>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> Welcome this afternoon
to the Mumford Room here
at the Library of Congress.
My name is Rob Casper.
I'm the head of the Poetry and
Literature Center here and I would
like to welcome you today
for our inaugural event
with the literary magazine MANOA
focusing on Okinawan literature.
Thirteen years ago at the Associated
Writing Programs Conference
in Palm Springs I shared a book
fair table with Pat Matsueda.
I was in there as a publisher
of a literary magazine
so new I only had business
cards to pass out.
While she covered her side
of the table with copies
of MANOA a Pacific Journal
of international writing.
They were all beautiful
and filled with great work.
They represented what I could
only have dreamed of achieving.
As managing editor of the
magazine Pat was full of advice
and kind words and we formed a
friendship in those few days.
Little did I know that 13 years
later at the same conference,
this time in Seattle, I would come
upon the MANOA Book Fair table
and in catching up with Pat we would
by happenstance lay the
groundwork for our program today.
I'm thrilled and delighted
to resume partnering
with the magazine albeit
representing a different kind
of institution and to champion
their work to bring the literature
of Asia, the Pacific
and the Americas
to English speaking readers.
To find out more about
MANOA you can visit their
website www.hawaii.edu/mjournal.
I would also like to
take the opportunity
to thank the Japan Information
and Culture Center part
of the public affairs section of the
Embassy of Japan here in Washington,
D.C. The JICC's goal is to promote
better understanding of Japan
and Japanese culture by providing
a wide range of information
and events to the American public.
To that end they have launched
a month-long Okinawa Culture
and Spirit Project celebrating
the history and the culture
of the island and the
feature of today's event
as part of the festivities.
I would especially like to thank
JICC Deputy Director [foreign name]
who is here today, if you
wouldn't mind standing.
Thanks for being here.
[Applause] I would also like to
point you all to the JIC's website,
JICC's website
www.us.emb-Japan.go.jp/jicc.
It's a mouthful but if you type in
JICC you should be able to find it
and you should certainly check
out the events they've had thus
far this month to celebrate Okinawa
and the exhibit they have that
is actually closing tomorrow
so if you have some time on
Friday to leave your work
as you have today please, take
advantage of that opportunity.
I'm also proud to say that
this is not the only Library
of Congress event focusing
on Okinawa this month.
On Wednesday, September 24th
at noon Okinawan Ascension
of Washington will perform
Okinawan folk songs right here
in the Mumford Room and for
those of you who are interested
in Asian-American literature
I hope you will join us
on Thursday October 30th
at 4 o'clock again here
in the Mumford Room
for the second event
in our Asian-American Literature
Today series featuring fiction
writer and MacArthur
Genius Fellow Yiyun Li.
I'm happy to say that many of
the staff who are responsible
for that series in
the Asian Division
and throughout the
library are here today
as is series co-founder
Lawrence-Minh Davis,
founding director and
current co-editor and chief
of the Asian American
Literary Review.
Lawrence if you could also stand.
[Applause] Before we begin let me
ask you to turn off your cellphones
and any electronic devices that
you have that might interfere
with the recording of this event.
I'm doing the same thing.
Second, please note that
this program is being audio
and video recorded and
by participating in the Q
and A section you give the
Library of Congress permission
for future use of the recordings
and let me tell you a little bit
about the Poetry and
Literature Center.
We are home to the Poet Laureate
Consultant in Poetry and we put
on literary readings,
lectures and panels
of all sorts throughout the year.
If you would like to find out more
about events like this please pick
up our listing outside or
sign our sign-up sheet.
You can also check out our
website at www.loc.gov/poetry.
Finally, let me tell
you about today's event.
We have MANOA editor Frank
Stewart who will be joined
by Katsunori Yamazato who is guest
editor for the summer 2011 issue
of the magazine which was
"Living Spirit: Literature
and Resurgence in Okinawa."
We're thrilled to have copies of
the issue for sale in the back
so if you haven't already
gotten one and are excited
about what you hear today
please do pick one up.
"Living Spirit" is a
collection of compelling prose
and poetry representative
of the Okinawan Renaissance
that began in the 1960s.
Our two guests from the
magazine will read from the issue
for around 25 minutes and
then will be joined on stage
by acclaimed American
poet Brenda Shaughnessy
who will then lead the
moderating discussion afterwards
and we'll have some time in
the end for your questions.
The only thing that we ask is that
you wait for us to give you a mic
when you ask your question
so that we can make sure it's
recorded in the webcast as well.
So without further ado please join
me in welcoming Brenda Shaughnessy,
Frank Stewart, and
Katsunori Yamazato.
