Denny in the News: 18 August 2021

Okinawa Prefecture calls for Covid-19 prevention with a “Remote Obon (festival of the dead)” with apps like LINE so even the family Buddhist shrine can be  shown during conversations.


Covid-19 contagion is widespread. So Okinawa, under the State of Emergency Declaration since last year, is looking forward to a quiet Old Obon (under the Chinese calendar) from 20 to 22 August.


At a press conference on 17 August, Governor Denny Tamaki called for a “remote” Old Obon, using online and telephone for contact and refraining from visits to hometowns and relatives. Okinawa, which obviously has not stopped the spread of the virus, announced the “10 points to lessen 80% of human contact” suggested by the Health and Labor Ministry’s Government Covid-19 Expert Committee and is calling for people to rethink their daily lives as “Anybody at all can be contagious, so don’t let yourself be at risk.”


The governor is promoting the very first point, “Make your trip back home online, with a video conversation.” There are various ways, but people can call with the free communication app LINE on a smart-phone which loads of people use. They can communicate by video with no phone charges and only their internet communication expense.


Original Japanese article: Okinawa Times, published Wednesday 18 August 2021 at 08:06

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/a7b0823974d24fbb399a30aaa916ef92b79d73fa


Translator’s Notes

  1. Denny in the News: news about Okinawan Governor Denny Tamaki.

Denny Tamaki is the governor of Okinawa Prefecture in Japan. Although Okinawa is important as an international tourist destination and a key element in strategic US Military Forces, its governor receives very little coverage in the Japanese press and almost none in the English language media. 


  1. This blog hopes to  translate one news article a day on the governor.  It is unsponsored and unauthorized. The translator simply hopes to improve his skills and perhaps give the governor an English speaking audience. Any suggestion on improving the translation will be gratefully accepted. However, please leave political comments for another forum.


  1. Where they occur, words and phrases in Ryukyuan (the Okinawan language) are rendered in italics and translated in parentheses. Names  whose readings are uncertain are rendered as Name (=Kanji?) as in Nagayuki (=長行?). Any corrections in such instances would be of great help.

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