The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 11 | Issue 22 | Number 2 | Article ID 4124 | Jun 02, 2013

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Above the East China Sea: Okinawa During the Battle andToday 東シナ海の上空より　沖縄の戦時中と今日

Steve Rabson, Sarah Bird

The Asia-Pacific Journal presents excerpts fromSarah Bird’s newly published novel, Above theEast China Sea together with her conversationwith Steve Rabson, who served in the army onOkinawa in 1968 en route to becoming aleading translator of Okinawan literature.Bird’s novel engages the theme of suicide anddeath from the Battle of Okinawa to thepresent, interweaving the fate of Okinawansand American occupying forces. As RobertLeleux observed in a review of the novel, “Inthe heightened metaphysical reality of Bird’snovel, humans and ghosts walk among eachother, and mortality proves no hindrance toresolving family dramas. In fact, Okinawans’relationship to death, at least as presented byBird, seems somewhat offhand, as though thegreat cosmic divide is actually a very thin veilbetween our wor ld and the next . . .reminiscent of Faulkner’s great line, ‘The pastis never dead. It’s not even past.’” This issue ofAPJ couples the novel with the recollections ofcompulsory mass suicide in the Battle ofOkinawa in which 16-year old Kinjo Shigeakikilled his mother and two younger siblings.

Chapter One

The choking black smoke from the fires ragingbelow rises up, trying to claim me and my child.I climb higher. I must hurry. I must do what hasto be done before the sun rises. The black stoneof the cliff tears at my skin. I ignore the cutsand drag us up and onto the top.

At the summit, I rise on trembling legs. Thehundred thousand spirits who’ve gone beforegreet us with cries of joy, happy as a flock of

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crows at sunset hailing the returned. I seethem floating all around. I see the women, theyoung girls, their kimonos fluttering abovetheir heads like tattered banners as theyplummet through the air. I see the emperor’ssoldiers, emaciated young men, caps flyingstraight up off their heads as they hurtle down,toward the sea.

They had no choice but to jump. And, now, wehave none. The soldiers, either Japanese orAmerican, will kill us as soon as the sun rises.We cannot die such a violent death. If we do,we will be condemned to haunt this placeforever and never be reunited with our clan. Iwon’t permit my child to endure such a cruelfate.

Though night still covers the carnage, I don’tneed to see the black of charred ruins or thedun of mud mixed with corpses, which is allthat remains of my mutilated island. A breezefrom the East China Sea lifts sweat-dampenedhair from the back of my neck. It carries with itthe stench of death from a place where not asingle leaf of green hope has survived.

I close my eyes and remember Okinawa as itwas on the day before everything changed. Isee the colors of paradise. The pink of the babypiglets. The gold of the trunks of our bamboogrove. The purple of my mother’s sweetpotatoes. The yellow of the flowers on the seahibiscus hedge that lined the path leading toour house. The red of the blossoms on thedeigo tree, blazing as though the side of themountain were on fire. The colors sparkleagainst a background of infinite green. Leaf,vine, grass. Above and below are blue. Theocean is the blue of jewels. The sky is the blueof softness. All I can give my unborn child nowis the blue of sky, the blue of a water death. Ihope that I am carrying a son. Life is too hardfor a daughter. A sister. A mother. Death willbe even harder.

The stones I fill the leather satchel strappedacross my chest with are so heavy I can barely

stagger forward to the edge of the cliff. Butthey have to weigh enough to pull us downunder the sea and keep us there. We can’t jointhe hundreds of other suicides who havewashed ashore, their corpses swelling evennow on the beach far below. My child and Imust sleep beneath the waves until the momentchosen by the kami arrives. That is theobligation I must fulfill.

My toes, the soles of my broad, sturdyOkinawan feet, grip the black rock. They clinglike dumb animals to life even when only deathremains. They beg, saying “Tamiko, please,Tamiko, our fifteen short years on this earthhave not been enough.” My feet want to runagain through the grass. They want to dancewith such grace that I win the love of ahandsome boy. They want to carry me home tomy mother. To my sister, my Hatsuko.

Though I thought my heart had hardened to arock, it aches now with missing my family,Hatsuko most of all. I shake away suchweakness. I am fifteen. Old enough to knowthat a mother does what she must for her childin this life and, more important, in the next. Ipray to our ancestors, to all the kami-sama. Tothe ones who’ve gone before, to the gods ofhearth and field, altar and forest, to all thespirits who control our destinies. I beg them tohelp us, to let my child and me enter the nextworld and be reunited with my family. With ourfamily.

