Islands of Protest

by Davinder L. Bhowmik

  INNER WORDS (2001)

  Kiyota Masanobu

  Translated by Masaki Kinjo

  Away from the ruins, flee!

  I am pursued

  Put on trial by words uttered by those who live on the fringes.

  Why

  Are the people on the fringes,

  Like a shooting star, slicing, slashing through my guts

  A streaming murderous weapon?

  I had been living without regard for appearances

  Unable to sever my tie with life,

  Into the sea of this mind of mine, flee!

  Whenever I try to speak on the verge of retreating,

  I lose something.

  The place where my sense of loss ends is where a new journey begins.

  If I utter words

  I will lose the girl I love.

  I walk out in unsteady steps

  Invisible trees smolder

  Blood bursts on the shore

  My guts transparent

  My pain

  Makes transparent the darkness

  Of a sphere I approach, approaching you.

  But words which are neither you nor I

  I kill love.

  Words about to be extinguished by silence, flee!

  After losing every single word

  I know love.

  Aimlessly, I satiate the realm of the senses

  At the end of my meanderings, I curl up, fetal

  I use words to hem in a silence that envelops me

  From the depths, question the meaning of silence!

  Waves undulating with the rhythm of questioning

  Wash over the roots of quicksand and I abstract their speed.

  At the seaside village, flowing through the burst stems of night flowers

  Forgetful of voices, vomiting, the vertigo of morning!

  The outline of the newborn’s cry!

  Fishy-smelling vowel sounds!

  Let your echoes reverberate!

  White voices of guerrillas surround

  A journeying nomad’s vertiginous territory

  From a wharf in this land of sunken roots

  To that view in the distance I hold within

  A surging silence whose depths are countered

  By the innocent impulse to speak.

  WHITE RYUKYUAN TOMBS

  Mabuni Chōshin (1910)

  Translated by Jon Holt

  I see white Ryukyuan tombs

  both as houses where we say farewell

  and as houses where we drink sake

  These eyes of mine, full of worry and sadness,

  see white Ryukyuan tombs

  as white faces in profile

  With feet used to walking the beach

  how painful is it to pass down

  Ginza’s boulevards

  OKINAWA! WHERE WILL YOU GO NOW? (1964)

  by Yamanokuchi Baku

  Translated by Jon Holt

  Islands of the sanshin guitar

  Islands of awamori liquor

  Islands of verse

  Islands of dance

  Islands of karate

  Islands that bear papayas, bananas

  and kunenbo oranges

  Islands of the sago palm, of agave trees, of the banyan

  Islands of the scarlet flowers of hibiscus, of the deigo coral tree

  Islands that light up like a blaze

  Islands that birthed me, I now weave together this poem

  line by line

  having lost my bearings,

  stuck, cast under this spell of homesickness

  Until recently, the word Ryukyus, as if in name alone,

  had no point when it ceased to be as one, ceased to look the way you looked long ago

  Walking your paved roads now

  those paved roads that spread out all over you

  that to you the Islands, seem the same as you

  Ryukyus!

  Okinawa!

  Where will you go now?

  Come to think of it, the Ryukyus of Long Ago

  Were you part of Japan

  or were you part of China?

  Something like a clear distinction was not understood by either party

  Until one year when

  Ryukyuan castaways, who were shipwrecked on Taiwan,

  were viewed as a threat and killed by savages there

  but then Japan first tried to press China

  about the crimes of their savages, but

  China looked the other way

  and said that the matter of those savages was out of China’s hands

  In turn, Japan took this as a pretext giving them the right

  to utterly subjugate those savages

  so now who became upset was China

  China seemingly reversed its previous stance

  and claimed those savages were under Chinese jurisdiction

  and China next said it had stated precisely that to Japan

  And then Japan, far from backing off,

  went even further and told China to get out of Okinawa

  and demanded from China

  things called war reparations, damages to the victims and the bereaved

  Out of this situation

  perhaps China came to recognize that

  Ryukyu was now part of Japan

  In no time at all

  Ryukyu came to be called by a new name, Okinawa Prefecture,

  and you began to walk straight ahead on the Japanese path,

  now one member of a forty-three-prefecture and three-metropolitan entity

  Yet to walk straight along the Japanese path

  you could not walk burdened with the inconvenience of your Okinawan tongue

  that which you had from birth, as Okinawa Prefecture

  and so, as Okinawa Prefecture, you studied the Japanese language

  or at every chance you had

  made an effort to try to make the Japanese language part of your daily life

  and so, as Okinawa Prefecture, you came to walk the Japanese path

  Come to think of it, since Okinawa abolished its kingdom to become a prefecture

  you have walked all these seventy-plus years

  and thanks to you, even a person such as myself

  feels the Japanese language in every aspect of my daily life

  even when I eat rice, even when I write a poem, even when I get mad or laugh or cry

  I realize I have lived my whole life through the Japanese language

  but the nation of Japan

  did something as senseless as wage war

  Be that as it may

  Islands of the sanshin guitar

  Islands of awamori liquor

  My Okinawa

  I know you have wounds that are deep yet

  you will feel strong again and come home

  You will come home to Japan

  and its Japanese language

  without forgetting your liquor

  without forgetting your guitar

  DRAMA

  THE HUMAN PAVILION (1978)

  Chinen Seishin

  Translated by Robert Tierney

  Cast of Characters:

  Man dressed as a circus trainer

  Man on exhibit

  Woman on exhibit

  A simple, thatched hut, which resembles the set for a play, has been constructed in the center of the stage. It is adorned with pieces of pottery, colorfully dyed skeins of cloth in a variety of patterns, straw woven mats, kupa and munjurū hats,1 and an assortment of tropical plants. These props offer a compendium of the stereotyped images that the mainland Japanese2 have of Okinawa, but they are all jumbled together without rhyme or reason.

