petek, 21. december 2012

A Lazy Day

The Koza riot begun late on the night of December 20th, 1970. It involved from 3000 to 7000 locals - different references, different numbers. It seems a fair supposition to me that 5000 cold be quite accurate. After they gave a good beating to some US soldiers and torched their cars, they actually attacked the Kadena air base and with improvised molotov cocktails, made in the nearby homes and bars, managed to burn down a part of it. Early in the morning the rioters were finally tamed with tear gas and water cannons. It ended without fatalities.
I have nothing against beating soldiers (no matter where are they from), they deserve worse. But to find out that few thousand people gathered and did this because a soldier hit a drunk Okinawan with his car? At first I thought he killed him. No, he wasn't injured too bad. Then I started finding out that this was just the spark that ignited all the gunpowder that the occupation troops were piling during the years. Accidents, hit-and-runs, kidnappings, rapes, murders... you name it, soldiers did it.
But history is cruel. It can be wiped so easily. You can't find Koza anymore, it doesn't exist. The name was changed to Okinawa-shi. When I started asking locals (those that speak English), they gave me looks. They have no clue as what happened. When I had enough of being treated as a retard I showed them the article about the riot on the Japanese wiki and they were all amazed that such  a thing happened. Later they told me that probably older people still remember, but the new generations surely don't. True enough. On December 20th, 2012, I took a bicycle and had a ride across Okinawa-shi. No signs that any sort of remembrance day was going on. Well, most probably there was something, that a few people attended, but no way I could ever find them. And, after all, why should I? I'd be considered another American killer, most probably.
So it seemed to be a better idea to go back to Naha, I had still the whole afternoon and I was (surprise surprise!) still sober. Let's go to the beach near the hostel!





And now a lesson on how advertising works. Did you like the beach? I know, it's not something really posh, but you have to admit that it's nice. OK, now the last picture, the actual view of the beach, from a small hill.

Today is a perfect day, not only warm but hot, too hot for the beach, so I went to study in a nearby park, with a nice view of Naha and the new port.

I just love the vegetation on these islands.



Found me some shadow and managed to intensively practice hiragana for almost two hours without a break. It was a real 'full immersion' study, you have to know that here even the birds sing in Japanese.
 Ah, yes, I went to the port to buy the ferry ticket for Tokunoshima... no reservations, no tickets in advance. On the day of the departure I have to be at the port at 6AM (argh) to buy the ticket for the 7 o'clock ferry.

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