The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond

In  http://spikekalashnikov.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/platinum-status-furniture/

I wrote,  “So, the furniture comes from France. It is crazy really, most of this stuff has been around the world  3 times. France to US in 2001, US to France  in 2007, France to US in 2010. I have some of the best travelled chairs around. They have a lot of miles.”

So let’s add to that, San Francisco to Okinawa 2011. I feel a bit sorry for my furniture. So much time on boats. As Samuel Johnson remarked, “A man in jail has more room, better food and commonly better company.” Do my chairs feel neglected, my carpets uncared for, my lamps unloved?

A trifling sum of misery new added to the sum of our account

Ripped from comfort, wrapped up by rough handed laborers and sent off once again who knows where? The dull throb of the turbines in the dark,  the wretched cold, the sea swept across the schooner’s low decks, living off a few olives and perhaps a piece of Portugese ham sausage.

Nothing to sing but songs, Ah well, alas, and alack, Nowhere to go but out, Nowhere to come but back. I am sorry Big Red.

The furniture has reached safe haven. The anchor is down, the cargo discharged .

There is nothing so distressing as running ashore - unless there is also a doubt as to which continent the shore belongs

There is a world of difference between being outward bound by choice and homeward bound by necessity

Lor, Brer Rabbit, you don't know what trouble is. I'm de man what kin show you trouble.

And now me lads we’re all in dock. We’ll be off to Dan Lowry’s on the spot, And there we’ll shop a big pint pot. Jenny get your oatcakes done.

So, I am truly sorry my dear furniture to have put you through so much travail. But what is this I hear  from the chest of drawers?

“Come, my friends,

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

On Sunday I cycled down to the Fishing Harbor. It is only about a mile away  as the Large Billed Crow flies but can be reached by a series of meanders through the spring gardens that a larger number of Okinawans appear to be clearing of sugar cane, turning over with big cultivators and planting out with what I hope are Yomitan purple potatoes.

The road to the fish shop

Big Red likes it in Okinawa. She takes me to the fish restaurant/ market with no bother at all. This place serves meals but also sells fish. I feel that its main business is preparing fish for other shops and restaurants as everyone is slicing and gutting and only lay down their steely knives to come and serve you.

Flying Dutchman

I love this place. Everyone is very friendly and seem pleased that I buy weird stuff or maybe I just like to think that. I mean the second part about them seeming pleased. Be that as it may, I buy an octopus, a very large fish and three small fish. I have no idea what they are but I do know they are very fresh. The whole lot is $15. They also make deep fried snacks. You can get squid, fish or seaweed deep fried in batter for 50 cents US a hit. It comes scalding hot and has to be one of the greatest snacks on earth

Squid $1

I ride home along the shoreline.

Big Red in the East

I cook the fish for several meals. Fish makes good.

Octopus, bamboo shoot on rice. Salad with Okinawan prosciutto - about the only meat I have eaten in the last couple of months.

The big fish grilled with rice, bamboo shoot and slices of huge white Okinawan radish

I find it impossible to write a smart-ass post about life in Okinawa at the moment. My blog tends to be lighthearted but lightheartedness is wholly inappropriate given the current situation up North.

Okinawa seems to have been untouched by the earthquake and resultant tsunamis. It is the weekend and I have no social events with Japanese. I have tried to talk to people but I am rendered dumb by my inability to say anything beyond “Good Morning.”  Very, very few people speak English and those whom I have managed to connect with have been restrained.

My information comes from the BBC web site and radio and  English language versions of the Japanese newspapers. I listen to news from London to follow developments in the country I live in. How strange – I am in a country where there has been a terrible cataclysm but I see, hear, sense nothing.

Things up  North in Japan are terrible. I hear of hundreds of dead, an explosion at a nuclear power plant. Where do I get this information? From bbc.co.uk.

Although I live in Japan, I am very disconnected. I do not speak the language. I cannot read the newspapers and cannot understand the radio or TV.  The dentist speaks English. I ask if he has family in the North. He has. He says we are lucky in Scotland to have no earthquakes.  “Has anything happened in Okinawa?” “No, I do not think so.”

