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Amami Oshima,
the semi-tropical island at the bottom of Japan's archipelago,
appears more like Jamaica than Japan at first blink. Ian
Richards slips, slops and slaps and tries assimilating
with the people on this offshore idyll. |
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| My Air New
Zealand flight has drifted into New Kansai Airport and
I'm in Osaka--sort of. The airport, known as Kanku to
locals, is on a man-made island in Osaka Bay, and the
terminal itself is a sight: an airy, earthquake-tested
building of glass and grey metal. Kanku had just opened
when Kobe was levelled, and it came through without a
scratch. But I'm not stopping. I collect my bags and fly
down to a small island, Amami Oshima, in the southern
tail below Japan's main island chain. Amami is near Okinawa,
it's semi-tropical and so off the beaten track that even
Japanese people have trouble locating it. "Oh yes," they
say, after some thought and, "No, I've never been there". |
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Clockwise from top:
The well-built locals enjoy partying; this side of the
island faces the East China Sea, where coral and tropical
fish abound; showing local kindergarten children the
deadly habu snake at the Habu Centre; there's lots of
beautiful rainforest on Amami Osima, but it's also home
to the aggressive habu snake.
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I'm on a jet
again, but it still takes an hour and a half from Kanku.
We fly in over the bright, blue water. Seeing Amami Oshima's
tip from the air, the island seems small--but at 720 square
kilometres and with a population of 80,000, it is really
quite large.
The dry heat hits me as soon as I step off the plane.
It's the middle of July and 33 degrees. I soon find that
even the locals can't stand the heat. Almost every conversation
I have over the next few days begins with, "Isn't it hot!"
A bus driver sympathises with me when he sees the sweat
dripping from my chin. "So this temperature is unusual？"
I ask.
"Oh no." He grins. "It's nothing for summer."
As we drive into the main town, Naze City, about 30
minutes away, I think I've mistakenly arrived in Jamaica.
We pass sugarcane fields, traditionally Amami's most important
crop. White sands and blue water are never far away. Roadside
stalls selling giant watermelons operate by the honesty-box
system.
The Amami people have big brown eyes and heavy eyebrows,
they're short and quite stocky. Most of the men look like
natural rugby players, which is why there's no loan sharking
on the island.
I learn later the story about some gangsters from the
mainland who turned up a few years ago and lent out their
money at high interest rates. When the heavies started
intimidating people, by forcing their way into apartments,
they found the homes packed with solid brothers and cousins--and
friends of brothers and cousins. After a few battles the
gangsters went back to the big smoke-empty-handed. True
or not, it's a good story and illustrates how unfazed
these island people are.
Amami is on the summer typhoon belt and, when supply
ships can't get through, ice-cream and beer are the produce
which tends to run short. The people are pretty laid-back,
things run more or less on time, but if you're late, it
doesn't matter. Outsiders are assimilated in about five
minutes. I'm off the bus and wandering through Chuodouri,
Naze's main shopping arcade, when a little boy tugs at
my sleeve. "Hey," he says, "you've got a funny face."
It's not a criticism, just a comment.
"That's because I'm a foreigner," I say. "Oh, I see,"
he nods and goes on his way.
Amami is a secret. The locals discuss developing tourism
so that the island can become the crowded, big-bucks,
beach-disco that Okinawa is--and then go home and forget
about it. They'd rather go fishing, or swimming, or visit
friends--and so they've kept their paradise intact.
That said, Amami is a secret Mecca for Japan's most
dedicated fishermen and scuba divers, and many of them
stay at the Caretta Hotel, where I've booked a room. It's
a pleasant, white-walled complex just out of town, and
with a 25m pool right beside Ashitoku beach. The hotel
hires out jet-skiing, water-skiing, snorkelling and scuba-diving
equipment, and you can arrange to have lessons. A glass-bottomed
boat is also available for those who don't want to get
their feet wet.
