JAWing On – Life on Okinawa

The other day the local satellite station was airing “Cocktail” and one of the characters, Brian, said something that reminded me of a question I’ve had for a long time. What Brian says is, “There are two types of people, scammers and workers. Scammers never work and workers never scam.” The question that this brings to mind is would there be such a thing as stinginess without greed? Usually a person is accused of being ungenerous when others persons are expecting something for nothing or more than what they have actually earned. If people only expected what they actually worked for and earned would there be greed? And without greed, would there be a lack of generosity or stinginess?

Throughout life one runs across people who never seem to mentally graduate from High School. You know the type of person who has nothing interesting going on in their personal life, so their conversations are limited to gossip and dogging other people. The topics usually include comments on another person’s:

1) Personal appearance: unless you are going to be involved with the person on a romantic level – who gives a doggie’s doodoo!

2) Behavior: whether sexual or other, again unless you are going to have sex with the person or the behavior is disruptive or rude to you or others – who gives a doggie’s doodoo!

3) Belief system: hey we all have one, who are we as one individual to condemn personal beliefs of everyone else in the world, unless that belief leads to harm or personal difficulties.

My system of determining whether or not someone is blowing smoke is simple:

1) Is the situation of any importance, in other words, will the topic make a difference in whatever is being held to ridicule.

2) Does the comment include a solution to the situation or is it just a statement of what the speaker personally disagrees with.

3) What would I do if I were in the person being held to ridicule’s shoes? Is the person being ridiculed being unreasonable in the given circumstance? It’s easy to just make blank negative comments about someone, but if I would react the same way in the given circumstance, to condemn the behavior is nothing more than hypocrisy.

So to those who can’t get past ridiculing others, GET A LIFE!!!

It’s August on Okinawa! This is the time of year when summer hits its full swing. Go outside at 10a.m. and you’ll walk into a wall of heat and humidity. It’s also the time of year when the night fills with sounds of Eisa drums in preparation for Obon. The drums are one of the more endearing and interesting facets of the Ryukyu culture. Almost every foreigner is fascinated by the energy and rhythm of the beat of the Okinawan Eisa drum. Thirty years ago, I wanted to learn to play the Eisa drum, but at that time, women were limited to the role of dancer. Fortunately times change and now there are programs available that allow foreigners to join-in on the annual Obon Eisa festivities. The new system also allows females to participate as drummers!

As civilized humans, most of us are raised to believe that it is the “high road” to ignore or be polite to other people’s rudeness. But what happens when you live in a society where it is expected? You end-up with a percentage of the population exploiting the good heartedness of those who follow the rule. Yesterday was a good example of this observation. We were experiencing one of the most beautiful summer days we have had in a while. While driving down the main strip in Mihama, a local female pulled out of a side parking lot into the middle of the oncoming traffic. I don’t know where she thought she was going to go. The traffic in the lane going the opposite direction was stacked-up and at a total stop. Instead of backing up and waiting for a clearance, she just sat there in the middle of our lane, blocking us and all the traffic behind us. As she sat there, all she did was flash a smile in our direction. This in itself was irritating, but within the next five minutes and four blocks two more local females pulled their cars halfway into the oncoming traffic lane, all the while just sitting there with smiles on their faces. It is almost as if they were saying, “I’m smiling so you have to excuse my rudeness!” It got so ridiculous even my husband, an Okinawan, stated “What is wrong with these women? They just sit there with smiles on their faces, every single one of them!” Has the belief that the recipient is suppose to take the “high road” given rise to a smile as the passport to rudeness on Okinawa?

One of the best things I ever did for my self was getting my first computer five years ago. Life on a sub-tropical island can become pretty monotonous. It was as if a whole new world opened before my very eyes. One problem though was the lack of English language system support on the island. Somehow, my husband and I were able to stumble through all the novice mistakes without too much chaos. With the beginner’s bug at me, I decided to try my hand at a website. Now, with the help of the internet, I am finally beginning to learn html, css, and a virtual cornucopia of new terminology and techniques. I don’t know how I ever lived without a computer all those years!!!

Each week we have people who try to use the club as their personal repayment bank. These people try to bring in a snack or soft drink for employees out of “‘friendship” and then expect a free drink as repayment. First, if you give someone a present out of friendship, it is suppose to be with no strings attached. Otherwise it’s not a gift. Second, we do not pay other people’s’ personal debts. If a favor is done for someone, it is their responsibility to pay their own debts, not ours. If they owe a debt, they can always pay it back their self and shouldn’t expect us to pay it for them! If an employee owes someone a drink, then they can always buy a drink for that person. Taking a beer from the club stock is not the same as paying back a debt. It is the same as us paying the employee’s personal debt.

On Okinawa, it isn’t uncommon for people to let their dogs run loose at night or early morning. These people do so to let the pets relieve their selves in someone else’s yard. This is one on the laziest and rudest behaviors a neighbor can perform. Because of the sub-tropic climate, most home owners spend quite a bit of time on yard work. It isn’t very amusing to have someone else’s pet dump on your clean yard. Many of the locals use pets as nothing more than status symbols. We have one neighbor that has two very beautiful and energetic black Labs. These poor animals are kept on extremely short chains on a concrete carport. Very seldom are the animals taken off the chains, and when the animals are it’s the situation I talked about earlier. If someone can’t take the time to care for an animal properly, they should really consider getting a robot pet!!!

We had a mild earthquake, 6.4, a couple of days ago. This actually was stronger than usual. Earthquakes, no matter how small, always send my heart racing. ( I was in the Alaska earthquake in the early ’60s.) Whenever we have a “tremor”, it reminds me of my first week on island. There we were, living in a Quonset hut. A typhoon was hitting the island. An earthquake hit as well. And to top things off, there was a murder of a babysitter on Kadena. Police dogs tracked the suspect through the empty hut next to ours. All I could remember thinking was, “what kind of place have you brought us to Dad!” Luckily, tremors are rare and murders even rarer. Typhoons are just a part of the yearly cycle and usually not that bad, at least not anything like Typhoon Pamela (May, 1976) which totally demolished Guam. And you guessed it, I was there!!!

Okinawans have a saying, “Once we have talked, we are friends.” The saying itself is a nice sentiment, but is it a romanticized idea. In my many years of experience, I do not think I have seen a relationship between S.O.F.A. status personnel and locals that doesn’t include some form of monetary benefit. Whether it is the ever-smiling and “enthusiastic” local girls squeezing a few free drinks from hard-up and lonely G.I.s or the ongoing “friendship” that includes a favor entailing the use of a few base privileges. The local idea of friendship is primarily a business relationship masked as friendly banter between persons of two cultures. I honestly ask if you are a S.O.F.A. status person who does have a friendly relationship with a local that never included the use of any base facility or privilege, please let me know. I would love to hear your story.