Okinawa. The morning after the earthquake.

Compared to the scalpel-like accuracy and speed of the international media, my attempts to find out what is going on here in Okinawa are clumsy.

This leads me to the nature of living away from your home country in our age. In the 70’s I spent 2 years in Algeria.  No web , no telephone, only letters in envelopes.  Two week old copies of the Daily Telegraph were devoured and passed around amongst the very small Brit community each time someone came back from Britain. People clustered around a radio to try and understand the World Service News despite the hum and crackle. Every thing I needed to know had to be wrung out of society in Algeria. There was no alternative.We were truly abroad.

Now I have live radio over on my computer. Email from the US tells me  that there has been an earthquake in Japan. I have any number of newspapers that update news by the minute. I listen to English language podcasts as I drive through the rice fields. I am in a cocoon. Although abroad, the experience will never be the same. The nature of travel has totally changed.

I feebly offer those who are  suffering in the North of Japan my support. Okinawa has been mercifully spared.

Today there was a terrible earthquake just north of Tokyo and the subsequent tsunami has wreaked much havoc. First and foremost I hope that there is as little suffering as possible up there.

I was in a meeting in my office and could hear my computer going ping ping ping signaling mail arriving. The rhythm was such that I went over to see what was going on. They were mails from people all over the world kindly asking if I was OK. I felt OK but how do you know if you are dead or not?

I asked my colleagues, mainly Japanese, what was going on  and they shrugged their shoulders. We went out into a central lobby type place where 5 or 6 people were watching a TV. Horrendous pictures and film. People just went back to their desks and got on with it. No discussion.

I go back to my office and my email is full of questions. You guys knew about it before I did.

The university is on a hill and overlooks the sea. I run up the stairs to see if there is a wave coming in. I am alone. Everyone else is at their desks.

“Have you got family in Tokyo?”

” Yes”

“Are they OK ?”

” Oh I think so but I haven’t heard from them.”

I drive home along the coast road looking for trouble. The sea is millpondish.

It is now dark so I cannot sea the ocean from the balcony but it sounds flat.

I have been living an ascetic life since I have been in Okinawa. I have a beautiful apartment but no stuff. I have 1 knife 1 fork, 1 spoon, 1 cup,1 plate, 1 collapsible table, 1 collapsible chair,1 futon,3 tatami mats,2 pillows, 1 duvet, 2 trousers,2 shirts and sundries. Oh, 1 huge exercise machine, which I am actually using.

St Simeon Stylites lived on top of  a pole for 37 years

Pole dancing

I do however have a fantastic terrace with a beautiful view over the sea. I have planted some flowers and I sit writing this,

Living on your western shore

looking over the flowers to the view. Sunday morning. On Tuesday my furniture arrives and my apartment will be cluttered but comfortable.

This is winter in Okinawa. People huddle in their coats and blow on the ends of their fingers. The daily conversation – how terrible the weather is and what an exceptionally bad year this is and it must be global warming.  The conversation is the identical in London , Chicago, Vladivostock and Surinam.

“That time of year thou mayst in me behold,

When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.”

In fact things here are pretty good. It is  warm and usually sunny but sometimes there is a cold wind and I believe the temperature once dropped to 9 centigrade.

But er lo what Spring in yellow mantle clad er springs o’er yon far hill?

Suddenly all over the place bare trees have  spurted  beautiful yellow blossom.It is extraordinary- no leaves just outrageous yellow blooms from bare sticks. What a way to announce spring. I wish I knew what this tree is called.

Mellow Yellow

“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.”

The yellow-flower-tree is dazzling but there are many other beautiful flowers in bloom.

