JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

Taki and I received our replacement vehicle Sunday. We decided to take it out for a drive up North and headed for Miyazato Soba. The facility is a non-assuming place that looks like it was one of the many temporary tin huts built back in the mid-seventies when everyone was getting ready for the Expo. The walls are bare of decoration; tables have simple plastic tablecloths; and the chairs are plastic patio furniture. But there is plenty space in between tables, so the customers are not eating on top of one another. It’s a no frills type of eatery where you purchase tickets from a machine, hand them over to a staff member, and wait about fifteen minutes for the food to be delivered. The soba is unusual. In addition to the required noodles and pork, it also has kombu (seaweed) and one of the most flavorful stocks I have eaten in a long time. We each ordered the small size, which is about half the regular size and great if you have children. This allowed enough room for one of my favorite local dishes, obaa curry, which we split between the two of us. Although the golden yellow curry wasn’t chunky-style and didn’t have bell peppers, it was very tasty and just like I remembered. The whole meal only cost us one thousand yen!

At the end of last night, one of our regulars told me that there had been a “Best of…” vote earlier this year in the Stars and Stripes and that Bar JET was voted #1 in the live music category for Okinawa. We want to thank all of you who voted for us. We’re sorry that we didn’t thank you earlier, but we didn’t even know about the voting. I just wish I could find the article on the net, so I can show it to the band! I’m sure they would get a kick out of actually seeing in print that you think so highly of them. Again, thank you for acknowledging the effort they put into the music.

As I was doing some web searches, it came to my attention that several websites have begun to use several variations on the JET Okinawa or Live Music Bar JET Okinawa terms for ranking and/or business purposes. I want to state right here and now, we are NOT ASSOCIATED NOR AFFILIATED with these sites!!! There are three official homepage addresses associated with JET band and Live Music Bar JET these are:

http://ryukyuno-okinawan-rock.jet-okinawa.com/JET/
http://live-music-bar.jet-okinawa.com/Official Website/
http://jet-okinawa.com

In addition, there are various tour sites that also contain links to the outdated Japanese JET band member fan website. Please use care in screening your searches.

It’s mid-November and all around the island bits and pieces of holiday decorations are slowly, but surely, being displayed. The commercial side of the holiday season is very big on Okinawa. Over the past three decades the retail stores have wisely increased the supplies available to the public from a few very questionable-looking trees to just about every decoration a person can think of. This is a time of year I especially enjoy because the various decorations remind me of a more relaxed time in America. A time before putting up decorations became environmentally questionable. Each year we gather our “family”, the dogs and us, and drive all over the island looking for the best of the holiday cheer. And we are never disappointed because each year some enthusiastic and creative individual always divises a new combination of the decorations that inspires and fills other islanders minds and hearts with joy.

On Okinawa the word is that we are in for a particularly nasty flu season. If the first wave of colds is any indication, the word is right. For all of us at the bar, this was the second weekend of dealing with the pesky cold bug. It has been taking its toll on all of us. Over the weekend the regulars could tell each one of us was fighting various versions of brain “farts” and hoarse voices. There were cracking vocals, missed drum rolls, and rambling guitar licks, and accidentally spilled drinks. But we all forged ahead because as the saying goes “the show must go on!” I just wish this particular little pest would go away now so we can get on with life as normal. I want to thank everyone for bearing with us through this.

I have a thought for those people who think they have a right, for whatever reason, to ignore a business’ rules. What if you were to think of the business as a country. The “citizens” of this country work hard and put their hearts into creating a way of life that they believe in. Say there is a group of people who don’t like that business’ rules and beliefs. So this group thinks they have the right to ignore those rules and impose their own beliefs onto that business. And say on occasion the group commits physical acts of destruction, creates means of interrupting the business’ normal way of operating, or even implies that if the group doesn’t get what it wants trouble will ensue. How does this group differ from terrorist organizations that threaten other countries? If this were your business would you give into the demands? Or would you stand-up for your right to run your business free of outside demands?

When I was researching some legal information, I ran into a site that provides an outlet for persons wanting to release some of the frustrations associated with the political environment on Okinawa. It is good to have such an outlet, but if you read the posts all one sees are the same old issues being tossed back and forth in varying degrees of anger. If I have learned anything in all my years on Okinawa, it’s there will always be one group against another. This isn’t because it’s Okinawa, but because that is the nature of groups. Being in an interracial/intercultural marriage for thirty years has put my husband and me in the situation of not really fitting into any specific group. We are okay with that, but the groups aren’t. There is always some group trying to force their belief system on us, trying to put one label or another on us. On occasion the differences in cultural backgrounds and/or gender cause disagreement on how a situation should be handled. I can tell you right now, there is nothing that an opposing group finds more satisfying than causing dissention in an adversary. If the adversary is busy arguing amongst themselves, then the focus is taken off of the opposing group.

What we have found over the years is that both sides of a politically based argument usually have legitimate reasons for their positions, and this can lead to nothing more than an ongoing standoff. We tend to throw away the cultural social formalities, since they are equally legitimate, and focus on the belief that brought and kept us together. The belief is that one human being should treat other human beings as such. A person doesn’t impose on others, but at the same time doesn’t allow others to walk all over them.

Having resided on Okinawa for the majority of the past thirty-one years, I have to wonder what in the world is being taught in America as far as public behavior. When I left America, the rule as far as being dissatified with a business’ house rules or personnel was you filed a complaint and/or found a business that more closely met your personal preferences. If the people we get at our business are any indication, the procedure these days seems to be the dissatisfied person ignores the rule, throws a temper tantrum, or acts like a thug and tries to harrass the business owner. What are these people thinking? I doubt that very many business owners are going to make changes in their rules based on that type of behavior. Very few business owners establish rules just for the fun of it. The reason most rules have had to be established is usually because of some serious difficulty with a particular behavior in the past. Ignoring the rule, temper tantrums, and harrassment only escalate, not eliminate, the situation and stresses the reason why a particular rule was needed in the first place.

Why is it when a trusted friend decides to take a dump it’s always at the most inconvenient time? This week my trusty “Speedy” just gave out on me. And, of course, it just happened to be the week Taki and I both came down with the nasty cold that going around the island. Speedy was my very dependable sports mini car. For seven years it served as the family means of getting out and about. I always get a little attached to my cars. It feels like every one of them have had their own character. I will truly miss Speedy.