All posts filed under: Japan

Coming of Age Day – Seijin no Hi

Published by

Coming of Age Day is a national holiday in Japan held on the second Monday in January. The day celebrates those who have turned 20 that year and are now officially seen as adults. A Seijin shiki ceremony takes place at the city office where the young women wear kimono (usually rented) and have very big hair. I was told the average cost for kimono rental, hair and makeup is 200,000 yen or around 2,000 dollars. The guys wear either suits or traditional hakama. On Sunday, I went down to central Naha to get a few photos. Surprisingly, outside the prefectural office there was an almost complete absence of kimono and hakama, but a lot of police uniforms. Recently there have been a few problems in Okinawa as a small percentage of these new adults end up taking their celebrations too far, driving or riding around causing trouble.  The police had decided to clamp down on any excessive celebrating, and were making their presence known with a large number of uniformed and plainclothes officers. It was …

Winter in Okinawa

Published by

Not surprisingly I didn’t have a white Christmas here in Okinawa. Most of my Okinawan friends have never even seen snow. On the other side of the world is my hometown of Sale near Manchester. They are having the coldest, snowiest winter in recent history. My parents just told me that there was a photo of the canal near our house in The Telegraph newspaper. Here it is: I wanted to put up the photo on the blog, not just because it’s a topical picture of my hometown, but because it’s a simple, elegant, timeless image. The small, almost abstract, people also remind me of the work of another Mancunian, the painter L.S. Lowry.

Island Icons – Motorcycle Police

Published by

Ryukyu Riders Katsue Oshiro and Matsuri Kuniyoshi are Okinawa’s two female police motorcyclists. Why did you become motorcycle police officers? K.O.  “I joined the police force because I wanted a career that would let me help others. When I got to choose my specialty, I decided to become a motorcycle officer, even though I’d never ridden a bike before. It looked like such a cool thing to do as a career.” M.K. “I rode a motorbike when I was in high school, and even got caught by the police a couple of times. I decided that I wanted to ride bikes for a living, and joined the police with the one goal of becoming a motorcycle police officer.” What special training do police riders receive? “The police bikes we use are 750cc Honda VFR’s. Once you’ve added sirens, lights, speakers and panniers, they become quite large and heavy. We do a lot of training to improve our maneuverability on the bikes. We have to be able to turn them around in tight spaces and weave …

Island Icon – Fashion Designer Kanna Yamauchi

Published by

A Sense of Style It was during a visit to Paris when Kanna Yamauchi originally decided she would become a fashion designer. Some may say it was inevitable and that a sense of style was in her blood – her mother has been one of Okinawa’s top designers for more than thirty years. Upon her return to Okinawa, Kanna quit her job as a tour guide, enrolled in fashion art college, and hasn’t looked back. Now age 32, Kanna has received several design awards, gained prefectural sponsorship, and set up her own company, Yokang. Where do the ideas for your designs come from? “I grew up in Yanaburu; it’s very rural so you’re always surrounded by nature. The mountains, trees, ocean and flowers of Okinawa have all influenced the patterns in my clothes. When designing a new article, I think about the structure of the dress or shirt, and then work out which material and pattern will best fit that particular piece. While studying at college, I spent my afternoons helping my mother make clothes …

Santa Scuba

Published by

Hiroshi and I went for a dive at Sunabe seawall today to spread some Christmas joy to all the underwater creatures that might otherwise miss out. Not many people know this but  SCUBA is actually an acronym from Santa Cavorts Underwater By Aqualung Merry Christmas

Island Icons – Artist Naka Bokunen

Published by

Bokunen was born on the small Okinawan island of Izena in 1953. As a child, he always carried a sketchbook, and drew pictures of the island’s creatures and landscapes. At that time, he never imagined a career as an artist, and thought he would become either a fisherman or a carpenter. His talent, however, did not go unnoticed. One of his teachers recommended that he attend an art-based high school on the main island of Okinawa. After graduation, Bokunen became a graphic designer and set up his own design production company, Project Core. It is his skills as a woodblock artist that have gained him them most recognition. His colorful, dream-like prints were used for the Kyoto Climate Conference in 1997, the G8 Summit in 2000, and in numerous exhibitions across Japan. What process do you go through to create the prints? “I begin with a vague idea of what the image will be like, but as soon as I start to carve the wood, things change. The whole process is very fluid, almost like …

Fast cars, slow roads.

Published by

A Japanese motoring website just reviewed the much anticipated Nissan GTR specV sports car. The V-spec is the faster, lighter version of what was already one of the fastest sports cars on the planet. The video however is a great example of the paradox for sports cars in Japan: fast cars, slow roads. Speed limits in Japan are surprisingly low. In cities the maximum is usually 40 or 50 kilometers an hour. Toll-road expressways have speed limits of 100 kph ( and in Okinawa only 80 kph). In rural areas of Japan the low speed limits continue. Unlike Britain where country roads often have 60 mile per hour  limits,  many deserted rural roads are still restricted to 40 kilometers an hour. Unless you live close to a track the Nissan GTR specV is simply all dressed up with nowhere to go. The motoring journalist in the video however happily hurtles along  past signs and road markings for 50 kilometers an hour. This disregard for the speed limit isn’t unusual, it’s epidemic. If you simply drive with …

The Windows 7 Whopper

Published by

This news is a little outdated  but from the 22nd to the 28th of October Burger Kings in Japan were selling Windows 7 Whopper burgers to celebrate the arrival of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. What amazes me is that someone at a PR firm thought this was a good idea, and even more remarkably, people at Microsoft agreed. Companies pay millions to be associated with certain sports stars or actors, why would Microsoft want to link itself to something quite so noxious. The campaign could almost have had the tagline “Want system failure and fatal errors, try Windows 7”.