But I'm the lazy sort and so head off to the beach with
just my towel and sun block--an absolute necessity in
the dazzling sunlight--and my hat, sunglasses, sandals,
Walkman, book and money for cold beer. Ah, the simple
life! I change in the dressing rooms and stride out onto
the sand...and for the first time in my life I'm ashamed
of my body. It seems to have turned into an over-sized,
over-white, hairy monstrosity among all these well-built,
tanned, hairless locals. I'm not fitting in as well as
I'd hoped, but I realise that everyone here is unfazed--foreigners
probably look like that with their clothes off.
The next day I go to Ohama, one of the island's two
main beaches. To get there I go by bus, which has to travel
over a huge hill, giving a wonderful view of the beach
stretched out below. Kids are jumping about in the shallows.
Coral colours the water and a few brave tropical fish
swim among the human company. After a day spent relaxing
on the beach, I watch the sun set over the water in a
gorgeous display of colour. After dark the stars spread
out in the sky like a map. I'm told that a jazz band plays
here on Tuesday evenings, provided...er, the boys are
in the mood to jam. |
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As
we drive into the main town, Naze City, about 30 minutes
away, I think I've mistakenly arrived in Jamaica. We pass
sugar-cane fields, traditionally Amami's most important
crop. White sands and blue water are never far away. Ｒoadside
stalls selling giant watermelons operate by the honesty-box
system. |
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As I wander
down Naze's Sansan Street the next day, a man nods and
says, "Isn't it hot!" "It sure is!" I respond, "how do
you beat this kind of heat？" "Boxer shorts," he says
and walks on. But there are other ways, and the best one
is to eat a Shirokuma. I order one at the Serina coffee
shop. Shirokuma means "polar bear". I don't understand
the translation until it's brought to my table: a large
bowl heaped with shaved ice, smothered in condensed milk
and garnished with tropical fruit. I attack my bear with
gusto, and about halfway through I'm so chilly that I'm
looking forward to getting outside again, away from the
air-conditioning.
On the plane to Amami I lost my nerve and asked another
passenger if I could get a Big Mac on the island. "Oh
no," he said. "There's no McDonald's." But I need not
have worried. Amami's speciality is a chicken dish called
Keihan. I order one at Caretta Hotel's restaurant and
eat it poolside. At first, Keihan is nothing to look at:
individual piles of shredded chicken, chopped mushrooms
and egg, and diced spring onion, lemon peel, papaya pickles,
ginger and dried seaweed. Put them all on top of a bowl
of rice, add hot chicken soup, and presto! It's delicious.
Keihan is Japanese, but has a touch of Chinese influence--just
like Amami Oshima, in fact. The relative isolation of
Amami Oshima meant that Chinese influences continued long
after they'd diffused in mainland Japan: the result is
a unique culture.
Amami Oshima is also home to one of the world's deadliest
snakes: the habu. Although not quite the world's most
venomous snake--as if you'd care if one bites you--it's
by far the most aggressive. Instead of fearing large creatures,
a habu will hunt anything with a body temperature higher
than its own: including humans. That's the reason why
I've given up all thought of hiking through the beautiful
green hills behind Naze City. The locals tell me that
only someone with a death-wish would wander up there.
Habu have kept the environment pristine, but dangerous.
I'm assured that none are ever seen in town--although
it must be said, I distinctly detected a twinkle in the
eyes of the man who assured me.
To get to grips with this man-eating snake business,
I visit the Habu Centre, near Naze's harbour. The Centre
puts on a show about the snake several times each day.
The basement contains grisly pictures of snakes and victims,
and in enclosures real, diamond-backed habu, which can
grow up to two metres long, are on display. I troop upstairs
with some other tourists as the show starts. We sit around
a glass case that has a mongoose inside. The show begins
when the presenter opens a wooden box and throws a live
habu near us onto the floor. I join my fellow tourists
halfway up the back wall. Eventually we're coaxed back
down when the snake is pinned. Later the habu is put into
the glass case and fights the mongoose--to death.
