The Island of the Memory
Four years ago, I worked at the Taketomi island, Okinawa, Japan, during summer vacation for three months. The island was thousands of miles away from Tokyo where I lived. There are about 250 people and two-thirds of them are over sixty-year-old. Young people moved to fancy, modern cites, and old people and kids are left. The weather there is tropical, we could go swimming everyday, anytime. Swimming in the ocean around sunset time was the best because the weather is calm, and there is no tourists at that time. The quiet, rainbow colored ocean was not for tourists, for the people of the land.
I was working at a small hotel which has six rooms. There was only one woman who manage the small hotel, then only busy summer, I helped her. I cooked, washed dishes, set beds, and cleaned each room. The sell of the hotel was friendliness. Some customers come to the hotel every year. I didn't get some specific dollars for specific hours, she just decide depends on how I do and how she thinks. It looked kind strange to me because I grew up where people are so accurate about money, time, and law. But here, everything is so loose. She called me "helper" instead of "worker." Everything in the island was fresh, amazing, and confusing to me. Our business is their business, people know other's lives. If some people do something strange or unfamiliar, it becomes rumor, and it goes around the island in two days. The new about me spread out just like a flush.
An interesting fact is that, there are about thirty young people, about the age of twenty to thirty, and ninety percent of them are from big cities, which are thousands miles away from the island. Then the reasons why they are here are interesting, too. The common reason is an escape from the noise and problems in big cities. A woman I talked to had a fiance in a city, but she had a big problem with people around her. She visited the island just for cure, and she fell love with the island, and she fell in love with a man in the island. Now they are married and live here, they just had a first baby. She also worked at this hotel and my owner told that, "She had a really dark side in herself. Sometimes I get scared of her looking. Now it's getting better, since she doesn't have any stress in this island." People have a totally different experience in their lives, and no one try to bring up this kind of stories.
The people I met there were so nice, even though I was going to stay there only for a couple months. They invited my to parties. I liked their party, too. They were just gorgeous. At hot summer night, with the people who were all tanned, we listened to the sounds from the most beautiful ocean in the world and the music of the land which are made by the people in the past. We had parties everyday, the only entertainment we could find in this small island. We had the island's special wine, with special food which reminded me of the Middle Eastern Asian life. Everything was decorated so nicely with flowers and traditional garment, not neatly like Western people prefer, but in the way which tells me their respects and appreciation to the earth so that I could smell the soil of the land and fresh vegetables and fish. During the parties we talked a lot, we sang a lot, and we drunk a lot. We spent whole night to enjoy the slight calmness in the night during the hot, sweaty summer.
The work was hard. I woke up at six-o'clock in the morning, and help her making the breakfast. After that, we cleaned dishes. Then it's time for customers to go to the beach and we start to clean everywhere, each room, bathroom, garden, and hallways. Around three o'clock I get so tired then take a short nap. At five we start to prepare for dinner, then I go to shopping. By the time dinner's done, it is around eight. After that, I was free. I spent time with my new friends until after midnight. I often went to a harbor to see the stars and we talked. We talked about everything, but nothing about where we are from. They don't have the past in the island. They are living with the present which connects only to the future. They all had a dream, and those were big. We just talked about any possibilities which we dream in the world.
Everything which happened seems like dream to me, now. I hardly remember each friends' names. And I'm sure they don't remember me. I don't think I will go back to the island ever again, or maybe with an important person of my life. The image of the island is so strong. It is so strong that the memory unconsciously dominating my life. I had a really important moment to think about my life with the people who hardly knew me. Now I'm back to a city again. But it looks so different to me. Everybody has something which other people don't. It is hard to express your idea in the cities with millions of people. Each of us have some place to go back, some place other people don't ever imagine. I'm connected to two totally different places. I'm only one who can see my life, and I always try to see where I stand in the world. I think of my mother's land, the island, and America.
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