Chojun - Goran Powell

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open the heavy iron grille.

      “How old must I be to learn to-te?” I asked.

      He looked me up and down. “Fourteen.”

      I was devastated. Fourteen was almost five years away.

      “Come back then,” he said, entering the yard.

      “But what can I do now?” I asked, desperate to learn right away.

      “Do you swim?” he asked.

      “I dive for pearls,” I told him proudly.

      “Have you ever found one?” he asked, his eyebrows raised in interest.

      “No,” I answered truthfully.

      “That’s no reason to stop searching,” he said, the trace of a smile on his lips. He came out and stood before me, then bent down and placed his palm on my stomach, below the navel. It felt like a block of smooth oak that had been in the sunshine all day, its warmth flowing through my entire body. “When you’re diving, don’t inhale high in your chest but down here,” he said, pressing gently, “in the pit of your stomach. To-te requires a strong stomach. Strong breathing. If you practice like this, your Sanchin will be very strong.”

      “What is Sanchin?” I asked.

      “You’ll discover when you’re fourteen,” he answered.

      Then he was gone, and I was left to wander the long road back to Itoman alone. By the time I got home, it was dark but my parents didn’t ask where I’d been. I think they knew. That night while lying in my bed, I held my breath for as long as I could, wondering what Sanchin could be. It would be five years before I found out.

      We Okinawans are called Kaiyo Minzoku: ‘people of the sea.’ Ours is the largest island in the Ryukyu chain, but even so, it is only sixty-seven miles long and a few miles wide, so you are never far from the sea. Ryukyu means ‘rope.’ It is the perfect name for our archipelago since on a map the Ryukyu Islands resemble nothing more than a knotted rope, stretching from the southern tip of Japan to Taiwan off the coast of China, and, like a rope, it has traditionally connected the two powers.

      The Ryukyu Islands were not always part of Japan. Before the arrival of the Satsuma clan in 1609, they made up an independent kingdom that traded all over Southeast Asia. Okinawa enjoyed close cultural links with China, and in 1393, the Chinese emperor sent artists, merchants, and craftsmen to help the islanders develop specialized arts and crafts. These immigrants, known as the ‘thirty-six families,’ settled in Kume near the port of Naha and became known as the Kumemura.

      My father was a descendant of these immigrants, but his family had moved to Itoman in the south to fish in the clear waters of Itoman Bay. Father didn’t speak Chinese at home or keep ties with the Chinese community. He rarely spoke of his Chinese heritage, I suspect, because my mother was a native Okinawan from the former capital, Shuri. Mother’s family had been against a marriage to a Chinese descendant, no matter how many generations his family had lived in Okinawa, and she’d married without their blessing. For a woman to go against the wishes of her parents was rare, especially in those days, and it wasn’t until the birth of my eldest brother, Yasuhiko, that her parents finally accepted the marriage. She gave birth to three more children: my second brother, Tatsuo, then me, and lastly my little sister, Yuka. Our family name is Ota.

      Father was a fisherman, like his father before him, and no one knew the waters off Okinawa better. When I wasn’t at school, I would go out with him in his boat. I was the only one of his children who loved the sea as he did. Like most fishermen, he spoke little while at sea, as if making a sound might invite the attentions of a malevolent sea-god who would call forth some catastrophe out of spite. Father would mutter a single word, net or sail, and we’d haul in the nets or raise the sail. There was no need to say more. We shared countless silent hours in this way.

      Father’s boat was a yanbarusen, a sailing boat common to the island. During the typhoon season we stayed close to shore, but at other times we would sail to the other islands in the Ryukyu chain. Near Kerama, we’d see humpback whales gathering in spring. Around Iejima, we’d follow the yellowfin tuna, mahi, and bonito. And within sight of Miyako, we’d track the giant schools of blue mackerel for hours, or catch a marlin and battle for an hour to get it into the boat.

      There were all manner of dangerous creatures in those waters: big sharks, poisonous sea snakes, and jellyfish with venom powerful enough to paralyze you before you could swim to safety, but of all the sea creatures, we hated dolphins the most. They would eat the fish in our nets and could easily ruin a whole day of fishing in minutes. Sometimes we would sail to the Yaeyama islands, the farthest in the Ryukyu chain, where on a clear day, you could see the rugged coast of Formosa—now called Taiwan. In the seas around Yonaguni-jima we saw turtles, giant manta rays, and schools of hammerhead sharks milling in the crystal clear waters. Father’s lines and nets were usually full, but he never earned much money when he brought his catch to market. Fish was so plentiful that the price was always low. Despite this, we didn’t want for anything, and our family, small by local standards, was quite happy.

      We lived at the northern edge of Itoman, within sight of the harbor where father kept his boat. Ours was a typical Okinawan house, squat and sturdy. We didn’t have a tiled roof like some of the grander houses on the island, but the dense thatch was firmly secured against the storms and the house was further protected by windbreaks—a row of yellow sea hibiscus planted on one side, and a twisted banyan on the other. A stream bubbled by along the back of our house, so we had no need of a well. The sweet water continued even during the frequent droughts, and there was always enough for our needs.

      Inside, the house was separated into three rooms by moveable panels. Unlike Japanese houses, each room had a sliding door to the outside, so any part of the house could be entered from the outside. Like every house in Okinawa, we had a partition set aside with a small shrine for ancestor worship, the main spiritual practice on the island.

      In the evenings, father would play the three-stringed samisen, an instrument of Chinese origin, and mother cooked. Our wood-burning stove was covered save for two holes just big enough for two pans—once the pans were in place, the stove was entirely sealed to retain the heat. Mother would cook rice or sweet potato to eat with the fish that father brought home, and every so often she would make miso. Each household in Okinawa made its own, and mother’s miso was renowned.

      When father brought home a catch of bonito, she would dry it and store it to exchange for pork and eggs with the local farmers. I was often sent to make these exchanges, and spent hours walking through the patchwork fields of sugarcane and sweet potato that hugged the craggy landscape. On the higher ground, I would pass the estates of rich landowners. Their grand houses were surrounded by ornate terraced walls, and the stepped gardens contained trees that had been tied as they grew to create beautiful shapes.

      The hard-packed roads were just wide enough for two carts to pass. Sometimes I would be lucky enough to hitch a ride on a cart, but most of the time, like most of the people in Okinawa, I walked. The richer folk on the island would sometimes take a rickshaw to spare themselves the sun-baked climb. I’d watch the rickshaw men go by, marveling at their strength in pulling such enormous loads up the hillsides, their sun-blacked bodies as sinewy as the rope that gave our island its name. Very occasionally, a car or truck would go past and I would stop and stare, wondering what it felt like to travel as fast as the wind.

      Once I’d visited the farmer and exchanged the bonito, I’d go home by a different route, exploring off the beaten track, following narrow goatherd’s trails to see where they led or climbing a new hill to see what was on top. On the higher ground the trees had also been bent into curious shapes, not by human hands, but by the invisible hands of typhoons, while below, the domed roofs of the traditional Okinawan family tombs resembled giant turtles, moving with infinite slowness toward the sea.

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