[Applause]
>> Katsunori Yamazato:
Good afternoon.
Welcome to our reading.
I'm very pleased here today.
This is a historical
moment because I think,
I believe this is the first time
that Okinawan literature is
being introduced and being read
and discussed in the
Library of Congress.
I feel very honored.
Thank you for inviting us.
Every Okinawan all over the
world begins celebrations
and auspicious events with a song.
So I'd like to begin this
happy occasion with this song.
It's called [foreign words].
"To what can I compare the
happiness I feel today?
T'is like a budding flower
jeweled by morning dew."
>> Frank Stewart: My
name is Frank Stewart.
I want to welcome you also
and thank Rob and the Library
of Congress for having us.
This was an important
issue for and volume for us
because this is the first
complete volume that is ranging
from the earliest poetry
and literature of Okinawa
up to the present time that has
ever been published and it comes
at an auspicious time because as
we say in our title this is a time
of resurgence for Okinawan
literature.
There's actually been
two resurgences.
One during the 18th century and
this one which began in the 1960s
so we're very happy to
bring this volume together.
>> Katsunori Yamazato: It was
really Frank Stewart's idea
to edit this book and
I'm very grateful to him
that we can introduce
Okinawan literature
to English speaking readers and
I think this is the thickest
and with most variety of genre and
I'm very happy about this selection
so I'd like to begin
with a tradition
in Okinawan culture that's
called the "Power of Women."
In Okinawan culture we
believe that women are endowed
with special spiritual power and
in the ancient times they had power
to protect their brothers, their
family members, male family members
who would sail far away to China
for example, so I'd like to begin
with a woman who is trying
to get that kind of power.
This is from Omoro, the oldest
anthology of poetry in Okinawa
or in the [foreign word] number 987.
"[Foreign language spoken] How
painful to think of the daughter
of the head of our village.
The daughter of a father
who awaits for her.
She's been in the hills
for three months.
She's been praying for power for
three months bitten by mosquitos.
Bitten by host flies."
>> Frank Stewart: This poem
that Katsunori just read depicts
a young woman who is going back
into the forest in order to
train herself and do rituals
with other women to become
a shaman and as he mentioned
that traditionally in Okinawa women
had special power and it's the women
who are skillful in all things
spiritual while the men just go do
useless things like fishing.
This volume we're very happy
because we were to be able
to collect a number of photographs
by a man named [foreign name]
who was given the privilege
of photographing Okinawan shaman
women performing these rituals
and doing the training deep in
the forest mainly of the islands
around Okinawa Island
and he was the only man
that was given this permission
so he spent a great deal
of his had life taking
these photographs.
They're quite stunning in here.
He died in 2000, the year 2000
at the age of 61 so looking
at this volume you'll see some very
special things including things
that have to do with the poem
that Katsunori just read.
This is another poem in the
same tradition Omoro 893
which is the song of that a woman
might sing as she looks over,
takes care of her fisherman
community members who are male
and it depicts an eagle
fish which is like the sun
and is also a shaman god.
As it crosses the sky
from east to west
and as it crosses the sky it
sends down protection to the men
and then it disappears over
the horizon in the west
down through a hole in the earth
that leads to an underworld place.
It goes like this.
"Eagle fish of the east, flying fish
leaping eastward [inaudible] female
god shaman's protecting us.
Let us be at peace protected.
Eagle fish of the son
birthing whole."
>> Brenda Shaughnessy:
This is a poem.
It's called [foreign word].
"A sign posted on the Una Pine
says rendezvous are forbidden.
Do they think a sign could
prevent us from loving?"
And you're going to
talk about [inaudible]?
After the second one?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: Yes.
[Foreign name] is a woman poet
was born in [inaudible] village
in the middle of the
island of Okinawa.
She's known to be free and
very open and candid, frank,
under the strict rules
of kingdom and behind
that the strict pressure from, the
heavy from the [foreign name] Clan
who actually controlled the
[foreign name] at that time.
But she could speak her mind as
in the poem Brenda just read.
She's going to read another poem.
>> Brenda Shaughnessy:
"Mount Una blocks the way
between your village and mine.
If I could only sweep it aside
to make the distance to
your village closer."
>> Katsunori Yamazato:
This is one of the very,
very famous [foreign word].
[Foreign word] is like
Tanka [assumed spelling] .
It is written in Ryukyuan language.
It has different syllabic
patterns from Tanka or Haiku.
Basically the basic syllabic
patterns are 8 and 6 different
from 5 and 7 as in Haiku and
Tanka so she was very famous
for writing this kind
of song and very free.
You can see how free she is even
under the political pressure
or whatever pressure she had
she could speak her mind.