I wrap my arms tight around my belly and stepoff the cliff. It is easy. The easiest thing I’vehad to do since the Americans invaded. Thekami cradle us, just as I cradle my child. Still,when we land, the sea is hard as concrete. Thesalt water floods my mouth, throat, lungs.There is a moment of pain, of clawing strugglewhen I am certain I’ve made a terrible mistake.Then it vanishes and I let the stones drag usdown, farther and farther under the waves,until the new-risen sun far overhead shrinksaway to a pearl that shimmers briefly before it

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is lost forever in darkness.

Our wait begins.

Chapter Two

Jump? Or don’t jump?

The question rattles around inside in my headlike a handful of BBs in a metal coffee can.Versions of it have been clanging around inthere for the past three months, ever since Ifound out about Codie: Take the pills? Don’ttake the pills? Run the exhaust hose in throughthe car window? Kick back with a bottle ofPercocet, a few beers, and watch as manyepisodes of True Blood as it takes?

I go back and forth. Good days. Bad days. Thispast week, since my mom’s been gone on TDY,has been good. It’s always easier when she’snot around. Actually, they say that mostsuicides happen when the person is feelingbetter. I believe it. When you can’t dragyourself out of bed, it’s hard to get up theenergy to even stick a fork in a wall socket.Mom’s temporary duty assignment is over intwo days. That gives me forty-eight hours tomake up my mind.

A hundred and fifty feet straight down, at thebase of the cliffs I’m standing on top of, thewaves churn white against some spiked rocksstabbing up above the water. That’s where I’dland. Death would be instantaneous. That’s aplus. Put that one in the “pro” column.

I hold my arms out and a muggy breeze off theEast China Sea lofts the hair up off the back ofmy sweaty neck. In spite of the steam-bathhumidity, I still feel like a dried-up leaf, allwithered and brown from not being attached toanything, anywhere, in such a long time. Itseems like the slightest gust of wind should beenough to blow me off this cliff and out of thislife forever. I wish it would.

I’m terminally sick of not being able to decide.

Of being trapped in this cycle of what my momwould call “fiddle-fucking around.” Indecisionis something they cut out of her in NCOLeadership School. They recently changed thename to the Warrior Leader Course. My mom,though, she never needed a title to tell herwhat to become. “Shit or get off the pot” hasalways been her mantra. That and “Get ’erdone.” She regularly surprises people becauseshe sounds so country but looks so Asian. She’shalf Okinawan which is why I stupidly thoughtthat transferring here would be like returningto some magical ancestral homeland where wewould instantly be treated like family. Didn’tquite turn out that way. To say the least.

I experiment with tipping forward. My weightshifts onto the balls of my feet, and my stomachdrops worse than if I’d already taken the leapand landed hard. That’s part of the test. Maybeif I push myself this close to the edge, I’llsmoke out a deeply hidden reason for going onliving. And maybe psychedelic rainbows andsparkling unicorns will fly out of my ass and I’lllove life again. I’d be open to that.

I am tilting forward, about to let gravity takeme, when two ropy arms clamp onto me frombehind.

“Hey, Luz.” Kirby Kernshaw’s greeting is anair-rifle puff of beer breath against my neck.“Whatcha doin’, Tiger Woods?”

I open my eyes. Clouds again cover the moon. Iinhale once, twice, and shift from being a bodyon the spiked rocks far below back to being LuzJames, new girl at a new base, hanging out withher latest group of Quasis, the semistranger,friendesque beings that I meet at a newassignment, then just about, almost, but notquite, get to know right before we’retransferred again.

“Tiger Woods, where you been, girl?”

“Hey, Lucky Charms.”

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Kirby is Lucky Charms for his red hair. A tall,lanky demented leprechaun of a lad who’s beenheld back at school a few times, KirbyKernshaw, is one of those gingers whosefreckles blend into his lips. I’m Tiger Woods,s ince i t ’ s easy shor thand for “par tOkinawan–part Filipina–part Missouriredneck–part miscellaneous.” You know, yourbasic caramel person. “Uh, Kirby, you want tostop grinding your stiffy into my butt?”

He laughs, but doesn’t turn me loose.

“Kirbs, for serious, get your hand off my boob.”He removes it. “And the one on my crotch?”

