ハイサイ! Hello! Aloha! こんにちは！Hola! 안녕하세요! Bonjour! Olá! 你好!
And….well, in however many other languages you can think of. (*^。^*)
My name is Aaron and I’m a member of the WYUA in the Video taking/editing team. Previously I was helping with 琉球ストンプ and still like to practice stomp with the group but, with my research taking up most of my time, I’ve had to reprioritize. >.< Anyway, enough with this introduction and on to more interesting things. Well first, I want to start with telling you what WYUA stands for. It means World Youth Uchinanchu Association. There is the term ‘World’ in there that is important to take note of. It has the meaning of international. However, there are only a few posts here on this blog that are not Japanese. So, it’s time to change that!
As you can read from the title, I want to try and get interaction from the Uchinanchu of the World. I know that this is a blog, but please feel free to use the comments section as a means to communicate to not only us, but also other commentors.
What I will try to do is bring up topics that are either coming up in our meetings over here OR things that I randomly think of that I want to know other peoples opinion about.
I’ll also try and do those interesting things that you do in a blog…like going to various events and sharing what happened there. (*^。^*) If you guys have any requests, like wanting to see certain parts of Okinawa or anything like that, I’ll try and see if I can get there.
Before all of that, I’ll just say that I am not Japanese. My full name is Aaron Kenkichi Ouchi. For those of you familiar with Japanese last (family) names, you’ll be able to tell that I’m not Uchinanchu. By bloodline is 100% from mainland Japan. However, my home is not Japan at all, I’m from Hawaii.
So, “why are you involved in this association?” you may ask. And honestly, I can’t give you a real answer without sounding cheesy.
The real reason that I’m involved is because I’ve been living in Okinawa for the past year and a half and the atmosphere here is so similar to Hawaii. (I think I’ll talk about this sometime later.) It’s a very family like atmosphere where everyone is very welcoming.
Because of this, I’ve gotten interested in Okinawa and the many traditions that are here. I’ve heard that people like me, who have no blood relation to Okinawa, have been called Uchinanchu at Heart. But, would that make me Uchinanchu also?
I ask this because I’m from Hawaii, as I stated before. However, I would NEVER say that I’m Hawaiian.
Its probably not that important of a topic, but I’m actually wondering what you guys think of this. I think that, espcially for those Uchinanchu abroad, you have seen that there are an increasing number of people that are not Uchinanchu by blood but really want to know about Okinawa. Do you think that can call themselves Uchinanchu? Or Uchinanchu at Heart? Or does it really matter?
Well, hope this will get more of the English speaking Uchinanchu looking at this blog. Feel free to message us in English (or any language, we are trying our best to really become international).
Also, sorry. I’m new to this blogging on Ti-da so I don’t how to make this post look interesting. When I have more time to learn, I’ll definatley try and make it look more visually appealing.
Also, please enjoy this song that is performed by Natchy, the same person that sang the Festival theme song:

Also, check out our youtube channel.