>> Frank Stewart: Okay, this is
a continuation of those kinds
of of poems [foreign word] and
you'll notice that these are written
by ordinary women and
in a less formal way.
They are songs and many of them
are still written and remembered.
They are sometimes sassy as we saw
with [inaudible] and sometimes sad.
I want to read you two quick ones.
Again, they're very
short poems the first one
by a woman named [foreign
name] who was also one
of the famous writers
of [foreign word].
"No sign of you yet.
Are you late or not coming?
Still I wait throughout the night.
Even the moon's sad
face abandons me."
Emoticon. And this one
also a poem of longing.
"In long days, the long days
we work in separate gardens.
Meet me at night, please,
no matter how briefly."
The lovely thing about these poems
is on one level they are the longing
of a single woman, a single
person for someone else obstructed
by some obstacle, a mountain,
a sign that says no love here
and/or a day's work but we also see
that these lovely poems are
about something much larger
which is the separation
of communities.
They're remembered now as the
separation of oceans between people
in the diaspora and
things like that.
So these very simple
poems are resonant
with all kinds of other meanings.
This is one more.
It has a similar meaning.
It's about a bridge, [foreign word]
in this case it reflects
what's happening
in the Satuma [assumed spelling]
period when the Satuma Clan
from Japan takes control of Okinawa
and the people become very poor.
One of the ways they have
of supporting themselves
as you can imagine is the young
women are sent to pleasure quarters
and must leave their villages.
In this case the Japanese have built
a bridge between the small village
and the place where the women
are sent, in this case sold.
So a very short poem,
a very poignant.
"The bridge of Hija hurts me.
Someone heartless built it and
I must cross over and leave home
to work in that shameful district."
>> Katsunori Yamazato: [Foreign
names] are two famous women poets
in [foreign name] and as you can
tell [foreign name] was spontaneous,
free-spirited, outspoken and
[foreign name] very sensitive,
sold to pleasure quarters,
very meditative, sad,
very poignant as Frank pointed out.
I'm going to finish this
section with a beautiful poem
by a young woman I think,
who lives in the countryside.
"If you love me dear
one come quickly
to the flowering village [foreign
words] to ask for my hand."
It's kind of bold but very
free-spirited and spontaneous
and I like the second
and third paragraph line.
"Come quickly to the
flowering village [inaudible]
to ask for my hand."
So she's different
from [foreign name].
I like this poem very much.
>> Frank Stewart: This is a more
recent poem but again it talks
about the countryside and the
separation between the countryside
and the city and the losses
that occur when one has
to leave the city whether it's
crossing a heartless bridge
or having to leave an island or
community because it's so poor.
In this poem the grandmother
is described as losing her son
to the city and in the
theme that we were speaking
about of the women having
spiritual and protective powers
for the men this is a reversal
because the man leaves.
The son leaves and he's
going not only to the city
but he's going there to do
something that is untraditional.
He's going to participate
in political activities,
so all these things
are very different.
It's called an ancient
banyon [assumed spelling].
"Today through a breach in
the encircling reef the son
who departs dreaming
of joining a revolution
in a northern city someday
will return on a tide.
The son who renounced the
village that still believes
in the spirit world and the gods
in the same village the mother
never gives up waiting in rainy May
and June harvesting
sweet potato leaves.
She told him as a child
of the [foreign word]
mischievous tree spirits but not
of her own dreams folded in
the deep lines of her brow.
They will not be fulfilled
by a revolution even the one her
wayward son thinks is worth dying
for but the ancient mother has
pleaded for the son to call
or write from time to time.
She has no telephone in her house.
If a call comes to the village
store she rushes from home.
Whenever he would call
she saw the image
of her son beyond the black receiver
but calls are less frequent.
Her feet are weak.
This evening a shout comes from
a neighbor's, a call is for her.
On shaking legs she stumbles along
the stone path, head throbbing,
the banyons creaking louder, in the
wild a coming storm an ominous sign.
Out of breath she imagines
him on the other side
of the receiver, hears his voice.
Mother, this year like
last I cannot come home.
The dreams of the woman in the storm
blow away, her white hair undone."
>> Katsunori Yamazato: I think
she belongs to the old tradition
and tradition is declining.
The young people leaving
homes going to the cities
in northern Japanese
islands they never come back.
So I think this was
written in the '60s.
We'll see again that
we'll have a resurgence
of the same tradition again later.
Part two, next we'd like to read
from literature of the Battle
of Okinawa which took place in 1945.
