Some things we learned about Okinawa's culture
Festival
In okinawa there are so many traditional festivals.
Cherry Blossom Festival is in Nago city in late January .As Okinawa is located in the warmest part of Japan, Okinawa is the first place where people can enjoy full cherry blossoms.
Muchi(which means devil rice cake),opens in all the part of Okinawa in the late January.In this festival parents pray for the children`s health and well being with rice cakes wrapped in fragrant leaves of kuba.Because rice cakes are belived to be a protection against devil.
In early Feburary, there is a festival called Sixteen day festival.People of the same kin gather at their family tombfor a whole day to remember and entertain the soul of their ancestors with lots of fine dishes,dance and folk songs.
Harii, which means the dragon boat opens in the all part of okinawa in the middle of June.This is a festival for people who wants good fishing.People prays to the sea God.
Usudeku opens in Mainland in Okinawa and in late September.On the dayfull moon villagers offers rice cakes covered with red beans to their family.
Naha festival opens in Naha on 10th of October.On 9th-Oct,from 6.00pm all the traffics are closed on Kokusai Street and everyone enjoys the parades with the flags.
As I had written, there are many festivals held in Okinawa.Also there are still many more festivals in Okinawa and Okinawa has various festivals that are held by religions.
LANGUAGE IN OKINAWA
In Okinawa,people speak in the dialect words.The dialect words which I have looked up is used in the middle southern part of Okinawa.It is the most speakable dialect in okinawa.
Common language we speak in everyday life is simolar to it.Also Kansai dialect is the most similar dialect to it than any other dialect spoken in the mainland Japan.For example, people who speaks Kansai dialect put at the end of the sentence,meaning of conclusion and it is same for people living in the middle southern part of Okinawa. It is used like;
KORE WA RADIO YANN.-This is a radio.
Also there are original pronounciation in Okinawa.It is different fron any other language in Japan.For example, people pronouces A, opening glottis wide as fast as you can.
Another difference is the way Okinawan counts numbers.
mainland----------Okinawa
1 ichi---------------ichi
2 ni-----------------ni
3 san----------------san
4 shi----------------shee
5 go------------------gu
For native speakers ,Okinawan dialect is easier to speak than Japanese.But for people living in the mainland, it is very hard to speak Okinawan language.
OKINAWAN CULTURE
There are some special clothes in Okinawa.Those are like"YUKATA". Handwoven and dyed fablics made in Okinawa. In these days,Okinawan textiles are not worn by everyone.I think only old people in Okinawa are wearing.
The first Okinawa textiles was probably abaca clothes,which along with often fast-fibre cloth such as ramie and sisal was form by commoners.Cotten and silk were reserved for the nobility.Colors were from natural dyestuffs such as plants(indigo blue) tree barks (yellow, black, brown) certain woods(brown,red)and ferruginous mud (brown, black)
Most Okinawan textiles are of plain weave.The main patterning technigues are ways of weft stripping and warp or weft ikat. A method, originary Chinese, of stenciling resist paste onto fablic and richly coloring the unresistes areas by hand is utilized in the production of "bingata", Okinawa's famous surface dyed textile.
Okinawan woven textile designs are mostly geometric, reflecting the structure of the weave. Within Okinawa there are distictive fabrics, developed partly as a result of the distance between the islands that make up the prefecture .The city of Naha is known for "bingata, the island Kumejima for "Kasuri", patterned handspun silk cloth in deep brown and yellow patterns, and the Miyako Islands for indigo dyed ramie cloth "jofu" with 'kasuri" pattern of tiny crosses that form larger designs.
1. A traditional garmet dyed using the "bingata"method which may involve cut stencils or hand coloring.
2. A "Kasuri" style garmet.The Kasuri weaving and dyeing techniques developed in Okunawa provided the basis for later Kasuri weaving in the main islands of Japan.
Animals in Okinawa
There are some precious aminals in Okimnawa. IRIOMOTE wild cat is the most well known native animal in Okinawa.They are only alive in the Iriomote Island, which is located at the end of Okinawa.That is becase of the environment of the island.There are high mountains and progressed forests. So this island is very important for animals in Okinawa.
There is the bird called Noguchigera in the northern part of Okinawa. This
bird is one type of wood peckers.this kind of bird can not be found in anywhere
but only in okinawa. There are only 100 of them left. There is also a special
deer living only in Okinawa. It is called KERASIKA and the body is smaller then
regular deers.The color of the body is blackish brown. They only live in Yaka
Island,Deruma Island and Okajima Island. In these days there are only 60 of
them alive.
