Okinawa Travel Quotes

I was inspired by my travels as a westerner through a little understood area of Japan: Okinawa. One small island of the former Ryukyu Kingdom, it is currently host to 33 US military bases. I wanted to explore a possible future based on past and present colonial crimes there and the ecological catastrophe that threatens all tropical islands

One of the greatest soldiers in history, Napoleon Bonaparte, upon hearing that the Okinawans carried no weapons, could only reply in astonishment, "No weapons, you mean they have no cannons?" Two Englishmen, who had traveled with the fleet to China and then to Naha, the main city of Okinawa, told Napoleon about the Okinawans on a visit to St. Helena in 1816. Napoleon could not believe that the Okinawans truly did not bear arms, and asked if they used spears or bows, or possibly knives and swords. When informed that the Okinawans carried no weapons of any kind, Napoleon exclaimed, "You mean they really carry no weapons? I cannot understand a people not interested in war.

Reaching California, many of the Pacific-bound servicemen were caught in limbo, waiting for a ship, and that suited them fine. No one doubted that the route to Tokyo would be long and bloody, and they were in no hurry to travel it. The sweating malarial jungles of the South Pacific, the infinitesimal atolls of the central Pacific, all those obscure islands with their alien names—Efate, Espiritu Santo, Malaita, Guadalcanal, Emirau, Tarawa, Majuro, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Ulithi, Palau, Saipan, Morotai, Mindanao, Iwo Jima, Okinawa—they would see them soon enough. “Golden Gate in ’48, bread line in ’49.” That pessimistic slogan, which began circulating in 1942, revealed a great deal about the attitudes of the American servicemen who fought in the Pacific. They fully expected that the war would last twice as long as it eventually did, and they assumed, as a matter of course, that the long effort would exhaust and bankrupt the nation. But the words also indicated a gritty, persevering determination. The Japanese had fatally misjudged them. They were not cowed by the prospect of a long war and a destitute homecoming. They would go on fighting, killing, and dying, overcoming fear, fatigue, and sorrow, until they reached the beaches of the detested empire itself. There, in 1945, the irresistible force of the Yankee war machine would meet the immovable object of the “Yamato spirit,” until two mushroom clouds and an emperor’s decision brought the whole execrable business to an end.

Reaching California, many of the Pacific-bound servicemen were caught in limbo, waiting for a ship and that suited them fine. No one doubted that the route to Tokyo would be long and bloody, and they were in no hurry to travel it. The sweating malarial jungles of the South Pacific, the infinitesimal atolls of the Central Pacific, all those obscure islands with their alien names - Efate, Espiritu Santo, Malaita, Gaudalcanal, Emirau, Tarawa, Majuro, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Ulithi, Palau, Saipan, Morotai, Mindinao, Iwo Jima, Okinawa - they would see them soon enough.