JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

Okay, so you fall for the typical image of Okinawans being a mystical, quiet, timid, easy- going culture. Well so did I thirty-one years ago. But my experiences have taught me that they are no different than any other culture, just less forward about their activities. A saying that I have heard often over here is “…no evidence….” In example, I have had an ongoing situation with my land development neighbor. We bought our house about fourteen years ago. It is old military officer’s housing built after WWII. When we bought our house it had a beautiful scenic view of the ocean. Well the locals decided they liked the view as well, after forty years and began building new homes basically on top of ours. And they had every right to build their homes.
The problems began when they waited until we weren’t home and then climbed a fence in order to make a property mark, with red spray paint, on the top of our house. Following that, another land developer built in back of us and thought he had the right to use our land to build a road to access his home which took all of his own property. He waited until we went to work and than built a wall partially on the land we pay rent for each year. Then he tried to have the telephone/electric company place the pole in my husband’s parking space which would have prevented my husband from being able to park there. Luckily, my husband wasn’t at work. He woke up and caught them after they had already dug the hole. What gets me is the workers didn’t even check to see if the person who made the request was authorized to move the pole. Soon there were more new homes and more people thinking they had the right to turn our rented land into road. We had dump and cement trucks tear up our car port, flower beds, cut our trees, etc. Not a single one of these people asked us, even if we were home, if we had any problems with this. Once it became obvious we didn’t want to give the land to an ever increasing population of new home owners, they would wait until we weren’t home to do their dirty deeds. Most of this came to an end about seven years ago when they finally finished building a new home right in front of our carport. Although the law states that to build a new home there must be a five meter access road and these people told my husband that they were just building a prevention wall to keep cars from a dangerous drop. What we ended up with is a new house within three meters that totally blocked our ocean view. Over here the rule seems to be, once it is there, whether legal or not, you can’t do anything about it.
About three years ago, workers came again. This time our water line was supposedly improper and outdated and they needed to change the pipe to a hose. Once more we had digging on the property due to a request from someone other than the owner without a proper authorization. This only tore the carport entrance a little, so no big deal. Well, this morning I opened the front door to find water company personnel out in our front area checking out the pipes again. Once more the land developer had made some request to have the pipes replaced (this time from hose back to pipe), which would have led to more digging on our property. And once again, even though we were home, the workers didn’t check to see if the person who made the request had the authority to request digging on someone else’s land. Now this land developer told my husband that he just found out that the water lines that extend from our carport supply his water. And he has been having a problem with water pressure. I’m sorry but that is just a little too much for me to buy. First, his daughter just built a new home next to his about six years ago. With him being a land developer, one would think that he would have easy access to all documents containing information on water lines, power lines, sewer pipes, etc.
This same man had our in-laws’ rented land torn-up, without their permission and while they were at work, so he could install a street light and has repeatedly tried to “widen” the road that provides access to several new homes, including his daughter’s. The thing is, the road was too small to begin with (it was only big enough for one way access). Then these people came in, built all these new homes (in which all of their land is used), and increased the traffic flow from three households to nine households. When they built the home in front of ours with less than three meter access, it made the road even more difficult to navigate. Part of our rented land is parallel to that home. We have trees and bushes on it as a measure of privacy and to help block some of the car fumes that now permeate our home because of the increased traffic flow. So now it is back to the situation of how obsessed is this man and will he have the workers come when we are not home again. If so, how much will get torn-up and reorganized this time?