The American invasion of Okinawa
took place in April and the war,
the fiercest run ground war in the
Pacific theater I think took place
in Okinawa and ended officially on
June 23rd and so Okinawan people
on June 23rd give prayers
to the dead
but at the same time it's a
very cruel day for the living
because of traumatic experience
or I should say despite the
traumatic experience there are many
people who cannot speak
out, who cannot still talk
about their experiences because
it was so atrocious or shocking
or traumatic, so June 23rd is
the cruelest day in Okinawa.
>> Frank Stewart: I'd like
to read two poems that are
about the Battle of Okinawa.
As you may recall as Katsunori
said, it was one of the,
it was the worst ground battle in
the war of the Pacific and that's
because it was one of
the last just before,
as the American's were considering
invading the mainland of Japan.
So the Japanese military used
Okinawa as a shield in a sense.
They put many, many forces there
and they dug deep underground
into caves, into wells, to places
heavily dug in and this was one
of the reasons it was such a
terrible war battle rather.
In these caves which still
can be seen in Okinawa,
many of the civilians fled
there and hid in the caves often
with Japanese military so when the
bombs came and when they landed
in the caves they also killed
many civilians but outside
of the caves was far worse.
It was a storm of steel raining
down from the battleships offshore.
This first poem is
called "The Well."
"Crossing the battlefield in a
single file a woman leads a child,
an old farmer in the lead
gray light before dawn,
the weedy grasses are
silvered by dew.
Empty tin buckets swing on the ends
of the pole the old man carries
across his shoulders
this quiet May morning.
Around them defeated soldiers squat
on the beach under the poor shade
of palms, under rock ledges there
rise a glaze, their canteens dangle
from their shoulder clips.
On a harsh gravel trail
toward a palm grove
in the lead gray mist before dawn
the three this quiet May morning
begin running in desperation
exposed to enemy gunfire
for the grove behind the open
field this quiet May morning.
At the grove's edge is a well
in the limestone and a cave
so dark sunlight reaches
it bent and broken.
Inside the cave the terrified people
huddled together, dipped their cups
in the well whispering
to one another
like the sounds of water dripping.
If a bomb kills everyone here
the water will continue seeping
into the well as if you had
never existed so drink up.
Slake your thirst and listen as
enough sweet water touches your lips
for you to survive another day.
Outside the grove a
legless soldier begs.
His phantom limbs extend
into the nothingness,
his pleading mouth a hole
of emptiness to be filled.
Oh, give him water.
Give him last water
and don't leave him
to die thirsty this
quiet May morning
where the dawn breaks soundlessly
as if silence were a shelter
against the rain of fire that
each day starts falling."
And this poem is called
[foreign word]
which is translated
something like riding horses.
Riding horses is a metaphor for one
of the strategies the
American forces had
for driving people military
people out of the caves
that they sealed themselves in.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned
sometimes civilians were also
in those caves.
"What kind of riding horses is this?
It's simple.
You bore a hole down through
the ceiling of the cave,
pour something flammable in
and toss a match or a grenade.
[Foreign word] is what American's
learned on the battlefield
of the Pacific War, perfected
it on Okinawa Island,
regarded it as permissible
during war,
above the caves American
soldiers, underground the ones
who will wear flaming
hoods of sorrow.
Needless to say there are infants
in the arms of mothers, old women,
old men amidst the Japanese
soldiers all wearing hoods
of sorrow cooked alive
inside the ovens.
Can you restore to bodies
of pregnant mothers whose bodies
were tombs inside a flaming tomb?
Foolish dreams to ride such
horses is to ride them forever."
>> Katsunori Yamazato: The war ended
as I said officially on June 23,
1945 and that was the beginning of
the American occupation of Okinawa
or the [foreign word]
these small [inaudible]
and the [foreign word] was
cut off from Japan and came
under American administration.
If we look back the first
contact between the United States
and Okinawa took place in 1853 by
Commodore Matthew Perry arrived
in Okinawa on his way to Edo.
He didn't go to Tokyo, Edo directly.
He stopped in Okinawa
and used Okinawa
as what you call it, an outpost.
He went to Edo to negotiate
to open Japan.
If he failed he came
back to Naha, Okinawa,
Naha Port so he stayed
in Okinawa for a while.
If you read his expedition you'll
see his description of Okinawa
and pictures of Okinawans drawn
by a man called [inaudible],
a painter that accompanied Perry.
And Perry, Commodore Perry
suggested, he wrote to the Minister
of the Navy of the United States
that the occupying the major ports
in the [foreign word] would
benefit American Naval ships
and commercial ships but
the Minister of Naval,
I'll make it short, said no.
So 1945 was for Perry a dream come
true because the occupation started
at that time, so for Okinawans the
Americans came first as liberators
but then after the occupation
started somehow people are not happy
because of the oppressive
occupation policies.