  A placard hangs from one of the supporting beams of the hut. The following sentence is written on it in very sloppy penmanship: No Okinawans or Koreans allowed.3

  Among these props, two human beings, a man and a woman, are placed on display.

  However, the foregoing set description is merely a rhetor
ical device that suggests the atmosphere at the start of the play. In reality, a more abstract stage set might be preferable so that the props do not interfere with the frequent changes of scene that occur during the play. At times, the scene should resemble the command room in an air-raid shelter and so forth.

  As the curtain slowly opens, the silhouette of the darkened stage set floats into view.

  The solemn strains of classical Ryukyu music may be played.4

  On one side of the stage, a man appears who resembles a circus trainer. He holds a short, supple whip in one hand.

  TRAINER: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’d like to extend you a warm welcome to our Human Pavilion.5 As all of you realize, human beings are all entitled to equal treatment under the law in accordance with universal principles of humanity. The rights of all human beings, without exception, must be respected. We must never permit discrimination at any time or place, whatever form it might take.

  (After pausing a moment) … In short, there are universal principles of humanity.

  So why do some human beings discriminate against others? What causes such a thing to happen? (He points to the whip.) The cause is perfectly simple: it results from ignorance and prejudice. (He laughs alone at his own joke.) … Is that too hard for you whippersnappers to understand?6

  But, seriously speaking, how can we put an end to discrimination, correct prejudice, and eliminate ignorance? People often ask me that question. And I think that the Human Pavilion has a crucial, but unrecognized, role to play in solving the problem of discrimination. This pavilion, the first of its kind and unprecedented in its scope, exhibits many specimens of racial and ethnic groups from all around the world that have suffered from discrimination, been persecuted, or endured oppression. There are blacks, Jews, Koreans, Ainu, Indians, etcetera—a varied assortment.… I don’t have enough time to list them all.

  Why are these people discriminated against? Are they to blame that they were born with dark skins? Is it their fault that they are poor and dirty, that they speak a dialect or have different customs from the rest of us?

  All the reasons that people give for discrimination are so vague and ambiguous—in fact, these reasons, alone, are nothing but prejudice.

  My dear guests, please take a good look at these people. Don’t blink your eyes as you watch them move their hands and feet. Stare at them until you drill a hole right through their bodies with your eyes.

  If you do so, my wise guests, you’ll doubtless come to realize that “even though they look a little different from us, they’re just like you and me after all.…” That is the important lesson to be learned. “We’re all equally human beings.…” That is the fundamental truth. Once you realize this, you’ll feel a bud of friendship open within your heart and feel united to all human beings by bonds of warm solidarity. It will be a unity forged of steel.

  Those of you who are prone to sentimentality, you don’t need to hold back your tears. Shed silent tears on their behalf in the name of the principles of universal humanity.

  Those of you who are drunk with laughter, please don’t hold back your laughter either. Have a good laugh at their expense. But it doesn’t matter whether you shed tears of sadness or tears of laughter: the important thing is that you really feel these precious feelings. Tears are a beautiful crystallization of true human feelings, in which the mind and the body are united.

  Finally, I have a request to make to our guests who are about to enter our Scientific Human Pavilion.

  If you brought along your cameras, please refrain from using your flash when you take a picture of the people on display. They belong to a race that is hypersensitive and easily wounded. They react very sensitively to light, so you must not use your flash.

  (As soon as the man dressed as a trainer snaps his whip, the stage lights up.)

  Sorry to have kept you waiting. This is the Ryukyu Pavilion Gallery.

  The primitive inhabitants of the Ryukyu Islands belong to the Amamikiyo ethnic group, which is a branch of the Ainu people. This tribe originated in prehistoric times when migrants from the north intermarried and mixed with islanders from the southwest Philippines and the vicinity of Taiwan and with others moving south from Kyushu and the Amami Ōshima area.

  From an anthropological perspective, it’s worth noting that the natives of the Ryukyu possess a highly distinctive bone structure and body type. (Flashing his whip) Here, we have on exhibit two typical specimens of the tribe.

  (The trainer approaches the man on display. He uses his whip to make the man lift his jaw. The man gives him a sullen look but he nevertheless behaves in a strangely docile manner.)

  Please take a good look at this man. The first thing you’ll notice about him is that he has a square-shaped face and that his nose is much too big and spreads out too far on both sides of his face. He has a so-called snub nose. This is a very common trait among them.