Lucky Charms isn’t so much saving as humpingme. He lets go and lurches away, muttering,“Girl, how can someone so hot be so cold.”

Kirby grabs the handles of the red-and-whiteIgloo cooler beside him, hoists it up, then leansback with the weight braced against his thighs.“A little help, girlfriend.”

“Sure.”

I grip the rear handle of the heavy cooler withboth hands, and Kirby leads me down the seriesof switchbacks zigzagging across the steep faceof the cliffs that ring the shore. Bottles and iceclank from side to side as we inch our wayalong the ant trail. I’ve still got two days left.That’s plenty of time to “get ’er done” beforeMom gets back. Okinawa, with its riptides andvenomous habu vipers, unexploded ordnanceleft over from World War II and pill-happy basedoctors, is one giant suicide op waiting tohappen.

It’s important to me not to seem suicidal. WhenFamily Advocacy investigates after I do it andthey ask the Quasis, “How did Luz James seemto you?” I can’t have any of them talking aboutwhat a droopy-assed loser I was. I want them tosay, “Luz? Luz James? No, she seemedperfectly fine.” Maybe add, “She was always sofull of life,” and pretend to be all broken up.

The girls especially, even the ones who didn’tknow me at all, since that will give them a goodreason to cry and show how sensitive they are.

“Hey, Tiger Woods?” Kirby grunts back at me.“Why are you so late? It’s after twenty hundredhours.”

“If you mean eight o’clock, Kirby, say eighto’clock.”

“You’re such a civilian, Luz.”

“Only a Gung Ho would even think that that’san insult.”

“You callin’ me a gun ho?”

I start to tell him about how Codie called thefreaks who were genetically engineered to bemilitary brats Gung Hos. I see her doing herimitation of a typical Gung Ho, jumping aroundall excited, going, “I love moving! It gives me achance to reinvent myself!” like they’re LadyGaga with the whole world just waiting to seethe latest incarnation. After a lifetime of ourmom and the U.S. Air Force uprooting us everyother year or so, Codie and I were so anti–GungHo that we even developed mental blocks aboutdecoding the twenty-four-hour clock. It meantthat we occasionally committed the worst bratsin of all: being late. But to us, being late was alot better than being a Gung Ho.

I’m doing it again. I’m relating everything backto Codie.

“Loozer,” Kirby repeats, “why’d you call me agun ho?”

“Never mind, Kirbs. It’s nothing.” Suddenlyvery, very tired, I dump my end of the coolerdown onto the trail. “Brew thirty,” I say,popping the cooler open. I ice-fish for a beer,hook a tall silver one, and reel it in. The coldfeels good against my hot hand, lips, goingdown my throat. My thirst leaves, but not whatI didn’t want to think about: Codie was not a

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Gung Ho. She wasn’t. That’s why it doesn’tmake sense. Why what happened could neverhave happened.

Chapter Three

Mother, Are you there?

Of course, where else would I be?

Mother, while we wait to be found, tell me oncemore everything you know about the nextworld.

I had already told my son everything that hisgrandmother had told me: that in that otherrealm the air shimmered like lapis lazuli andwas perfumed by the scent of lilies andpineapples. That we would feast and dancebeneath the vast roof of a banyan tree. That thetimid dwarf deer, the emerald frog, the long-haired mouse, and the orchid leaf butterflywould all emerge from hiding to marvel at thebeauty of our arm movements. That we wouldbe reunited with our mothers, fathers, aunts,uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparentsbeyond remembering.

It galls me that I can do nothing to rescue usfrom this netherworld and send us on to theshimmering place. Until I join my ancestors,I’m not kami-sama like them, so I don’t havethe power to inflict suffering on the living toremind them of their obligations to us. I achewith a ferocity unknown to the living for whatwas promised in my mother’s stories. For sweetpotatoes in green-tea sauce, the scent of liliesand pineapples.

Near the end, when thirst and hunger wereknives twisting ceaselessly within us, I believedthat my ruined body was the cause of all mysuffering. Here I have learned that pain is notsharpened by flesh; it is blunted. With no bodythere is no way to partition off suffering. It is acurse, yet it gives me an advantage over any ofthe living, who never see clearly until their eyesare closed forever. They are blind to the

injustice of love withheld from the unlovely andlavished on the lovely, who, with theirconsolations of lovely, long necks and shiny,straight hair, need it so much less. They don’tsee how their foolish desires drive them tocrawl over one another like crabs in a bucketfighting for a small circle of blue when thewhole sky waits above.