So that stimulated the
writing of literature.
>> Brenda Shaughnessy:
There's some prose in the book
that you were going to talk about
in terms of the Vietnam War.
>> Frank Stewart: America
as Katsunori was suggesting has
had a long, long relationship
with Okinawa one that sometimes
Americans don't realize.
It goes back to Commodore Perry but
it also goes through the occupation
of Okinawa by America after
the war up until 1972,
so we have a very long history,
Americans do with Okinawa
and Okinawa with America as well.
One of the tragic moments
in that relationship was
during the Vietnam War.
Okinawa was used as a rest
and recreation area so-called
for soldier in Vietnam.
It caused a great deal of
disruption on the island
as you can imagine a bunch of
soldiers trying to get away
from the war and among the things
that happened was again
the pleasure quarters.
This is a very powerful, powerful
story called "The Wild Boar
that George Killed" and in this
story I'll only read a very brief
thing at the end but the soldier
grows increasingly neurotic living
in this environment of violence
and other soldiers coming back
and it's a very terrible situation
but in it he becomes mad and he ends
up killing a farmer
mistaking it for a wild pig
and this is the very
end of the story.
"George's mind was
strangely clear now
or maybe I should drag the
body 50 or so yards from there
and leave it in a no trespass zone.
Do I really even have to think about
making up some story that will work?
Military court officers will
never do a thorough investigation
but I would like to tell John
and the lieutenant
what actually happened.
No matter how far George walked
he felt not the least bit tired.
He was now a considerable distance
from the grasses but something
like the buzzing of
those insects was rising
to peculiar levels in his ears."
>> Katsunori Yamazato: Let me
tell you a little story of sort.
I recommended two American
translators
who edited anthology [inaudible]
for this to translate this story
but for them this story
was too provocative.
They thought this would be too
offensive to American readers
or too radical but this is
based on a true story actually.
An American soldier, young
soldier shooting an Okinawan farmer
to death claiming that he
thought he was a wild boar.
Well anyway, so they
didn't translate it.
So we did.
It's a good story and
we got to translate it.
Thank you and we liked it very much
so this could be offensive to you
but this is a very powerful story
and if you're interested
please buy the book.
>> Frank Stewart: Finally the last
piece we'd like to just present
to you is again a very
contemporary story.
It's called "Paper
Airplane Flying from the Top
of the Empire State Building."
In this story there's
a young Okinawan woman
who meets a GI during the
Vietnam War but he's very kind
and they begin an affair and
with his help she becomes a very
successful business woman but in the
midst of their affair he disappears.
He leaves as many relationships
had began with soldiers,
so he disappears and
she never hears from him
and 40 years later she hears a
report from one of her friends
that this man named Mike has
been seen in New York City
and when he was seen he
looked like he was homeless.
So the woman now a grown
woman who has heard nothing
of him her name is Kana
[assume spelling] she goes
to New York City to look for him.
Why did she go?
It's not because she's
in love with him really.
It's again because she
cares for him as a woman.
She cares for this
man that she knows.
Her friends don't understand
why she goes.
She says, "What will
you do if you find him?
Why not just give him
$100 and go away?"
She says, "No, no I can't do that.
I have to take care of him."
So she goes and she goes around the
city and not to give the story away
but in the end she cannot find
him and so she does something
that she's wanted to do
forever and she had told Mike
about when they were living
together that's to go to the top
of the Empire State Building
and throw a paper airplane
to see what happens.
So in the end of the story
she does go to the top
of the Empire State Building and
this is just the end of the story.
"She had the urge to
fly the paper plane.
Indeed, flying a paper plane
when she was almost 60 years old
she felt slightly embarrassed
yet that had been her
longtime dream.
If not now, then when?
She could not imagine that she
would ever be standing here again.
Kana found a sheet
of paper in her purse
and folded it into an airplane.
Then she went outside
to the lookout deck.
About ten people were peering into
telescopes or taking photographs.
She walked behind the visitors
hiding the little plane
in her pocket, too
many people to try.
She gave up on the
east side and went
around to the west
facing the Hudson River.
She looked around to be sure
there was no one watching.
Kana threw the plane steeply upward.
It flew over the fence with ease
and immediately it was caught
in the cold, foggy wind.
In a flash the plane was
headed toward the East River.
Kana looked around again to see
if there had been any witnesses.
There was no one, only the
moist wind humming gently
to itself dampening her face.
From over the far Jersey shoreline
the clouds were sweeping in again."
>> Katsunori Yamazato: The
name of the protagonist,
Kana is not a contemporary
name for a woman.
