From Memoirs of a Declining Ryukyuan Woman

Hi everyone,

I've been reading Southern Exposure which is assigned to me by Professor Davinder Bhowmick. I'm learning for the first time the power of identity and resistence for Okinawans. I picked out a line of the hundreds I've been wanting to share.

"Memoirs of a Declining Ryukyuan Woman"

by Kushi Fusako and translated by Kimiko Miyagi.

"Even our songs that aren't that sad often have rhythmic chants of nonsense syllables and melodies of passionate abandon like those heard in American jazz.

Such music was probably born of the smoldering emotions in a people oppressed for hundreds of years. Yet I loved this scenery at sunset and yearned for something in myself to compare with its declining beauty" (80 Southern Exposure).

American jazz emerged from African American communities during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Jazz emergred from oppressed peoples and like the songs of Okinawa the author illuminates the music of Okinawa in a similar way; emerging from the minority and holding true to strong emotions felt from discrimination.

I continue to wonder however what the meaning of "declining beauty" is.