End of the Year
Ryukyu Golden Kings, Bingata, and Christmas Party
Happy New Year! Believe it or not, I am now past the halfway point of my time in Japan. The month of December was very busy – between studying for my final exam, planning my winter break, reading my grandpa’s book, and writing my last post, I had a lot going on!
In early December, I went to a really great izakaya in Naha that my cousin Asato recommended. I loved their decor – I ordered an assortment of food, including a fish that was served on a stick and cooked on an open fire right next to me!
That week, I also went to dinner with Yoko; we stopped at the gyoza shop where her husband works, and then got omakase sushi.
Afterwards, we went to this really cool vinyl record bar. We got to pick a record for them to play – I chose “The Best of David Bowie.” They also had a record of The Carpenters in Japanese – my grandpa loved them. Although he was living in the U.S. by the 1970s, apparently The Carpenters were very popular in Japan too!
Japan has a notable vinyl record subculture, and there are lots of vinyl bars and record stores throughout the country.
The next day I went to a Ryukyu Golden Kings game with Asato and Kumi! The Golden Kings are the professional basketball team in Okinawa, and they have a beautiful stadium in Okinawa City.
The Ryukyu Golden Kings won the B.League Championships in Japan in 2023 have have won the national title a total of five times. Basketball is very popular in Okinawa, even more so than the rest of Japan, because to the American influence from the bases.
It was fun to see the game – I’ve actually never been to a professional basketball game before. Both teams had players from Japan and the United States; the B. league is 70% Japanese players and 20% American players; the other 10% come from other countries. It was a good game, but sadly the Golden Kings lost in the last moments!
I got fried chicken and a Tomato Sour cocktail at the game – I was especially curious about what the cocktail would taste like. It actually tasted exactly like a cherry tomato (but maybe too much so!)
The next day, I went to the Chinen Fish Market. The fish market is every third Sunday of the month; Chinen is a small village, so all of the fishing boats are small boats, which means that the fish has oftentimes been caught in the past 24 hours.
When we got there, there was a giant tuna hanging from the ceiling. There was a really cute little kid next to it – it was funny and gives a good sense of the scale of the fish!
Then they started carving the tuna for the auction. People bid on the head, tail, and other miscellaneous parts, before they started cutting it into sashimi. We got to try some right there, and we also bought some to take home. It was amazing to eat food that fresh, and to see how massive the tuna was!
A couple days later, I went to Yachimun no Sato pottery village with Makiko. I wanted to get some Christmas presents for my family – I got my mom a mug and my sister a mini Okinawan pottery set.
There is this really cool old climbing kiln (called a noborigama) in Yachimun where they still fire the pottery today. It’s also the village where Jiro Kinjo worked – he was a famous Okinawan potter who makes Tsuboya Ware, a classic kind of Okinawan pottery. He was declared a national treasure in 1985.
The whole village consists of about a dozen pottery shops. We stopped into an amazing pottery shop at the end of the road. They feed stray cats, so we were surrounded by cats! It was so cute – there were probably 20 or so.
I loved the interior of this shop – they had traditional Japanese New Year’s kites on the ceiling and so many pretty pottery pieces on the ground and on the shelves.
I bought this really cool sand-colored awamori decanter. I love the design – I’ve never seen anything like it.
For whatever reason, the decanters reminded me of the artwork of the Transcendentalist Art Group. The group was formed in New Mexico in the 1930s – I took a class in college called Art Meets Philosophy, and for my final I had to design a theoretical art exhibition. Mine showcased the works of Agnes Pelton, Hilma Af Klint, Vasily Kandisnky, Florence Miller Pierce, and Howard Towner Pierce in the context of transcendentalism.
The decanters seemed like the type of thing that one of the New Mexico consortium artists would have had in their desert abode; they also reminded me of Georgia O’Keefe’s New Mexico home, and Harry Gesner’s The Sandcastle house in Malibu.
I felt like I could envision the decanter sitting on the shelf in either of these homes, next to an Agnes Pelton painting on the wall.
In December, I was also able to partake in a bingata workshop organized by my school. Bingata is the traditional Okinawan fabric-dying technique. It derives from a combination of Indonesian, Indian, and Chinese traditions, yet another aspect of Okinawan culture that reflects the Ryukyu Kingdom’s wide-reaching trading network.
We started out by putting a stencil of the design onto silk; then, we spread blue glue made of rice paste. When we peeled off the stencil, the pattern was revealed, creating the space for the colored dye to be applied.
Then the silk is stretched on a frame of bamboo – we had to be careful of the needles on the ends!
Once the glue dried, we started the dying process. We were given 7 colors of dyes – vermillion, green, light blue, dark blue, purple, pink, and grey. We started by adding the main colors for each section.
The next step was to add the accent colors. We had to hold our brushes in this particular way, and then used the big brush to apply the dye, and the small, stubby brush to attain a smoky, blurred effect.
It was really fun and very relaxing to do the dying process, and we spent the afternoon chatting with our classmates. One of the people in my class, Leo, is from Norway. He’s my age, and he wants to become a historian specializing in Japanese History. He’s studying Japanese now to eventually get a History PhD in Japan.