It's an ancient name, maybe
19th century name so it suggests
that she has what we call the
power of woman protecting man.
She doesn't understand why
she has to go to New York.
It's an unconscious urge to save
her former lover and she says,
"I'm going to bring
him back to Okinawa."
So she wants to protect him.
So again, in this story
you see and I see,
we see that the female tradition,
power of the woman
continues to 20th century.
>> Brenda Shaughnessy: And that is
really just the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to the incredible
wealth of materials in this book.
I think that there's
scholarship, the editorial work,
the creational vision, the
creator visions in this anthology.
It really makes it a real treasure.
It's unlike anything
else in world literature
and it's now a part
of world literature.
Can I ask you to start off the Q
and A why should Americans
read Okinawan literature?
What's the interest there?
>> Katsunori Yamazato:
I'm an Americanist.
I study American literature and
American culture so from my point
of view correct me if I'm wrong,
one of the major themes that runs
through American history, American
literary history is the sense
of identity, a sense the Americans
are always looking for who they are,
an answer to who they are.
What is America?
What is an American?
There's a famous essay by
Crevecoeur in 18th century,
so if you read American
literature you see American
[inaudible] literature.
You see Americans depicted
from different angle.
There have been, Americans have been
looking at the world from this side
but in this literature, in this
book you see Americans depicted
from the other side.
You'll see new Americans
there in this book
and I would say Okinawan literature
was in part shaped by its contact
with American culture, with
Americans, with American occupation.
And also I would say that the
Japanese existence is also very
important to Okinawan
literature for there's a triangle
that shaped Okinawan literature.
>> Frank Stewart: If I
could just add one more note
to that Okinawan literature is now
recognized as of superb quality even
by the Japanese as well
as the rest of the world.
In 1960 the first Japanese
writer won the Akutagawa Prize
in [inaudible] which
is the highest award
for literature that Japanese give.
So in that sense this writer from
Okinawa joined the ranks of people
like [foreign name] and others
who are much more famous.
So in short, I think
Okinawan literature is
of extremely high quality and
that's another reason that Americans
and really the world
should read this literature.
>> Brenda Shaughnessy: So when the
Okinawan writer won this major award
it put the spotlight
on Okinawan literature
and that marked the second
resurgence you're saying
and so the renaissance of Okinawan
literature and yet we don't think
of Okinawan literature as a subset
of Japanese literature, correct?
We want to think of it as its own
tradition, its own trajectory.
Can you say more to that?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: That's one
of the reasons why we
edited to this book.
We wanted to claim that Okinawan
literature is not a sub-category
of Japanese literature.
One thing if you go to Okinawa,
if you read books or magazines
about Okinawa, Okinawans are very
conscious of their own language
which was formally regarded as
a dialect of Japanese language.
But now UNESCO designates
the Ryukyuan languages,
there are several languages
are independent languages.
They are not dialects and
they're endangered species
so I was committee chair for the
Professional Promotion of Culture,
Research and Education so the
big topic, the major topic
in our committee was language,
how to revive our own language
so Okinawan writers tried to
incorporate Ryukyuan words, phrases,
vocabulary and they tried to make
somehow and make it understandable
to Japanese audience, readers and
available in the larger market.
>> Brenda Shaughnessy: So how does
this sort of Okinawan movement
to self-define it's own
literature how does that echo
or mirror the Okinawan people's
desire to self-determine?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: You're
asking a political question?
>> Brenda Shaughnessy: Uh-huh.
>> Katsunori Yamazato: Okay.
Well I have to be honest.
Recently, the Okinawan politicians
regardless of their ideas,
ideologies united and they
call themselves all Okinawan.
They handed proposal to
the Prime Minister of Japan
about the national
policies on Okinawa.
As you know Okinawa
is such a small place,
75 percent of American military
installation is based on Okinawa
which Okinawans think is very unfair
so the Okinawans perhaps only
protection in the world I mean
in Japan to be able to handle, to
hand a proposal on national policies
to change it on Okinawa
so if you look
at the other protectionists I
don't think they will do that.
Maybe they'll complain about
administrative policies
but Okinawans are asking to change
national policies on Okinawa so in
that sense there's a new resurgence.
Okinawans are confident.
>> Brenda Shaughnessy:
Confident you said.
Are there any scholars or writers or
artists you can think of right now
in contemporaneous Okinawan
literature you really feel are sort
of bridging the history
with the future who are kind
of taking a traditional
form like the [foreign word]
and bringing it forward
into the future?
How are we going to get these
ancient traditional forms
that have been resurfaced
and resurged
into world literature ongoing?
Who's doing that work?
