A lecture in Tokyo for the 50th anniversary of Reversion looked back at personal histories, Kurara Chibana, whose father survived a group suicide, and Okinawa Prefecture Governor Tamaki, whose father was American. (30my22)


Splendor of Okinawa: Sida Rhombifolia, along road in Uruma, 21my22


(TOKYO) The Asahi Shimbun Company held a symposium in Tokyo on 29 May, sponsored by Asahi Shimbun and Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting in cooperation with the Okinawa Times. The symposium “Considering Okinawa, thoughts from an Okinawan viewpoint from Reversion 50 years ago and into the future” was in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Okinawa’s reversion to Japan.


Governor Denny Tamaki, radio personality Jon Kabira, and model Kurara Chibana looked back on the history of Okinawa and the path of their families through photos from the childhood of the three.


Governor Tamaki, whose father was a US soldier, revealed he had the experience of being bullied because of his appearance. He recalled going out the morning after the 1970 riots in Koza, before Reversion, to see what had occurred. “There was the smell of burning tires and oil, smoke from the still smoldering cars. I wondered if there had been a war.”


Ms. Chibana recalled that her father, a survivor of a group suicide where civilians were forced to die in groups, once was interviewed by a news program on the topic. She recited her short poem on her father’s story:

   With the whole truth known

   The flurry of my own thoughts

    Welled up in gall

Ms. Chibana said she wanted to pass on to later generations her own way of dealing with it.

　

Mr. Kabira was just 13 and living in Tokyo during the Reversion in 1972.

Although he was not living in Okinawa at the time, he said of his personal feelings, “Since long ago, asking myself how much of Okinawa’s history and culture should I know has been a constant theme.”


Original Japanese article: Okinawa Times, published Monday 30 May 2022 at 08:22. Byline: Kentaro Kara

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/4f34d82882e8e2a49d71415da1b1798b63301cb8


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. 

  2. Any suggestion on improving the translation will be gratefully accepted. However, please leave political comments for another forum.

  3. 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 gratefully appreciated.

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