Well, there's one site — Kyoko National Museum — that shows us that the two cultures from opposite ends of Japan didn't exactly use common threads at all. Literally. Different resources mean different types of fiber from plants are available. The clothing of early Okinawans — the Ryukyu Islanders — was and still is brightly colored thanks to a dyeing technique known as bingata.

It's pretty cool stuff that makes me feel in awe. My mom was a seamstress who often would sew aloha shirts for my brother and I from scratch. Well, sort of by scratch. She'd buy the material from a store and sew it together.

Anyway, the bingata designs were used for kimono.

Meanwhile, the Ainu in Hokkaido made cloth from elm fibers into shirts called attus. They look nothing like bingata and have more resemblance to designs from Western Europe, slightly Celtic, even. That would be something worth exploring since there are a few theories out there that claim the Ainu descend from caucasian blood, traveling across Northern Europe and North Asia before crossing the Korean peninsula to Japan. True?

Nobody can prove it, but it's definitely food for thought.

It's certain that the Ainu lived in Japan long before the latter, invading waves of migrants. But where did the Ryukyu people come from? Questions, questions and more questions.

Opening a chapter on Okinawa

I was slow to enjoy the internet. Even at work, back in 1993, we got real computers for the first time and were completely banned from the 'net.

Not having been on it, I didn't miss it. I finally got my own computer in 1996 or so and it's been a whole new world since. In the last several years, reading theories about migration has been one of my pastimes. And one of the places that fascinate me is East Asia.

Growing up with all kinds of kids, it always amazed me how different we are though we may have roots from one region of the world. Take Korea and China. Korea and Japan. Their relationships through the millenia are compelling in so many ways. The way the cultures and societies view each other is sometimes perplexing, as well. Ask a Japanese national about the fact that his or her descendants probably came from Northeast China and Korea, and they might rebuke you.

But what really trips me out is the history of Okinawa. I'll go into more detail about the islands later, but having grown up without knowing the difference between Japan and Okinawa was so unfortunate. Learning about the differences much later has been so rewarding.

More later.