Who's pushing that forward?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: We didn't
read his work but if you look
at this book there's a fiction
writer called [foreign name].
He combines [inaudible] realism and
a village shaman story, shamanism,
so there's a combination of
the cutting edge technique
and the ancient tradition
in Okinawa.
So he's very interesting and at the
same time the Okinawan literature is
becoming more and more
post-colonial in a way
so it shares many similarities with
the literatures of other worlds,
other countries that became self
of their independent
recently, am I right?
>> Frank Stewart: Yes, I agree.
I agree. Okinawans have been
under the thumb of various powers
for a long, long time after being
an independent kingdom for hundreds
and hundreds of years and
we see it, the people now
as Katsunori says not just
demonstrating, not just complaining
but actually going to the central
government and asserting their sense
of independence in a sense and
their own desires for the future.
>> Brenda Shaughnessy: And this
is unprecedented you said, right?
This hadn't happened before
this Okinawa proposal?
That's never happened before
so that's an historic event.
So do we, this is maybe
a rhetorical question.
Do we think it's important
to continue
to bring traditional Okinawan arts
and forums to the rest of the world
in terms of translation
and are we sort of thinking
about who's translating, how
things are getting translated,
how to get new practitioners
out into the world?
I'm assuming that you at
your university are kind
of working on this project.
This is one, this book is
one excellent contribution
to that project.
What's next?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: Many
Okinawans thought that the language,
their culture, their
tradition were not really good.
That's how they were taught.
You can think of Ireland.
Many Okinawans think Ireland
share many things with Okinawa.
You can tell the parallel.
The great country strong
country next
to it the neighbor we have
the strong neighbor so.
>> Frank Stewart: Yeah,
if I could just add.
A good comparison is Ireland and
the way Irish literature was seen
by the British and only Ireland
was thought to be peopled
by I don't know potato farmers
and drunks, I don't know.
That's not my but I heard that.
It's similar with Okinawa.
It's seen as a small
place with backward people
and that's all changed now and I
think what comes next is continue
to read Okinawan writers
because after all this is a very
small volume, a very small selection
of a group of writers who have
really making beautiful literature
that can read worldwide and there
are many others in this volume
so next volume two maybe.
Okay.
>> Katsunori Yamazato: So that means
one phenomenon I would like to point
out is that many Okinawan fiction
writers and poets were using more
and more Ryukyuan language.
They incorporate Ryukyuan
into their fiction and poetry
and sometimes they write
poems entirely in Ryukyuan
which is unintelligible to
someone from outside of Okinawa.
I belong to the generation
who can speak fluent
Japanese, Ryukyuan, Okinawan.
I was having conversation
with my uncle and my friend,
my colleague from Tokyo said,
"I didn't understand a word."
Well, the Ryukyuan writers
incorporate their own language more
and more but then translation
will be not easy
in that sense so we
have to work hard.
>> Brenda Shaughnessy: Wonderful,
I'd like to open it
up to any questions.
>> Did the resurgence in
Okinawan literature and arts did
that coincide also with
the end of the occupation?
And can you talk about how the
cultural atmosphere changed
at the end of the occupation?
Can you talk about how the
cultural and artistic atmosphere
of Okinawa changed, if it changed
at the end of the occupation?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: I
experienced the occupation
and the occupation ended in
1972 I graduated from college
so in high school and college I
really experienced occupation,
the heaviness, the
harshness, the oppression
but at the same time I worked as a
paper boy inside the military base
and I had breakfast with
American school teachers
and I had many good friends so
the experience is complicated
but in general for many
people, I'm maybe an exception.
For many people the occupation
was not really happy experience
so what we call the resurgent
movement was actually
not nationalistic.
Some people say we're going back our
mother country but the from my point
of view it was another
civil rights movement
so in the '60s the United States
faced two civil movements, domestic
and foreign which is in Okinawa.
And after 1972 when
Okinawa was returned
to Japan the Okinawans became
freer and they felt free
and they felt more ready
to express themselves.
For example, in 1956 six students
were expelled from University
of Rutgers for writing critically
about the American occupation.
There was no freedom of artistic
expression so you can tell
that artists, writers, poets
felt freer to express themselves.
>> Hello, I want to ask about a
little more about Omoro, Omoro Soshi
and I'm a Japanese [inaudible]
however I don't know much
about the Japanese literature.
I have two questions about Omoro.
What is the importance of the
Omoro in Okinawa literature
and also there are thousands of
poems in Omoro and how much percent
of the writers are women, female?