  (The man cannot bear being stared at by so many people and lowers his eyes. All of a sudden, the trainer cracks his whip sharply, and the man quickly straightens his posture.)

  Please take a good look at his eyes. They have a scrofulous look and are so big that they throw the rest of his face off balance. His eyes are also very typical of his tribe: he has a frightened look, like that of a mental patient. In the dialect of the Ryukyus, a man with a square face like his, with the jaw jutting out, is called … (He pauses and casts a questioning look at the man.)

  Man on exhibit (in a low, expressionless voice): habukakujaa …

  TRAINER: He said habukakujaa. Habu is a poisonous snake indigenous to the Ryukyus.7 Habukakujaa means the jaw of this poisonous snake.

  (He next turns to the woman. She is fanning herself with a straw fan and smoking a long Korean pipe.)

  You can find other distinctive traits in this second specimen as well.

  At first glance, you might imagine that she is just the same as you and me and no different in any respect. That is to be expected. To the untrained eye, she appears normal. However, appearances can sometimes be misleading. Please take a closer look.

  In the first place, her face is, generally speaking, small and narrow. As for her nose, one might say that it is just a tad too long. Especially, I’d say that her whole body is very hairy. It’s a bit shocking for a woman to be so hairy. I regret that, since we are under police surveillance, I’m not allowed to expose her entire naked body to your viewing pleasure, but as a special favor, I’ll allow you to take a close look at just one part of her body.

  (He snaps his whip. The woman mechanically lifts one of her knees. Using his whip, the trainer raises the hem of her skirt.)

  Take a good look. They say that the sins of the parents are visited on their children. The hair covering her legs is as stiff as that of a hedgehog. In fact, her whole body is just as hairy as a hedgehog’s. (Obviously, this is not the case.) But what bad karma caused her to be born in this body? What heavy karmic weight, accumulated over how many generations, led her to this bitter destiny? Noranyorai, noranyorai, three times noranyorai, and then six noranyorai.… Konamai no namagami, konamai no namagami, konkonama gami (He seems to have bitten his own tongue.)8 OK, I think that’s enough for today. If you stare at her too long, you’ll have bad dreams tonight. Well, our Scientific Human Pavilion, one of the first of its kind in the entire world, does not merely exhibit representatives of different specimens of the human race. We’ve also collected material objects that will give you an idea of their everyday life, from their food and clothing to their manners and customs. To take one example, the natives in the Ryukyu Islands actually live in this type of house. They dig a deep hole in the earth, plant a pillar in the hole, thatch a roof with miscanthus, and build four walls with bamboo grass. It’s very simple to build.

  It’s quite suitable for a climate in which it is warm all year round. However, the really surprising thing about their houses is that they don’t bother to shut and lock their doors at night or when they go out.… I don’t mean that there are no
thieves in their society. You must not draw any hasty conclusions!

  But why don’t they bother to lock their doors? Please don’t be surprised, but the fact is that they have nothing in their homes worth stealing. Next, as for the food that sustains them in their everyday life, it is the humble sweet potato. They eat this staple for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They gobble down their sweet potatoes, and they walk around barefooted. In short, sweet potatoes and bare feet.

  From a scientific point of view, I’ll observe (he pokes the woman’s body with his whip) that this woman’s body is made entirely of sweet potatoes. In addition, they love to drink very bitter tea. Wherever they go, they’re always guzzling tea. Wolfing down sweet potatoes and then guzzling cup after cup of tea. For that reason, many natives of the Ryukyu Islands have bloated stomachs and fart a lot.

  I have another surprise in store. These people eat the leaves of the sotetsu fern palm. Sotetsu is a poisonous plant, and, needless to say, it’s very dangerous to eat. The number of those who die of poisoning after eating sotetsu leaves remains about the same from one year to the next. But, heedless of the consequences, they go on eating them all the same. In this great, wide world, how many examples do you know of human beings who deliberately eat poison?

  In fact, this is one of the great mysteries of the human race.9

  Let’s stop here and move on to the next exhibit. In the next room, we have a display of the Negro race. (He says threateningly.) They’re black, their entire bodies, really and truly black. It’ll send shivers tingling down your spines. Let me warn guests with weak hearts or high blood pressure not to enter here.

  (The man on display gets up and looks around the room to make sure that the trainer has really left the stage. Once he is sure, he completely changes and begins to behave arrogantly.)

  MAN ON DISPLAY (in a mixed Okinawan dialect): What a pile of crap! Next time, I swear I’m going to beat that asshole to death!

  WOMAN ON DISPLAY (laughing loudly): Ha, ha, ha! What a laugh!

  MAN: What’s so funny?

  WOMAN: Just a minute ago, you were shaking like a leaf, but as soon as he leaves, you try to impress me with your empty bragging. How can a man without guts ever amount to anything?

  MAN: You say I was shaking like a leaf. You must be crazy. I could knock that guy flat. Everything he says is a lie. In Okinawa, when the police see me walk toward them, they run away, not me. I can take on any opponent at any time. Once, I even beat a police officer to death, after putting down a few drinks.