And now, though I don’t yet know why the kamihave awoken us, I must make myself ready touse my advantage. I concentrate. I put doubtand despair aside and hone my desire. I fletchit like a samurai’s arrowhead. I pull it back tautin the bow until it quivers, and I wait. The rulesof destiny are harsh, but to save my child’ssoul, I have accepted them. The kami-sama willsend to us someone who hovers between theliving and the dead. And when that personarrives, I shall be ready and will release thearrow of my yearning straight into his heart.

Okinawa, Life and Death in Two Wars andTwo Novels

Novelist Sarah Bird in Conversation withSteve Rabson

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Sarah Bird at the University of Texaswriter residence.

Sarah: It’s an honor for me to have thisconversation with you Steve. I came to revereyour work during the years I spent researchingthis novel. When I began writing I remember soclearly my trepidation and the constantthought, “What will Steve Rabson think?” Thatis why it was the greatest of unexpected giftswhen you got in touch with me about my novelYokota Officers Club. That emboldened me toask if you would read the manuscript of Abovethe East China Sea. Which you did and offereda wealth of invaluable comments andcorrections that saved me, time and again, fromembarrassing myself.

Steve: Your kind words are appreciated, butsomewhat embarrassing for me since what Ido—translations and research—is based on thework of Okinawans. Tell us some of your

impressions of Okinawa from the time you werethere as an Air Force daughter.

Steve Rabson, Henoko, Okinawa, May 1968

Sarah: I arrived in May 1968 after my first yearat the University of New Mexico. I hadparticipated in anti-war marches and rallieswhile in high school, but at UNM I started agroup called Damsels in Dissent. Basically, wecounseled terrified potential inductees to visitsympathetic psychiatrists who would tell theirdraft boards that they were crazy; to swallowballs of t in foil that would show up assuspicious spots on x-rays; to put a bar of lyesoap under their armpit to raise theirtemperatures. And, if all else failed, to shoot offa toe or flee to Canada.

So, when I arrived at Kadena Air Base, myfamily beheld the girl they’d left behindwearing Weejun loafers and Villager skirt andsweater sets transformed into a hippie with

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Trotsky glasses and smelling of patchouli oil.And though the oppressively mil itaryatmosphere of an overseas American basemade me feel as if I’d been dropped behindenemy lines, this was what I knew, what I’dgrown up with, and I was also completely,happily, at home once again.

Luckily, my mom was far from a typicalofficer’s wife. She’d met my father duringWorld War II at a barn dance in north Africawhere she was a nurse by day and a singer witha band by night. After having lived a very largelife, she found playing bridge and pouring teaat receptions for the commander’s wife stifling.She loved to load her children into the mustardyellow station wagon my parents had bought atthe base “lemon lot,” and head out fordestinations unknown. We visited the ruins ofevery castle on the island; hiked up mountainpaths that seemed impossibly steep andslippery to us while Okinawan grandmothers inflip-flops scampered past; shopped in Nahadepartment stores; bought scarlet red slices oftuna from stalls in what was then Koza and isnow Okinawa City; watched “Elvira Madigan”with English sub-titles; and, thanks to mymother’s curiosity and gregariousness madeOkinawan friends wherever we went. On myown, I learned to scuba dive from a way-too-gung-ho Marine who had his dependentstudents doing free ascensions fromridiculously dangerous depths and discoveredthe dazzling world under Okinawa’s seas.

Military kids growing up within fencedcompounds entirely populated by their ownkind, accept more than most children the worldthey are given by those they love most. So,although I fell in love with both the physicalbeauty of Okinawa and the other islands wevisited, as well as with her vibrant, kind, andjoy-filled people, and was a budding radical toboot, I was decades away from questioning ourpresence on Okinawa.

Steve: You have written two novels set in

Okinawa, The Yokota Officers Club and Abovethe East China Sea. Can you tell us whatinspired you to write each of them, and howthey drew on your exper iences andobservations?

Sarah: “Yokota” started off as a frothy look atmy two weeks in show business. While visitingOkinawa there was a dance contest. Since theprize was an all-expense paid trip to Tokyo, Ientered. Due to my remarkable ability to beboth Caucasian and of legal age, I won. Thecatch was that I was the intermission act for acomedian, Bobby Monahan, during his tours ofall the military clubs in the Tokyo area.Thankfully, the novel evolved and ended upbeing about two things I care vastly more aboutthan go-go dancing: my family and the effect ofthe U.S. military on the lives of women.

Bird family portrait 1967. The author istop center.

Two experiences inspired “Above the EastChina Sea.” One was strolling at night throughthe vast green swath of the Kadena golf course,looking out through the barbed wire fence atthe claustrophobically crowded world beyond,and wondering “Why?” The other was standingat the top of Suic ide Cl i f f and beingoverwhelmed by sensory impressions—a salt-scented breeze off the East China Sea liftingthe hair off the back of my sweaty neck; theinfinity of blues as aqua tidal pools darkened to

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cobalt at the horizon then lightened to a skyblue as pale as skim milk; the dense, junglesmell tinged with the fragrance of honeysucklerising from the lush vegetation—and again thequestion, “Why? Why would anyone choose toleave such a paradise?”Like most young people, I was an unmanneddrone flying through my life, gatheringintelligence I would make sense of only in lateryears, when the frenzy of work and raisingchildren and raising myself had subsided. I hadstarted this process while researching YokotaOfficers Club, but as I sought to understandOkinawa’s tragic, majestic history I becameutterly obsessed. Though astonishments waitedon every page I turned, the revelation thathaunted me the most was learning about thePrincess Lily Girls. I was stunned that such amagnificent tale of heroism, endurance, andnobility could be so little known in this country,and I felt an obligation to rescue it, and thestory of the Okinawan people, from obscurity.

Steve: Why did you choose the last name“Furusato” for one of your characters?

Sarah: Oh, you caught that. Very good. As youknow the word means “hometown,” but comeswith an abundance of connotations, including ayearning, a homesickness, for what has beenlost. Loss is a theme that resonates throughoutthe novel. Both my lead characters aremourning the loss of homes they once knew,and the beloved older sisters who embodied thesafety and comfort of hometowns. Abruptdepartures are almost the only constant in amilitary brat’s life, and many are in a constant,unspoken state of mourning for whateversemblance of a “hometown” they’d been able toform before being uprooted again. ForOkinawans who’ve been displaced by militarybases, there is the additional, indescribablepain of seeing your furusato, your home village,on the other side of a fence, replaced by arunway or a golf course, there within yoursight, but gone from you forever.

One other play on a Japanese word: I named myOkinawan protagonist’s furusato, her actualhome village, Māda dayo, from the title of theKurosawa film wherein his lead characterrepeatedly proclaims “māda dayo!,” “not yet!”to death. So that was my tiny homage to themaster’s treatment of eternity and afterlife.

Sarah: The military brought both of us toOkinawa during the Vietnam War years. I as abrat with my Air Force family. You as an Armydraftee. Tell me about who you were then andhow you ended up becoming a soldier.

Steve: After graduating college in 1965 Ivolunteered for a draft physical, intending tojoin the reserves and become a “week-endwarrior.” I had a heart murmur and was told Iwas disqualified. But just a few months later Isuddenly received the “greeting” letter with aninduction date 21 days later. I appealed, andwas given another physical which I passed withflying colors, so to speak. At this point the bigescalation in Vietnam hadn’t happened yet, andmy friends from high school who’d been draftedwere going to places like West Germany,England, and Spain, or staying in the U.S. As amiddle-class Jewish boy whose older malerelatives had all served in World Ware II,dodging the draft was a kind of “no-no.” Iended up in Okinawa for one year with a thirty-day leave in Tokyo.

Sarah: I came to a deeper understanding andprofound appreciation for Okinawa and herpeople only in my later years as I’ve sought tomake sense of my time as a member of theAmerican raj. And to answer questions like,“Why, on our side of the barbed wire fence,were there tundras of open space—golf course,runways, parade grounds, parking lots—whileo n t h e o t h e r s i d e e v e r y o n e w a sclaustrophobically crowded together?” Steve,I ’m curious about what sparked yourfascination with Okinawa and led you to alifetime of service to the Okinawan peoplethrough your work in teaching, translation,

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literature, and editing?

Steve: Like you I arrived in Okinawa “on ourside of the barbed wire fence.” But, like someof the other soldiers at the 137th OrdnanceCompany in Henoko, I was soon eager toescape the base and travel beyond the nearby“vil’,” a base town in both senses of the word. Itwas my first time in an Asian country, and thelush, sub-tropical scenery and distinct cultureof Okinawa deeply impressed me. I took longwalks in the countryside, ate and drank at localrestaurants, and heard Okinawan folk musicperformances at festivals and concerts.

Sarah: My learning curve about the RyukyuIslands was marked by a series of shocks as Iwondered, “How did I not know that morepeople—mainly Okinawans and Japanese, butalso the largest number of Americans in anybattle in the Pacific War, as well as Koreans,Taiwanese and others—had died during theinvasion than were killed at Hiroshima andNagasaki combined?” “How was I not aware ofthe profoundly exploitative nature of ourrelationship with the islands and their people?”Steve, at what point did you come to appreciatethese disturbing political ramifications?

Steve: As soon as I arrived in Henoko, I couldsee the enormous economic gap betweenAmericans and Okinawans, and sensed theAmerican military’s condescending attitudetoward the local people. Later I learned thatmany of those who worked on the bases or asbar hostesses and prostitutes in the vils’ werefrom farming families whose land had beenforcibly seized by the U.S. military for baseconstruction in the early to mid-various 1950s.This was one aspect of the economic andpolitical oppression I witnessed under“occupation law” that prevented citizens fromfreely choosing their leaders in elections, andfavored the U.S. military in property disputes,compensation settlements for deadly trainingaccidents, and adjudications of G.I. crime. Thelate 1960s was the peak of the movement for

Okinawa’s reversion to Japan where peoplelived under a civilian constitution and enjoyedprosperity in contrast to Third World conditionsin Okinawa under American military rule. Thedaily protest rallies, marches, and sit-insreminded me very much of the civil rightsmovement in the U.S. The Army told us thatadvocates for reversion were “Communists,”and warned us to stay away from theirdemonstrations. However, I learned much frombi-lingual fliers protestors distributed outsidethe base gates, from translated portions ofmimeographed newsletters I read at the locallibrary, and from people I met who could speakEnglish. Okinawans were outraged that thebases were being used to kill other Asians inVietnam. They also worried that, if the warescalated to a regional conflict, Okinawa as amajor American support base would again bedevastated as in the battle of 1945, but thistime with the possible involvement of nuclearweapons stored there in large numbers. ARyukyu University student told me “we havenothing against Americans personally, but aretired of the Pentagon running our island.”

Later, as a student in Tokyo I visited Okinawain 1971, one year before reversion, but did notgo back until 1983 to work on a translation ofthe novella “Cocktail Party” with the author,Oshiro Tatsuhiro. I’d read about how theJapanese government had broken its promise ofa post-reversion Okinawa with the basesreduced to “mainland levels,” but it was still ashock to see how little the U.S. militarypresence had changed in the twelve years sincemy last visit.

Sarah: Since I actually lived in Okinawa, I haveeven less excuse for my ignorance than most,still I am stunned by how little Americans knowabout a chain of islands whose destiny we havecontrolled since the end of World War II. Myhope for Above the East China Sea is that,through a fictional narrative, American readerswill be engaged enough to investigate some ofthese complexities. Steve, to what do you

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attribute what George Feifer calls our“collective amnesia” on this topic? Is it assimple as that it suits the Pentagon’s purposes?

Steve: That’s why this novel is so important.This is the first of its kind in English, althoughRoger Pulvers’ Starsand (Bungakkai, April,2012) in Japanese depicting two deserters, oneAmerican and one Japanese, is also set duringthe Battle of Okinawa. Your novel memorablyinforms Americans and other English-languagereaders not only about the trauma anddevastation both sides inflicted on localresidents, but also aboutt various aspects ofOkinawan culture and history. The collectiveamnesia noted by George Feifer results from awidespread wi l l ingness to swa l lowunquestioningly official narratives and popularmyths about the Battle of Okinawa and thepostwar U.S. military presence there. TheJapanese have their own amnesia about thebattle which portrays Okinawans’ sacrifices,including many civilians who took their ownlives, as “beautiful” acts of patriotism. We nowknow that these “suicides” were coerced by theJapanese Imperial Army. A young mother inAbove the East China Sea believes she has “nochoice but to jump” from a cliff to her death inthe ocean. Otherwise, “the soldiers, eitherJapanese or American, will kill us as soon asthe sun rises.” We also know today that theJapanese high command viewed Okinawa as a“throwaway pawn” in their wartime strategy.Recognizing that their forces would bedestroyed by the Americans, the Japanesesought to inflict heavy casualties on theAmericans and buy time for the battle on theJapanese mainland that they expected to follow.We now know that the Battle of Okinawa, thedevastating fire-bombings of Japanese cities,and the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima andNagasaki would never have happened ifEmperor Hirohito had followed civilian adviceto end the war in January, 1945.

