I am here in Okinawa just in time for tropical storm (typhoon) Jangmi to put everything out of commission for the next couple of days.

Okinawa is a masterpiece of micro-Brutalist architecture. Everywhere you look, another 2-story poured concrete house or building, often with some eclectic flare, be it cinderblock work, or other unpredictable masonry. These buildings are hardy, reading for typhoons, and perhaps another Battle of Okinawa.

Incidentally, the presence of these buildings is due to the fact that the island was largely leveled by the Japanese and the Americans during WW2. The 1950s and the 1960s would mean rebuilding in the vernacular of the times, the architecture we Californians are so familiar with because of the UC system.

Just about every home has protective guardians at the gate. I’ve included a few pictures here, but the holdover of animist religious traditions is particularly strong on the island of Okinawa, which, you’ll quickly learn, though a “Japanese” island, has its own langauge, ethnicity, culture, food, and a strong distrust both of mainland Japanese authority (the authority that starved them and forced masses of civilians to commit suicide for the good of the emperor during WW2 and had already spent years attempting to assimilate them, stomp out their language/culture, and effectively ruling them without representation or care for their well-being), and a reasonable distrust of the American ex-pat community, which is full of soldiers permanently occupying military bases all over the island, soldiers who’ve rightfully gained an infamous reputation for insobriety, drunk driving, and rape. However, as China tightens its own imperial grip in the Pacific Theater, it seems likely the Americans will be kept around as an insurance policy to prevent from happening to Okinawa what China threatens to do to Taiwan.

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