The Okinawans

Okinawan Shi Shi Dog/Lion

 

 

 

This is a book of memoirs, of my life and times living on the island of Okinawa Japan.  It was a special time, because my introduction to the island came after my return as a young Marine Corps Corporal, from the Vietnam War.  I was nineteen when the war had ended for me, after many months of hard combat duty, and being wounded for the second time.

 

What the Island did for me, was ease me out of a mindset of horror and war, and brought me some measure of peace.  What the people did for me was teach me about life and death, in the natural order of living.  I would live on the Island for a total of thirteen years, both military, and as a civilian.  I would learn the customs and language of a foreign people, marry a wonderful wife, and father beautiful children.  I would also be adopted into a wonderful Okinawan family, whom to this day I love and miss very much.

 

The Ryukyuans as they were also called were not just mere people on a foreign shore.  Their culture, customs and way of life, led me to always call them, “The Okinawans."  Now in past remembrances and thoughts, I lay out my journey in that time. 

 

RyuKyu Horizon

Okinawan Coastline 

     

Waves; I hear the whisper of the water as it caresses the shoreline and brings me into deep thought.

 

I sit alone at the seawall and observe a new day’s Sun peek through the purple, blue, and gray clouds, as it slowly breaks into dawn.

 

This is not any horizon.  It is the RyuKyu horizon that embraces the East China Sea, where the sky places a soft kiss on the ocean’s edge.

 

Across the vastness I know lies home, now being mostly in my dreams, lost in time, and far away.

 

The wind rushes through in an instant, and I hear the voices of the ancient ones, whose cries speak in spirit, but they are now the forgotten.

 

Yet, I sense their presence, their life essence, the scent of lives once lived.  It permeates here in story and legend.

 

It was a life lived strong in tradition, verse, song, and dance.  It was a life never questioned, nor looking to other shores, as I do now.

 

For I have lived a life of progress, fanfare, and modernization.  My being reaches out to it, the familiarization.

 

And yet, for now I am at peace, and dream of home and loved ones, across the Ryukyu Horizon.    

 

The East China Sea

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Roger A. Sanchez Sr.
Bildmaterialien: Cover: Roger A. Sanchez Sr.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 18.02.2013
ISBN: 978-3-7368-1991-7

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Widmung:
For Okuhama San