"A Conversation" by Yamanokuchi Baku

I cannot find much searching the name Yamanokuchi Baku, especially when I search in English. Yamanokuchi Baku (山之口貘, 1903–1963) was an Okinawan writer and poet. Baku's subject matter ranges from everyday encounters with people in bars to descriptions of his Okinawan homeland or "meditations on his own identity as Okinawan" (Maude 61).

For several decades and continuing today, there is much prejudice towards Okinawans from mainland Japan and the outside world. Being seen as exotic and primitive, Okinawans, like Baku, often worried about how to best explain themselves and the origins to their people. In this post I am sharing two pieces. The first one and Baku's most well-known poem, “A Conversation” (“Kaiwa”) which describes a scene where Baku struggles to respond to a woman who asks “Where are you from?” Baku imagines describing his homeland and the inevitable stereotypes that will arise in the woman's mind.

"The poem, like much of Baku's work, is lightly humorous, but has a dark, serious core—unwilling to tell her directly that he is Okinawan, the poet is forced to become increasingly circuitous about how he presents his identity" (Maude 61).

A Conversation (Kaiwa)

Yamanokuchi Baku

translated by Steve Rabson

"Where are you from," she asked.

I thought about where I was from and lit a cigarette.

That place colored by associations with tattoos, the jabisen,

and ways as strange as ornamental designs.

"Very far away," I answered.

"In what direction" she asked.

That gloomy customs near the southern tip of the

Japanese

archipelago where women carry piglets on their heads and

people walk

barefoot. Was this where I was from?

"South" I answered.

"Where in the south," she asked.

In the south, that zone of indigo seas where it's always

summer and dragon

orchids, sultan umbrellas, octopus pines, and papayas all

nestle together

under the bright sunlight. That place shrouded in miscon-

ceptions

where, it is said, the people aren't Japanese and can't under-

stand the

Japanese language.

"The subtropics." I answered.

"Oh, the subtropics!" she said.

Yes, my dear, can't you see the "subtropics" right here before

your eyes?

Like me, the people there are Japanese, speak Japanese, and

were born

in the subtropics. But viewed through popular stereotypes,

that place I am from

has become a synonym for chieftains, natives, karate, and

awamori.

"Somewhere near the equator," I said.

Shell-Shocked Island

Yamanokuchi Baku

translated by Rie Takagi

The moment I set foot on the island soil

and greeted them Ganjuy*

Very well, thank you

the island people replied in Japanese

My nostalgia at a bit of a loss

I muttered

Uchi nahguchi madhin muru

Ikusani sattaru basui**

to which the island people feigned a smile

but remarked how well I spoke the Okinawan dialect

*How have you been?

**Was even your dialect destroyed by the war?

#poetry #poems #yamanokuchibaku #baku #okinawa #trilogy #okinawanpoetry #okinawanliterature