High Biscuit

Booger Villa

Orange stuff

Doesn’t matter where you go on Okinawa you are always close to some tombs. They are everywhere. Come out of your front door – tombs. Wander around the sugar cane fields – tombs. Hang out on the beach -tombs. I have not found one in my kitchen yet but probably not trying hard enough. As I understand it, the religion on Okinawa is one of ancestor worship. This from Wikipedia:

“Traditionally, periodic gatherings of the extended family occur at the family shinju (haka), or “tomb” (v. inf. for information concerning the traditional dates of these gatherings). The tombs resemble houses, complete with a courtyard (naa), family name markers, and “porch” upon which offerings are arranged. Inside the tomb is stored the cremated remains (funishin) of several generations of family members. Although responsibilities may vary on a case-by-case basis, generally it is the oldest male of a family whose financial responsibility is upkeep for existing tombs and establishment of new tombs once the old are full or should it be destroyed.”

while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain?

There seem to be two main designs that I will call Fortress and Pagoda. Fortress are the one you see in the photos above. They resemble horseshoes. The older ones are made from stone whereas modern ones are big slabs of very ugly concrete. Pagoda style are smaller and basically look like small  er pagodas. They are made from stone, concrete or marble.

A cluster of pagoda style with a huge fortress in the middle.

Frequently on the tombs you find Shisa. These are a pair of dogs that essentially bring good fortune.  You see them everywhere in Okinawa.Read all about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shisa

Wuff!

This is not an ancient tradition that is dying out.  Tomb stores are doing a thriving trade. Invest now.

Wha lies here? John Sim, ye needna' speir. Hullo, John, is that you? Ay, ay, but I'm deid noo.

Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte, Born a virgin, died a harlot. She was aye a virgin at seventeen, A remarkable thing in Aberdeen.

When Orpheus played he moved Old Nick. But when you played you made us sick.

Thanks to Robert Burns for the epitaphs.

Spotting and watching birds has been a favorite activity of mine for many years. Now I am in Okinawa and I am born again. Not “born again” like:

George W. Bush – U.S. President
Ronald Reagan – U.S. President
Jimmy Carter – U.S. President

I am born again cos I am in  a new bird environment. When birdwatching you see the first 200 or so birds  in a region in the first couple of years and then pick up rarer stuff by either luck or work. Work means going to weirdo places specifically to see birds. Thus in Europe I have seen my 200, in the US I have seen my 200 but in Okinawa  I am starting afresh.

Oriental Turtle Dove

Okinawa is cool because I think there are less than 200 birds that live or come to the island. Compare that to over 700 for the States. There is a pretty good chance that I can see them all! Yahoo, I am born again.

Without trying, these are the birds I have seen so far.

Eurasian Wigeon

Northern Pintail

Greater Scaup

Great Cormorant

Gray Heron

Great Egret

Pacific Reef Egret

Osprey

Gray-faced Buzzard

Common Moorhen

Black-winged Stilt

Common Sandpiper

Whimbrel

Temminck’s Stint

Oriental Turtle Dove

Common Kingfisher

Rook

Large-billed Crow

Pacific Swallow

Great Tit

Light-vented Bulbul

Blue Rock Thrush

Pale Thrush

Dusky Thrush

Japanese White-eye

Gray Wagtail

White Wagtail

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

Black-headed (Tricolored) Munia

Japanese White Eye

So sooner, I hope, than later, I will set off for some seious birdwatching. Those of you who are not birdwatchers, who string yourselves up in strange, complex harnesses with an orange in your mouth and a vial of Amyl Nitrate up your nose  to have thrill, think of me with my binoculars and fresh air.

My March has been ripped untimely from my possession to have new  registration plates put on and new brake pads slid in. Nissan give me a loaner, called a Nissan Roox. It has a 600cc engine and is a cuboid or solid  rectangle. I love it. As I have mentioned in a previous posting, driving in Okinawa is slow. You do not need power.

Is this the black box they are always looking for?

Space is always good and this car is 90% space.

Wuff!

At the Dentist's

I have another car that is also a black cuboid.

A black cuboid in California

600cc probably 70 mpg

4000cc probably 17mpg

Horses for courses I suppose.