While we were working on our dying, he asked so many insightful questions – like what was used for dye before chemical dyes became popular, what social class of people would have worn bingata, and what the different colors represented. The answers were that mineral dyes were used, that bingata was reserved for royalty and upper class Ryukyuans, and that yellow was the highest ranking color that signified one’s status. I was impressed by his curiosity – he asked so many questions that didn’t even occur to me.
As we were dying the fabric, our teacher explained that the main plant in the pattern is a popular Okinawan plant called a cycad palm tree. Leo said that he had heard that during the 1920s, Okinawans were so impoverished that they were forced to eat the plant – and that many people died as a result, as the plant can be poisonous if not prepared properly.
Our bingata teacher was impressed that Leo knew about that. After the annexation of Okinawa in 1879, the economy in Okinawa suffered a lot, and this was further exacerbated by the Great Depression of the 1930s. As a result, hundreds of Okinawans immigrated to places like Hawaii and Brazil in the early 1900s, which still have large Uchinanchu communities today. It was really interesting to hear how the history of a traditional craft like bingata can also be linked to the social, political, and economic history of Okinawa.
After we dyed the bingata how we wanted, we washed off the glue in a bath of cold water. Leo asked how they would have done this before hoses – our teacher said that traditionally it was done in rivers, but that that has been stopped due to environmental reasons.
As a part of the bingata workshop, one of our teachers prepared a traditional Japanese tea ceremony for us. She told us that in feudal Japan, samurai often conducted tea ceremonies before going into battle.
Leo asked if tea ceremonies were popular in the Ryukyu Kingdom, or if it was just a Japanese tradition. Our teacher said that it was not common in Ryukyu, but that a Japanese tea set has been excavated in Shuri Castle.
Leo then told us that he had read that during World War II, when the Americans first captured Shuri, the first flag flown over Shuri was not an American flag, but a Confederate flag. The Charleston News & Courier reported on this in 1945. Our bingata teachers asked us what the Confederate flag is, and Kara, who was also in our class, explained to our teacher that the Confederate flag is a symbol of slavery and white supremacy in America; and that regardless, it is a battle flag, and thus should never be flown over a building anyways. She got a degree in History at Ole Miss, specializing in the American South (which she described as essentially a degree in studying systems of white supremacy).
I was really shocked to hear this fact – learning about the history of Okinawa and how it intertwines with American history has been very illuminating, albeit sobering at times.
After the tea ceremony, we were able to take home our finished products. Our teachers said mine was really unusual because typically vermillion isn’t used that much, and usually all the larger elements are different colors – but they said it was inspiring to see how someone without knowledge of the unspoken rules of bingata would approach the design. I really enjoyed being able to make bingata of my own, while also learning so much from my classmates and teachers!
That week I also participated in a Ryukyu Buyo dance class. Ryukyu Buyo is the traditional dance of the Ryukyu Kingdom, and performers wear ryusou (Okinawan formal wear) with bingata designs during official performances. The dance style was developed in the 14th and 15th centuries and was performed to greet emissaries from China. Traditionally, only young men from noble families would have performed the dance, but today it is open to everyone.
It was fun to try it, but it was also a bit difficult to follow along, especially when it came to using the fans. Ryukyu Buyo also incorporates elements of kachashi, an Okinawan dance that consists of waving your hands in the air. Below is a video of us doing one of the dances:
It was really fun to take a dance class, which I haven’t done in a while. I really appreciate how many activities our school has available for us to participate in – the bingata workshop, Onoyama matsuri, Uchinaanchu Conference, Ryukyu Buyo class were all organized by my school.
That week I also had my final exam in my Japanese class. It was two days long – the first day was a grammar and vocabulary test, and the second day was a conversation and writing test. I was stressed about it because it was a cumulative test of the entire first half of my Japanese study, but it ended up not being too bad!
That weekend, I went to a White Elephant Christmas party with Kumi and Asato at Kumi’s friend’s apartment. Her friend is an American in the military, and the group was a good mix of Americans and Okinawans. He made an amazing dinner of steak, pasta, sushi, a cheese board, brownies, and Christmas cookies. It was so good!
After eating our food, we did our White Elephant exchange; some of the gifts that people brought were Ryukyu Glass cups, Meiji-era pottery, an Arnold Schwarzenegger flag, and a neon alien sign. I brought awamori as my present, and I got a towel with an Okinawan design on it.
Pretty much everyone there was a couple – two of the American guys were there with their Okinawan girlfriends, as well as a married couple who met at the Naval Academy, and a few other military couples. It was cool to meet a bunch of new people, as well as go to a festive holiday party.
Since then, I’ve had a really great winter break, which I will write about next time! :)
Love,
Alexandra ❤️
Wow!
Such wonderfully vivid descriptions of your life journeying....!!!! Thank you.
Your bingata, the Ryukyu-byo, the tacos.... and the fish market!!! And your journeys with Makiko. ❤️
Onward, Alexandra! I don't know if I have ever known of anyone on an overseas adventure ... long or short ... who has capitalized so richly from the academic and recreational opportunities on-offer. Your account reads as though Okinawan days are 48 hours long, into which you are packing every second with new experiences. Bravo!