According to the official U.S. narrative on thepostwar military presence in Okinawa, 30,000

U.S. forces remain there seven decades afterWorld War II to defend Japan and maintainregional security. Yet these have never beentheir true mission. Rather, they have storedweapons, maintained aircraft, trained 18,000Marines for American deployments elsewhere,dispatched troops to fight in Vietnam, Iraq, andAfghanistan.

By juxtaposing the coerced suicide of a youngmother during the Battle of Okinawa and thenear-suicide of an Air Force sergeant’s teen-age daughter mourning the death of her sisterin Afghanistan, this novel conveys dramaticallyto readers the loss and suffering imposedcontinuously by war and aggressive U.S.military policies on Okinawans and Americansalike.

Sarah: Steve, you helped immeasurably on anop-ed I wrote that was recently published in theN e w Y o r k T i m e s(http://tinyurl.com/Okinawa-op-ed). I wasdismayed because, for reasons of length, myeditor had to cut your insightful comment onthe Pentagon’s justification for our massivemilitary presence on the island: “Do you reallybelieve that 18,000 marines are there to ‘deterthe Chinese?’ No, they are there to doroutinetraining because it's ‘good duty’ andcheap for the Pentagon on bases wherefacilities, land, electricity, and civilian servicesincluding golf course upkeep and lavishhousing are paid for bythe Japanesegovernment.”

Though I was deeply touched by the largenumber of messages of heartfelt appreciation Ireceived from Okinawans after the piece waspublished, I was also subjected to a fewdiatribes from readers who believe that weprovide “a free military” to the Japanese andothers who compared me to Nev i l leChamberlain, with Okinawa being Sudetenland.

Steve: Actually, it’s the other way ‘round. TheJapanese government pays for the U.S. militarydespite the fact that its mission there is far

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more likely to bring war on Japan than todefend the country. The comparison toSudetenland recalls the U.S. military’s claimthat Okinawans preferred American occupationwhich was bringing them “democracy” and“prosperity.”

Sarah: Steve, I have to mention again howfoundational your work was to my project. Noamount of historical, cultural, and politicalresearch could compare with the insight Igained about the Okinawan spirit from readingSouthern Exposure: Modern JapaneseLiterature from Okinawa and Okinawa: TwoPost-War Novellas. For me, nothing is aspowerful as the empathic link a reader makeswith a character. Do you have plans for othercollections?

Steve: Yes, University of Hawaii Press ispublishing a third collection of Okinawanliterature in English translation, co-edited withDavinder Bhowmik. The working title is“Islands of Resistance: Japanese Literaturefrom Okinawa.” It will include works byMedoruma Shun, Sakiyama Tami, andYamanokuchi Baku.

From the book ABOVE THE EAST CHINA SEA.Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Bird. Reprinted byarrangement with Knopf, an imprint of theKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a divisionof Random House LLC.

Sarah Bird’s novel, Above the East China Sea(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385350112?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) was published in spring 2014

by Knopf and is excerpted here. This is hersecond novel set in Okinawa, following YokotaO f f i c e r s C l u b(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0345452771/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20).

Recommended citation: Sarah Bird with SteveRabson, "Above the East China Sea: OkinawaDuring the Battle and Today," The Asia-PacificJournal, Volume 11, Issue 22, No. 2., June 2,2014.Related articles

•Kinjo Shigeaki interviewed by MichaelBradley, "Banzai!" The Compulsory MassSuicide of Kerama Islanders in the Battle ofO k i n a w a(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Yoshiko-Sakumoto_Crandell/4103)

•Oe Kenzaburo, Misreading, Espionage and“Beautiful Martyrdom”: On Hearing theOkinawa ‘Mass Suicides’ Suit Court Verdict(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Oe-Kenzaburo/2915)

•Steve Rabson, Case Dismissed: Osaka CourtUpholds Novelist Oe Kenzaburo for Writingthat the Japanese Military Ordered “GroupSu ic ides” in the Ba t t l e o f Ok inawa(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Steve-Rabson/2716)

•Aniya Masaaki, Compulsory Mass Suicide, theBattle of Okinawa, and Japan's TextbookC o n t r o v e r s y(http://www.japanfocus.org/-Aniya-Masaaki/2629)