On Friday I photographed 9th-dan master Yoshimasa Matsuda and his son Hirokazu Matsuda at Naminoue Shrine, Naha City, Okinawa. On January 31st Matsuda will receive the rank of 10th-dan. Naminoue Shrine is the most famous shrine on Okinawa. The fact that Matsuda is a local resident and supporter of the shrine meant we were given permission to use it as a background for the photographs.
James, Sam and Fumiya, practice kobudo on Toyosaki Beach, Okinawa.
A couple of weeks ago the lighthouse at Cape Zanpa reopened to the public. I was out teaching the Photography Fundamentals workshop when we came across the special opening day event. The mascot got my seal of approval. Unfortunately nobody seemed to have checked which end of the flag festooned rope they should attach to the top of the lighthouse. The result is that the flags of about 50 countries were flying upside down, an international signal of distress.
Now that the Karate Masters book is completed and on sale I have time to catch up on things on my to-do list. Here’s a scan of my Kokusai Street feature from last month’s Silkroad, the magazine of Dragonair.
Flowers of the Red Powder Puff, Calliandra haematocephala known locally as obenigoukan. Flowering in Yomitan Village, Okinawa, Japan.
I regularly meet this chondara (Okinawan clown) when teaching my photography workshops, yesterday he had a new face pattern. I had presumed that each chondara would have a unique pattern they would keep for life, but I guess Okinawan clowns take these things lightly.
Dr. Makoto Suzuki is a cardiologist and geriatrician. In 1976, he moved from Tokyo to Okinawa and began work at the Ryukyu University Hospital. While working in the field of community medicine, he discovered that there were an unusually high number of very healthy old people living on Okinawa. He began the Okinawa Centenarian Study, which has documented the phenomenon for more than 30 years. The findings of his research became the basis of several books that became bestsellers in Japan and around the world. How did you discover the phenomenon of Okinawan longevity? “I had heard that there was a very healthy old lady living in Yomitan Village, so I, and two others from the hospital, went out to meet her. She was over 100 years old, but when we arrived she was outside cutting the grass with a sickle. I was amazed at how fit and strong she was. When we talked to her, she didn’t think she was unusual at all. In fact, she pointed out that another healthy centenarian lived directly …
Dr. Andrew Weil is the director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. He’s been on the cover of Time magazine, written several best selling books and was recently described as one of the twenty most influential people in America. During his visit to Okinawa I talked to him briefly about his thoughts and views on healthy living and the longevity of Okinawans. What do you think are the major problems with the western diet? “Too much meat and animal products in general. Too few vegetables and too few fruits, the wrong kind of fats especially too much refined vegetable oil, margarine and artificially hardened fats, and too few of the Omega-3 fats from fish. Also too much refined carbohydrates, highly processed wheat flour and in general too much processed food, not enough fresh natural food, I’d say they were the main problems.” What can we learn from the Okinawan diet? “Many more vegetables and a greater variety of vegetables, more legumes especially soy and other special Okinawan foods, goya and …
This morning was the USO Color Blast 5km Fun Run on Okinawa. The Color Blast is very similar to the Indian festival of Holi. Participants throw powdered paint at each other and everyone comes away from the event a lot more colorful than when they arrived. The Color Blast combines throwing paint with a 5km run, and the paints used are waterbased and non-toxic. (This is not always the case in India. I had to throw away most of my clothes and scrub off a couple of layers of skin to remove the paint after shooting Holi in Jaipur.)
TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography 