Reading Okinawa

JAPANESE TEXT:
Sakiyama, Tami. “Suijō ōkan” [Round-trip over the Ocean]. Kurikaeshigaeshi [Over and Over]. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1994. 142-78.


ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
Sakiyama, Tami. “Round-trip over the Ocean.” Trans. Sminkey Takuma. Living Spirit: Literature and Resurgence in Okinawa. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011. 1-20.

KOHAMA / IRIOMOTE SLIDESHOW (“KOHAMA BUSHI”):

My dear friend, Yoko, made this beautiful slide show of our trip to Kohama Island and Iriomote Island in 2010. All of the photos were taken by her. The background music is by Jake Shimabukuro:

Click Here: KOHAMA / IRIOMOTE SLIDESHOW



1. Introduction

Sakiyama Tami’s “Suijō ōkan” [Round-trip on the Ocean] was first published in the literary magazine Bungakukai in 1989, and later republished in Kurukaeshigaeshi (1994), a collection of Sakiyama’s works that also includes “Shimagomoru” [Island Confinement] and the novella, “Kurikaeshigaeshi.” In 1989, the story won the 19th Kyushu Arts Festival Literary Prize and was nominated for the 101st Akutagawa Prize. The story also brought Sakiyama recognition as an important writer. “Suijō ōkan” examines how three different generations interact with the island: (1) Akiko’s grandmother, who was born on the island and wants to remain there even after death, (2) Akiko’s father, Kinzō, who has abandoned the island and desires to sever all ties, and (3) Akiko, who was forced to leave the island and now feels disconnected and lost. Although these characters have different attitudes towards the island, all three of them feel inseparably bound to it.

A waterfall on Iriomote Island. Photo by Kasumi Sminkey.

2. Character List

Akiko 明子

Akiko, the protagonist of the story, is Kinzō’s daughter and Makato’s granddaughter. She is in her late twenties and single. She has had difficulty communicating with others and feels out of place in her current environment. Two and a half years ago, she quit her job as a temporary worker at the post office.

Kinzō 金蔵

Kinzō is Akiko’s aging father and Makato’s only living child. He used to live on O. Island, but many years ago, he decided to move the family off the island. Ever since the first anniversary of Makato’s death, he has suffered from collagen disease. He recently announced that he would move Makato’s Buddhist memorial tablet to where the family lives on the mainland.

Makato マカト

Makoto is Akiko’s grandmother and Kinzō’s mother. Long ago, she reluctantly moved off O. Island with the family; however, she moved back less than a month later. On her deathbed, she told her friend Nakamori Hatsu that she never wanted to leave the island. She died alone at sixty-six years old from an untreated cold.

Old Man Kāre カーレ爺

Old Man Kāre worked in the coal mines when he young. After that, he worked as the steersman of the ferry that carried villagers across the U. River on O Island. Now he lives on T. Island. Kinzō asked him to ferry them to O. Island.

Nakamori Hatsu 中森ハツ

Nakamori Hatsu, who is over seventy years old, is Makato’s friend. Hatsu is close to the family and has been taking care of Makato’s memorial tablet and the family shrine. She heard Makato’s last words, and has been holding memorial services for the past seventeen years.

Matsuo 松尾

Matsuo, who was Old Man Kāre’s fellow worker at the coal mines, hanged himself shortly after his oldest child left the island.


3. Plot Summary

“Suijō ōkan” opens with a small fishing boat crossing the ocean from T. Island to O. Island in the late afternoon. The passengers are a young woman named Akiko, who is the protagonist of the story, and her father Kinzō, who suffers from collagen disease. The helmsman is Old Man Kāre, who was hired by Kinzō after he and his daughter arrived on an airline flight from the mainland. Kinzō organized the trip in order to “retrieve his mother’s mortuary tablet, which had been left behind without any grieving family for seventeen years, from the abandoned house left in a stranger’s care” (143). Kinzō arranged for an around-the-clock trip to avoid meeting any islanders. The tablet had not been removed earlier because of the grandmother’s dying wish that she never be removed from the island. Akiko, who had been “whiling her time away in idleness,” reluctantly agreed to accompany her father, primarily because she suspects that “the object of her father’s secret obsession also somehow concerned Akiko herself” (145). During the trip, Akiko recalls her childhood years in the newer village, and how Old Man Kāre ferried her friends and her across the U. River to see the festival in the old village on the opposite side.

Near Nishino Beach on Iriomote. Photo by Kasumi Sminkey.

When the boat arrives at Nishino Beach, Kinzō asks Old Man Kāre to go ashore to make sure that no islanders are in the area. While Akiko is waiting in the dark with her taciturn father, she recalls the family’s departure from the island twenty years ago, her grandmother’s return to the island a month later and unexpected death two years later, and the family’s awkward attendance at the funeral seventeen years ago. As instructed by her mother, Akiko urges her father to meet Nakamori Hatsu, the old woman who has been conducting the annual memorial services. However, Kinzō stubbornly refuses, insisting that he does not want to meet anyone from the island. Shortly after this exchange, Kinzō experiences a seizure and Akiko struggles to help him, at which point Old Man Kāre returns.

A traditional house on Iriomote. Photo by Kasumi Sminkey.

The group goes ashore and walks to the abandoned house, where Hatsu is waiting for them. Old Man Kāre persuades Kinzō to allow Hatsu to perform a ceremony for the departure of Makato’s spirit from the island. The group kneels at the altar, and Hatsu begins chanting “as if communicating with Akiko’s grandmother’s mortuary tablet” (160) and tells Kinzō that his mother forgives him. Akiko hears some sounds that seem to be calling to her from the distance, so she goes outside and follows a path to a clearing in the woods, where she has a vision of her grandmother, peeling bark from yama-basho banana fiber trees, with Akiko as a young child at her side.

After Akiko returns to the house, Hatsu takes down the mortuary tablet and solemnly wraps it in a furoshiki cloth. Kinzō tries to leave, but Old Man Kāre and Hatsu cajole him into staying. Kinzō agrees to spend the night at the house, on the condition that they leave before dawn. Hatsu heads home, and Old Man Kāre returns to the boat. After Kinzō falls asleep, Akiko sneaks out of the house and goes to the boat.

Old Man Kāre suggests that they circle around three capes to the U. River, and Akiko agrees. As they move along the coastline, Akiko gazes at the dark island and reflects on the past. When they pass S. Village, Old Man Kāre tells the story of Matsuo, a young man who worked in the coal mines and who committed suicide after his eldest child left the island. Caught up in the story, Akiko gazes at the ocean and pictures “Kinzō’s contorted face tossing amongst the waves” (170). Just then, the boat knocks into a coral reef, and Akiko notices how quickly the tide recedes. As she continues gazing at the island, she realizes that the shape of the island is “the inverse of what she had recalled in town” (172). As the boat passes over the border between the shallows and the deep, she leans out of the boat and tries to discern the “fissure in the water created by the coral reef” (173). However, Old Man Kāre warns her to be careful.

Heading up the Urauchi River on Iriomote. Photo by Kasumi Sminkey.

The boat rounds the third cape and heads up the U. River. As they move further inland, Akiko suddenly realizes that she needs to “get at the truth of Kinzō’s obsession” (174). The boat stops moving, and Old Man Kāre explains that the nearby forest is where Matsuo hanged himself. He goes on to explain that he was the one that brought Matsuo here and also the one who discovered the body. When Old Man Kāre finishes speaking, Akiko has the feeling that “the key to the idea with which she had just been struggling could be found in his words” (175). Recognizing that much time has passed, they return back down the river and hurry to pick up Kinzō. When they reach Nishino Beach, Akiko runs to the house to get Kinzō, who is waiting for them. They return to the boat and head out to sea. Kinzō seems at peace as he holds the mortuary tablet on his lap. Just as they are crossing the border between the deep sea and the coral reef, Akiko stands up and sees “the endless abyss of water surrounding the island rising up like a black wall stretching to the bowels of the earth” (177). The next moment, she impulsively grabs the mortuary tablet from Kinzō and throws it towards the abyss. After the tablet vanishes, she turns to Kinzō, and in a voice that seems compelled by a will not her own, says, “This is how Grandma feels. More than any memorial service, this is what she wanted” (178).


4. Setting

The story takes place on the ocean and on an unnamed small remote island, called O. Island. From the descriptions of the island’s geography and history, readers can surmise that O. Island probably refers to Iriomote Island, ninety percent of which is covered with trees. U. river probably refers to the Urauchi River, which runs down the middle of Iriomote. Another hint is Nishino Beach, where the boat lands in the story. The story’s descriptions of the coalmines and malaria also match the facts of Iriomote’s history. A coal mine was opened on Iriomote in 1886. T. Island probably refers to Ishigaki Island, which is within ferry distance of Iriomote.

Site of the abandoned coal mine on Iriomote. Photo by Kasumi Sminkey.

5. Background Cultural Information: Eldest Son, Mortuary Tablet, Yuta

As the summary above makes clear, the central story of “Suijō ōkan” revolves around Kinzō’s attempt to retrieve his mother’s mortuary tablet from his family’s abandoned house. In order to understand the story, readers must be aware of the role of eldest sons and the significance of mortuary tablets in Okinawan society. Readers must also be aware of the role of yuta, or shaman, as intermediaries. As these concepts are foreign to most Western readers, these barriers to understanding must be overcome. In this section, I will briefly explain these three concepts.

Eldest Son
First, readers should note that traditional Okinawan society privileges the eldest son, who bears the responsibility of preserving the family altar and carrying on the family name. In Sekai no naka no Okinawa bunka [Okinawan Culture in the World], Watanabe Yoshio points out that traditional Okinawan society makes strong distinctions between the eldest son and other siblings. As the future leader of the family, an eldest son receives preferential treatment it terms of patriarchal rights, head of the household rights, succession to property rights, and rights for conducting religious ceremonies for ancestor worship (126-8). In “Suijō ōkan,” Kinzō fails to fulfill his duties as the eldest son by abandoning his mother on the island and later by failing to look after her mortuary tablet and the family altar.

Mortuary Tablet
Second, readers should not underestimate the importance of the mortuary tablet that Kinzō tries to retrieve. Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary defines “ihai” (translated as “memorial tablet,” “mortuary tablet,” or “spirit tablet”) as “a tablet on which the posthumous Buddhist name of the deceased is inscribed and which is kept in the Buddhist altar in the home.” Watanabe explains that mortuary tablets are representations of the spirit of ancestors, and that they are the objects of ancestral worship. He lists four rules that are observed in Okinawa for the enshrinement of mortuary tablets: (1) tablets from different families should not be enshrined together, (2) tablets for women should not be enshrined in the altar of the house in which they were born, (3) tablets for brothers should not be enshrined together, and (4) tablets for eldest sons should be enshrined in the altar of the house in which they were born. There are also complex rules for the arrangement of tablets within the family altar. Failing to follow these rules is believed to impact negatively on the fortunes of the family (29-34). In “Suijō ōkan,” the family already seems to have been cursed as a result of Kinzō’s failure to look after his mother: Kinzō has fallen ill with an unusual disease, and Akiko seems incapable of interacting with other people.

Yuta
Third, readers should be aware of the important role that yuta, or shaman, play in Okinawan society. The yuta are usually female and are believed to be spiritually enlightened persons. They often act as spiritual advisors, especially as pertains to ancestors. Kenny Ehman points out that yuta often guide families in fulfilling their spiritual duties towards their ancestors: “Usually an illness or an accident in the family can be attributed to some past incident involving a former ancestor, or someone in the current family not realizing their spiritual duties.” On the other hand, there has been much criticism of yuta over the years for encouraging superstitious beliefs. As George Kerr points out, government attempts to limit or forbid various yuta activities date as far back as the eighteenth century (219). Shortly after the Meiji Restoration, attempts were made to completely suppress their activities (402). Despite these attempts, yuta continue to have popular appeal today and are often consulted as spiritual advisors. In “Suijō ōkan,” Akiko’s mother secretly contacts the yuta Hatsu in order to ask her to say prayers before the mortuary tablet is removed. Kinzō also clearly believes in Hatsu’s spiritual powers.


6. Point of View

The narration follows Akiko and seems to be reliable. Akiko’s thoughts and feelings are given, but other characters are only described from the outside. Okinawan language is not used in the narration, but some characters do speak in Okinawan language. The point of view remains consistent for the entire story.


7. Theme: The Blurry Borders of Identity

“Suijō ōkan” follows Akiko on her journey with her father as he attempts to sever the family’s ties to the island. Suspecting that her identity is inextricably tied to the island and to her grandmother, Akiko accompanies her father on his journey. Akiko struggles to overcome the many borders that separate her from the island. Not only does she confront various geographical and physical barriers, but also she confronts psychological barriers that prevent them from interacting with the island community. The island community of Akiko’s youth appears to be a shadow of its former self. Apart from Old Man Kāre’s mention of people in S. Village “struggling to get by” (168), there is little evidence of anyone existing on the island at all. Akiko’s memories of the island grow increasingly more threatening, and suggest an island racked by dissension and conflict. The turning point for Akiko comes at the end of the story when she comes to understand her father’s motives for retrieving the mortuary table, and his determination to commit suicide.

Kinzō is not merely trying to sever his ties to the island. He is also trying to preserve his ties to his mother by taking her mortuary tablet with him to his family’s home in town. The problem, of course, is that he is stuck in the dilemma of not being able to take his mother across the border of the island. Kinzō is not acting out of a spiteful desire to destroy his ties to the island or to contradict his mother’s dying wish. Rather, he desires to return her to the family home where she belongs. Similarly, Kinzō’s desire to sever his family from the island need not be interpreted in negative terms. Quite the contrary, he is attempting to improve the economic situation of his family, and escape an island that others desire to escape from, too.

Akiko’s action at the end of the story is an attempt to resolve Kinzō’s dilemma and to save his life. The impulsive nature of her act stems from the fact that she has grown increasingly suspicious that Kinzō intends to kill himself after settling the family’s affairs. Akiko tosses the mortuary tablet to the abyss, near the border that connects to the island deep below the surface, and affirms—or at the very least, accepts—the ties that bind her to the island, her father, and her grandmother. This is not to suggest that Akiko has found a meaningful purpose to her life, or that she will be able to identify with the island or become a part of the island community. On the surface levels, where the borders do indeed seem to sever her from the island, Akiko remains disconnected. However, the deep ties that lie far beneath the surface—which cannot be severed, understood, or seen—remain intact. Like the shadow of Old Man Kāre on the water, or any other of the many shadows that appear in the story, the borders of the island cannot be grasped nor can they be severed from the person to whom they are connected. In the future, Akiko will continue to wander on the blurry borders of the island in search of her identity.


8. Criticism of “Suijō ōkan”

In this section, I will examine two important analyses of “Suijō ōkan,” one written in Japanese and one in English. In “Hōi no tentō: Sakiyama Tami ‘Suijō ōkan’ ni okeru kioku no kūkan kōsei” [Reversal of Direction: Spatial Construction of Memory in Sakiyama Tami’s “Suijō ōkan”], Suzuki Tomoyuki provides the most extensive academic treatment of Sakiyama’s story to date. He argues that Akiko’s memory of the island reverses the shape of the island, so that it more closely resembles the actual Iriomote Island, but that discrepancies between O. Island and the real Iriomote Island put the reader in the same position as Akiko, uncertain about the island’s reality. Writing in English, Davinder Bhowmik discusses “Suijō ōkan” in “Darkness Visible in Sakiyama Tami’s Island Stories,” the final chapter of Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance, a groundbreaking comprehensive study of Okinawan literature. Although Bhowmik’s treatment is less extensive than Suzuki’s, she discusses the story in the context of Sakiyama’s other work and of Okinawa literature as a whole.

Suzuki’s paper provides helpful information about the actual islands to which Sakiyama’s story most likely refers. After a brief discussion of textuality and reader expectations about the accuracy of historical and geographical background, Suzuki points out that “Suijō ōkan” establishes a discourse in which characters confront a specific geographical location with a specific history, while at the same time denying the reader the possibility of a perfect correspondence to an actual island. Although Sakiyama’s story refers quizzically only to T. Island and O. Island, Suzuki argues that these most likely refer to Ishigaki Island and Iriomote Island, respectively. He lists the hints imbedded in the story that help him reach this conclusion: (1) the space between the islands can be traversed in one night (2) O. Island is “relatively large compared to the surrounding islands poking their heads up out of the ocean” and the island is “divided in two by the broad U. River” (“Suijō ōkan” 154-5), (3) Coal mining took place on O. Island many years ago, and (4) malaria decimated some of the villages on O. Island. Suzuki points out that these facts correspond perfectly with those of Ishigaki Island and Iriomote Island: (1) it takes about sixty minutes to cross from Ishigaki to Iriomote on the regular boat service, (2) Iriomote is much larger and mountainous than the surrounding islands made of coral, (3) Coal mining took place in Iriomote, beginning in the 1880’s, and the remains of the mines can been seen today, and (4) the island has been repeatedly ravaged by malaria (Suzuki 5-6).

Suzuki goes on to mention several other correspondences between the fictional O. Island and the actual Iriomote: (1) Nishino Beach in the story corresponds to Iriomote’s Nishizaki Beach, and one can surmise that Kinzō’s home is located in Uebara Village [Suzuki fails to mention that there is a Nishino Beach on the nearby Hateruma Island, a fact that might suggest that Sakiyama has created a composite based on more than one remote island.], (2) Akiko and Old Man Kāre’s trip to the U. River in which they pass three capes matches the geography of Iriomote. In addition, Akiko’s mention of “three villages interspersed along the coast between Nishino Beach and the U. River” corresponds to the Nakano, Sumiyoshi, and Urauchi Villages, and (3) the narrator’s description of an old village that “had avoided extinction in the past when the river halted the spread of infectious malaria” applies to Sonai, which is located to the west of the Urauchi River.

Suzuki notes, of course, that the spatial directions in Sakiyama’s descriptions are sometimes the opposite of the actual islands. For instance, in the opening sequence, T. Island is obviously located to the west of O. Island, which is the opposite of Ishigaki and Iriomote. Similarly, the U. River in the story is described as flowing to the northeast, while Iriomote’s Urauchi River flows to the northwest. Recognizing these discrepancies, Suzuki considers the rhetorical effect of the reversal and concludes that “readers are forced to directly confront the issue of deciding the location or direction of the actual island presented in the story” (15).

In the next two sections of his paper, Suzuki analyzes the plot and theme, which revolves around the return to the island and the complex relationship between Akiko, Kinzō, and the island. According to Suzuki, readers are confronted with two important questions: Why are Kinzō and Akiko engaged in the unusual action of trying to surreptitiously take the mortuary tablet off the island? And why does Akiko suddenly reverse her decision to participate in the plan by taking the tablet from Kinzō at the end of the story? To answer these questions, readers must piece together the complex history of the family; however, they are limited to Akiko’s point of view, so Kinzō’s motivations are difficult to determine, especially his decision to never return to the island. That decision has lead Kinzō to the dilemma of trying to retrieve the tablet without actually returning to the island (17-20).

Focusing on the second question, Suzuki considers some possible interpretations of Akiko’s final act of rebellion. One is that Makato’s desires have been passed down to her granddaughter and that Akiko’s action is symbolic of the latent resistance of women to the will of men such as Kinzō (21). A better interpretation, Suzuki feels, is to focus on the meaning of the act for Akiko, and to see the trip as a story about Akiko’s redemption. As the story progresses, Akiko recalls various events from her childhood: the festival with her friends, sitting with her grandmother as she peels bark off of yama-bashō banana fiber trees for weaving, and the struggles of the Matsuo family. Although the significance of these memories is unclear, the suggestion is that a crime or sin has been concealed. The turning point for Akiko comes just after she hears Old Man Kāre’s story about Matsuo’s suicide: “Suddenly, she pictured Kinzō’s contorted face tossing amongst the waves. In a panic, she hurried to erase the unexpected notion that had surged into her mind” (170). The question for the reader, of course, is what is this “unexpected notion” that Akiko must erase (Suzuki 21).

Suzuki intriguingly suggests that Kinzō might have been more directly involved in Matsuo’s death and that such involvement would explain Kinzō’s feelings of guilt and his strong desire to avoid contact with anyone from the island. Suzuki points out that even if Kinzō had not been directly involved in Matsuo’s death, he was a member of the group that had shunned members of Matsuo’s group. Regardless, Akiko’s memories do not paint a very happy picture of life on the island, and as she remembers more and more about the past, she begins to lose her sense of the island as an objective reality. This causes the reversal of direction that Suzuki describes earlier in his paper. Akiko also comes to the conclusion that she and Kinzō cannot cross the border that separates them from the island, and this implies that they will never be able to shake off their connection to the island or the spell of Makato’s last words. At the end of the story, Akiko sees through Kinzō’s desire to take on the past and punish himself. She throws the mortuary tablet into the ocean as a rejection of his mistaken desire to cut off his connection to the island (Suzuki 23-9).

After his analysis of the story, Suzuki turns his attention to Sakiyama’s motivations for writing. He begins by quoting one of her essays, in which she writes: “Even though I lived on [Iriomote Island] for fourteen years, I don’t live there anymore. As far as the island is concerned, I’m an outsider. I left not of my own volition but because of the unavoidable circumstances of my family, but I’ve always had an unexplainable sense of shame at having left” (Nantō Shōkei 106). Suzuki sees this sense of shame as a hint for explaining Sakiyama’s motivation to write. In other words, her shame drives a desire to return to the island to find redemption. Suzuki argues that the pattern appears in “Suijō ōkan” and can be summarized as follows: (1) leaving the island = original sin, (2) curse of that sin, (3) attempts to return to the island = attempts to be freed of the curse, and (4) failure of that attempt (29-31).

In the last sections of his paper, Suzuki quotes from Sakiyama’s essays in exploring some of the issues that motivate Sakiyama to write and that inform her fiction. In an interview, Sakiyama explains that she grew up in world with a low level of education and where people felt little connection to literature, and that for this reason writing was seen as a sort of crime. Suzuki points out that Sakiyama’s attempt to recreate the island of her youth is similar to Kinzō and Akiko’s desire to return to the island, an endeavor that faces many difficulties (32-3).

Referring to Walter J. Ong’s discussion of the difference between primarily oral cultures and print cultures in Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, Suzuki emphasizes the difficulty that Sakiyama faces in trying to capture a world of voice through written language. Since Sakiyama grew up surrounded by shima kotoba (“island language”), a language unmediated by writing and strongly connected to song, dance, chant, and prayer, she faces the challenge of trying to reproduce a world of voice and darkness in a language highly resistant to writing (33-8).

Suzuki points out that although a similar phenomenon can be found wherever writers attempt to use dialect, the political implications of language in Okinawa are much more complex. If we look at the history of how Japanese was adopted in Okinawa, we find that using Japanese has also implied a submission to authority, a situation quite different from the rest of Japan. Although Sakiyama appears less overtly political than many other Okinawan writers, she is keenly aware that writing in Japanese is a political act. Her linguistic experiment of inserting shima kotoba into Japanese, for example, implies a strong challenge to that political authority (Suzuki 42-4).

Sakiyama’s experience with linguistic diversity in Iriomote, with its mix of newcomers and natives all speaking different dialects, has made her keenly aware of the political implications of her work. In her essays, she recalls islanders laughing at one another’s intonation and struggling to understand one another. Suzuki points out that the polyphonic nature of shima kotoba makes it difficult to connect it to a unified identity. However, the fragmentary nature of the past urges an attempt to recreate a unified whole. In other words, writing for Sakiyama is an attempt to give shape to the fragmentary past (46-48).

Now let us turn to Bhowmik’s discussion of “Suijō ōkan” in “Darkness Visible in Sakiyama Tami’s Island Stories,” the final chapter of Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance. In this chapter, Bhowmik aims to claim an important place for Sakiyama in the genre of Okinawan fiction. After first admitting that Sakiyama holds an uneasy place in the genre as a result of avoiding major themes such as the Okinawan War, the military base issue, and local culture, Bhowmik argues that Sakiyama’s exploration of her memories of island sounds and her use of dialect place her in the tradition of writers such as Higashi Mineo, who won the Akutagawa Prize for Okinawa no shōnen [An Okinawan Boy], a novel that uses dialect extensively and that Sakiyama greatly admires. In addition to arguing for Sakiyama’s place in Okinawan literature, Bhowmik also aims to make clear the political implications of Sakiyama’s writing (159).

After introducing “Suijō ōkan” as a tale about “a journey through darkness” that can be compared to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness or Shiga Naoya’s Anya kōro [A Dark Night’s Passing], Bhowmik points out that the story’s third-person narration follows Akiko as she attempts to find “in her remote childhood home a foundation upon which to base her life” (160). Unable to find meaningful relationships in town, Akiko accompanies her father on his journey to the island in the hope of finding herself. In the end, however, both Akiko’s attempt to find meaning and Kinzō’s attempt to bring home his mother’s mortuary tablet fail and the trip turns out to be what Bhowmik calls “a futile journey across the sea” (160).

Bhowmik points out that Sakiyama’s descriptions contrast markedly with those of tourist brochures and other materials depicting Okinawa as an island paradise. Instead of portraying landscapes that revitalize their habitants and visitors, Sakiyama depicts an “island whose economy is ravaged, and community destroyed” (161). The description of Kinzō’s home, for instance, depicts an abandoned home littered with garbage. The story also describes conflict in the local community, a history that includes villages being ravaged by malaria, and people desperately hoping for opportunities to leave.

Though tentatively accepting Suzuki’s identification of O. Island with Iriomote Island, Bhowmik emphasizes that most of the story’s descriptions paint the island as being disconnected from history and extremely inaccessible. Akiko returns to the island for healing, but she is ultimately unable to find in the island the meaning that she seeks. In the same way, the island ultimately avoids being clearly identified as an actual island.

Bhowmik contrasts Akiko’s inability to find in the island a source of inspiration or meaning with Tokitō Kensaku’s rapturous identification with nature in the climax of Shiga’s novel. Whereas Shiga’s protagonist merges with nature in a rapturous epiphany, Akiko feels disconnected and unconsoled. As Akiko circumnavigates the island at night, she struggles to delineate the contours of the island, and eventually looks away. As Bhowmik puts it, “self and island pass each other, (literally) like vessels passing in the night, never coalescing” (164).

Bhowmik views Akiko’s act of rebellion at the end of the story as a rejection of “Kinzō’s attempt to fetishize the island by taking with him the tablet, his one remaining tie” (164). She argues that Akiko comes to the conclusion that she cannot return to the island, and also that her grandmother cannot leave. In other words, Akiko comes to see herself as irrevocably severed from the island to which she has attempted to return. In terms of identity, she discovers that there is an unbridgeable gulf that separates the self from the island.

In the final sections of her chapter on Sakiyama, Bhowmik examines “Fūsuitan” and “Muiani yuraiki,” two other of Sakiyama’s early short stories. She points out that whereas “Suijō ōkan” focuses on vision, and the struggle to make out the contours of an island covered in darkness, Sakiyama’s later fiction focuses on the aural, and often involves a search for lost sounds. In addition, the radical challenge of Sakiyama’s prose to Japanese also becomes increasingly obvious. Not only is there a marked increase in her use of dialect, but also she grows increasingly more experimental with her prose, often blurring the lines between various island dialects and Japanese. No doubt, Bhowmik would agree that Sakiyama’s radical project to destabilize Japanese has become even more obvious in her recent fiction, for example in such stories as “Akōkurō genshikō.”


9. Discussion Questions

(1) How does Akiko feel about her life on the mainland?

(2) Why does Akiko agree to accompany her father on his mission?

(3) What is the dilemma the family faces concerning the mortuary tablet? Why is this problem so important?

(4) Why didn’t Makato want to leave O. Island? How does her refusal to leave affect the family?

(5) Why did Kinzō leave the island? How does he feel about his choice?

(6) Why can’t Kinzō just forget about the mortuary tablet and get on with his life?

(7) What is Hatsu’s relationship to the family? Why does she relent and let Kinzō take the mortuary tablet off the island?

(8) Why is Kinzō so worried about meeting any of the islanders?

(9) What are some of Akiko’s childhood memories? How does she feel about the island now?

(10) How does Old Man Kāre’s story contribute to the plot of “Suijō ōkan”?

(11) Why does Akiko become worried when she sees that Kinzō looks calm?

(12) Why does Matsuo hang himself after his oldest child leaves the island?

(13) How does Akiko change in the story? What does she learn about her family?

(14) Why does Akiko throw the memorial tablet into the ocean?


10. Works Cited

Bhowmik, Davinder L. “Darkness Visible in Sakiyama Tami’s Island Stories.” Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance. New York: Routledge, 2008. 158-78.

“Churasan.” NHK Renzoku Terebi Shosetsu. Writ. Okada Yoshikazu. Perf. Kuninaka Ryōko, Taira Tomi, Gori, Sakai Masaaki, Tanaka Yoshiko. NHK. NHK Sogo, Tokyo. 2 April 2001- 29 Sept. 2001.

Ehman, Kenny. “Mystical and Spiritually Powerful: The yuta of Okinawa.” 27 June 1998. Japan Update. 18 August 2010.

Hasegawa, Ikumi. “A special story inspection postwar Okinawa literature: The optic angle to the text.” Josetsu 15. 1997.

---. “Yami no naka ni ukabu shima―Sakiyama Tami ‘Kurikaeshigaeshi’ ron” [The Island Floating in the Darkness―Sakiyama Tami “Over and Over” theory]. Josetsu 15. 1997: 129-34.

“Ihai.” Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary. 5th Ed. 2003.

Kerr, George H. Okinawa: The History of an Island People. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1958.

Okamoto, Keitoku. “Shudai to shite no ‘shima’—Sakiyama Tami no sekai” [“Island” as a Main Theme: The World of Sakiyama Tami]. Appendix. Kurikaeshigaeshi [Over and Over]. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1994.

---. “Shima o suteta mono, tomaru mono” [Those who Leave the Island, and Those who Stay]. Gendai bungaku ni miru Okinawa no jigazō [Okinawa in Contemporary Novels and Drama]. Tokyo: Kōbunken, 1996. 285-9.

Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. 1982. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Sakiyama, Tami. “Akōkurō genshikō.” Subaru. Sept. 2006: 240-52.

---. “Shimagomoru” [Island Confinement]. Kurikaeshigaeshi [Over and Over]. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1994. 180-250.

---. “Shima o kaku to iu koto” [On Writing Islands]. Nantō Shōkei. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1996. 106-108.

---. “Suijō ōkan” [Round-trip on the Ocean]. Kurikaeshigaeshi [Over and Over]. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1994. 142-78.

---. “Yami no mukō kara” [From Beyond the Darkness]. Nantō Shōkei. Tokyo: Sunagoya Press, 1996. 12-3.

Shiga, Naoya. Anya koro [A Dark Night’s Passing]. 1921-37. Tokyo: Shinshio, 1990.

Sminkey, Paul. “Sakiyama Tami’s Dance with the Reader in ‘Shimagomoru’: The Fusion of Space and Time through Ritual.” Okinawa International University Journal of Foreign Languages 11.1 (2008): 55-73.

---. “Sakiyama Tami’s ‘Suijō ōkan’: Wandering on the Borders of Identity” Okinawa International University research of a foreign languages 14.1 (2010).

Suzuki, Tomoyuki. “Hōi no tentō: Sakiyama Tami ‘Suijō ōkan’ ni okeru kioku no kūkan kōsei” [Reversal of Direction: Spatial Construction of Memory in Sakiyama Tami’s “Suijō ōkan”]. Hosei Journal of Sociology and Social Sciences 48.3-4 (March 2002): 1-56.

Taira, Koji. “Troubled national identity: the Ryukyuans/Okinawans.” Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity. Ed. Michael Weiner. New York: Routledge, 1997. 140-77.

Watanabe, Yoshio. Sekai no naka no Okinawa bunka [Okinawan Culture in the World]. Naha: Okinawa Times, 1993.


Original Report byKana Serikyaku and Kasumi Sminkey. Photos by Kasumi Sminkey.