Mongooses, which can attack faster than a snake can
coil and strike, were introduced by US servicemen during
the occupation. |
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Amami is a secret. The locals discuss developing tourism
so that the island can become the crowded, big-bucks,
beach-disco that Okinawa is--and then go home and forget
about it. They'd rather go fishing, or swimming, or visit
friends--and so they've kept their paradise intact. |
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| But it's not
just surf, Shirokuma and snakes on the island, there's
also Oshima tsumugi: a type of kimono cloth for which
Amami is famous. One of Japan's best modern painters,
Isson Tanaka, lived in Naze and worked in the tsumugi
industry. In order to understand Oshima tsumugi, I visit
Mr Masahito Hara's tsumugi shop, Hara Kinuorimono. The
shop is on the edge of Hatohama Harbour, and it supplies
retail shops with the cloth, as well as selling directly
to the public. The interior is mostly taken up by a tatami-mat
floor on which guests can sit cross-legged, surrounded
by bolts of tsumugi. Mr Hara explains that Oshima tsumugi
is made of silk, with a pattern elaborately woven into
it by hand. Each pattern is unique. The colours come from
dyeing the thread in Amami's iron-rich mud. Tsumugi kimonos
usually have dark, restrained colours and are for casual
or semi-formal wear--not like the bright Kyoto kimonos
worn at weddings and parties. Around the shop, I can see
many tsumugi with the geometric black-and-white patterns
favoured by traditionalists. But there are also plenty
of astonishingly subtle, modern designs, with the whole
spectrum of colour. A tsumugi kimono takes about six
months to produce, made completely by hand, and costs
about 150,000 yen--but can rise in price into the stratosphere.
Cheaper, cotton yukata are available, too, which start
at around 6000 yen . Just the thing for a summer festival.
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Clockwise from top:
Celebrating the Naze Summer Festival with breathtaking
pyrotechnics over the harbour; everyone is out to watch
the festival's parade; cooling down at the beach on
a baking hot day; dancers celebrate the diamond-backed
habu with a snake dance.
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The real
reason I've come to Amami Oshima is to dance at Naze's
summer festival. The festival opens with dragon-boat races,
using traditional, brightly-painted, seven-man, fishing
crafts. The heat is baking, the boats have all the forward
motion of a brick, and the paddlers work hard to travel
the one kilometre. That night fireworks explode over the
harbour, stalls sell snacks and toys, a band plays, and
the whole town becomes one big picnic ground. Everyone
gasps as the explosions colour the sky and rattle the
windows.
Next day, a parade prances through the streets. I've
arranged to join the staff of Amami Shinyou Kumiai, a
local trust bank, in the parade. We dance in wraparound
cotton kimonos and split-toed shoes. My face is heavily
whitened with sun block;I look so strange that one of
the female tellers adds a little lipstick, completing
my shift to transvestism. Just ahead of us is a drumming
group, hammering away like mad. The bank's staff dance
in unison, more or less, and the parade does a circuit
of the streets. Loudspeakers blast recorded music, an
announcer gives a running commentary, and there are frequent
breaks for beer.
At the end of the parade, people are relaxed, and absolutely
everybody in town seems to go crazy and dance about. I'm
the only 6-foot, half-drunk, sunburned, garishly made-up
foreigner in boxer shorts with two left feet jumping around
on the main street, but mobody minds-oh no. We're probably
all like that. |
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Ian
Richards
Dr. Ian Richards
was born in New Zealand. He is a fiction writer and critic.
His published books include "Everyday Life in Paradise"
[short stories] and "To Bed at Noon: The Life and Art
of Maurice Duggan" [biography]. In 1986, he married a
woman from Amami Oshima, and since then he has visited
the Amami Islands almost every year. He often takes part
in the Amami Festival, one of the biggest annual events
in Amami Oshima. He says that Amami Oshima is his second
home, and he loves everything about Amami Islands, including
the people, the Islands' natural beauty, the weather,
the food, the Kokuto Shochu drink and the festivals. Currently,
he is an Assistant Professor of English in the Literature
Faculty of Osaka City University, Japan. |
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Weaving the living
symbol of the Amami Islands
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| 三代目 |
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The 3rd generation Nizaemon
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