The reason why I'm asking
is this summer my intern
and I actually found some microfilm
of Omoro, the copy of the original,
the manuscript and we got so
much interested and excited
because this copy was
stolen by American soldier,
brought to the U.S. and the State
department actually returned
to Japan to Okinawa so we have
that manuscript, copy of it.
>> Katsunori Yamazato: Well,
Omoro is the oldest anthology
of Okinawan literature and oldest
form of poetry is recorded in it
but at the same time many scholars
are still getting together regularly
maybe once a month to
decipher words in it.
Omoro has not been
completely understood.
There are so many words
that people don't understand
and we are lucky enough to have
this translation in this book
and these poems were those that
were deciphered or transcribed,
translated into modern language.
So I don't know how many,
what percent of poems
are written by women.
I'm sorry about that.
>> Okay [inaudible] Japanese women
were woman tongue versus a female
and the male tongue or writing
way how to write the poems
and the things but we cannot
figure it out in Omoro thousands
of the poems either who
wrote or female women wrote
or man wrote we cannot
figure it out.
Is that correct?
>> I come from the Caribbean
and a lot of what is going
on in Okinawan literature, I
come from a very small island,
St. Maarten which has had kind of an
also a kind of literary reawakening
over the last 20, 30 years as
people went out, went to Europe,
went to North America and
became educated and is built
on this whole oral tradition,
tremendous oral tradition
which you seem to have now in
Okinawa but the question I would
like to ask is obviously,
with the coming
with the clearly growing power
of China at this point in time
and the ongoing obviously
presence of the United States
in Okinawa is the coming power of
China creating kind of a reappraisal
of the position of America, A?
B, in what since does Okinawan
literature build off of other kinds
of literatures popular in New
Guinean, Taiwanese, the other kind
of smaller literatures
in the different places vis-à-vis
the dominant power be it Malaysia,
be it Singapore, be it China,
Taiwan how do you see that playing
out for-- how do you see
Okinawan literature taking place
in that context?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: That's
a very difficult question.
I can't answer the question
about Chinese influence
and American presence the
influence of American presence
on contemporary Okinawan literature.
You're talking about
what's happening now.
How it's impacting
Okinawan literature now.
Am I right?
>> Yes.
>> Katsunori Yamazato: I've seen
Tanka poets from Okinawa writing
about an Osprey, an
Osprey the new airplane.
They're talking about that but I
don't think Okinawan writers talked
about China coming to
those southern islands
so I don't know what
they're going to write about.
Am I answering your question?
[Inaudible audience comment]
>> Katsunori Yamazato: As you know
Okinawa was a tributary relationship
with China for four
centuries something like that,
four or five centuries so Okinawan
literature in the 18th century,
17th century, 15th century
were heavily influenced
by Chinese literatures and Okinawan
poets wrote in [foreign word]
but after the annexation of Okinawa
in 1879 Okinawan writers
started writing
in impeccable standard Japanese
and whenever they used
Okinawan vocabulary,
Okinawan word they put
translation in parentheses
so the first Okinawan literature
in modern era was heavily
influenced by Japanese literature.
And then after American occupation
as I said the American presence
influenced the Okinawan imagination
and shaped the kind of Okinawan
literature that you see now,
so again as I said in terms of
identity the triangle Okinawa,
Japan and U.S. are very
important and in terms
of literature too the triangle
is a very important element
in Okinawan literature.
>> Just is a really simple question.
You referred to some
of the poems as songs.
I wanted to ask if you could
explain a little bit more
about that the traditional
ones were sung
or was there-- can
you talk about that?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: The
first poem I read was written
in Okinawan syllabic patterns,
8, 8, 6 syllabic patterns.
This is different from
Japanese patterns 5,
7, 5, something like that.
Yeah that's Haiku and
Tanka and Baduka is 8,
8, 8, 6 so 8, 6 patterns.
Eight set of patterns and
six set patterns are dominant
in Okinawan poem or poetry
and well, let me say this.
The English language produced iambic
pentameter, right, as a basic meter
and the Japanese language
produced 5, 7 syllabic patterns
and in Okinawan Ryukyuan language
or languages produced 8, 6,
syllabic patterns, so in that sense
can we call the Ryukyuan language
independent language?
And they are often sung
according to [foreign word] so.
>> So they're accompanied by music?
>> Katsunori Yamazato: Yes.
>> Well I think on that note
we'll complete our wonderful trip
into Okinawan literature.
Thanks so much for our speakers
today Brenda Shaughnessy,
Frank Stewart and Katsunori
Yamazato.
Please go buy copies of "Living
Spirit" and come back to our event
on October 30th and if you're here
at noon on September 24th come
and hear Okinawan music played and
hear some poems accompany them.
Thanks so much.
[Applause]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.