Southern Accents

Adieu, then, Keith Floyd! My previous post was made just twelve hours or so before his departure. Keith found time to squeeze in a few last glasses, oysters and partridge/grouse at Mark Hix’s restaurant in Bridport before the final call.

I’ve also made a few changes to my travel plans to Japan in a few weeks. Originally I’d planned to travel from Fukuoka to Kagoshima and then take a ferry across the island of Yakushima. A wonderful place to be sure, but I did the maths of the journey. I’d buy a week-long travel pass that would allow me to take the train to Kagoshima and then back to Osaka and I’d have the cost of the ferry as well. This would work out at around £300 in total. I was ringing the travel agent about some other detail and asked about how much it would cost to fly from Fukuoka to Amami (an island yet further south) and then back to Osaka. There weren’t any direct flights to Amami from Fukuoka so it would still involve a train to Kagoshima or a rather round about flight via Osaka or Tokyo. Well, the long and short of it was that since I am flying on a partner airline of ANA I can add on internal flights relatively cheaply and, no, I’m not going to Yakushima, Amami or even Okinawa. I’m heading yet further south, as far south as Japan gets, to the Yaeyama islands. Where?

I’ll be flying from Fukuoka to Ishigaki and plan to divide my time between there and the nearby island of Iriomote. It’s still working out cheaper (although not that much!) than travel to Yakushima. I visited the main island of Okinawa a few years ago and thought it wonderful, despite the resort hotels and geographical dominance of the American bases. Okinawan music was the first “Japanese” music that I grew to like and I am a less than competent player of the sanshin, a three-string banjo that arrived in the islands via China and then developed in the Japanese shamisen.

Here’s the Yaeyama-born sanshin player Oshima Yasukatsu and the singer UA:

Hmm, okay let’s try for some Yaeyama music with a slightly more natural backdrop. Here’s Hatoma Kaneko and mother entertaining some visitors on rainy day:

That’s about the best I can find! Most of the videos posted are either:

1. Lush HD video of the wonderful scenery and animals but schmaltzy BGM.
2. Overly-produced folk music with string sections and people singing in Japanese rather than Yaeyama dialect.

Well, that’s part of the story of these islands. Okinawa is a Japanese holiday destination and, whilst I’m hoping that the Yaeyama group may have escaped some of the excesses of Okinawa central, it is one substantial means of income for the area. Better or worse? Well, I’ve no way of telling from here. But what about the food? Well, there’s possibly not much point writing about food until you arrive in a place, although I’m capable of working myself up into a state of excitement over various dishes. There’s a brief guide here.

Err, npushuu or broiled horsemeat? I’m certainly looking forward to mimigaa, a salad made from pig’s ear. Aside from a hotel breakfast or two, I didn’t eat anything in Okinawa last time that wasn’t delicious and revelatory. Including A&W root beer, for that matter!

Some searching this morning also turned up a few prized local food protects in Ishigaki. There’s the local sea salt and also an apparently much lauded chili oil made from local peppers at this small Chinese restaurant called Pengin:

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A few bottles of that should cover some souvenir obligations. Not to mention that the intriguing concept of a local producer of chili flavoured mayonnaise I spotted elsewhere. Come on, chili mayonnaise with okonomiyaki? What’s not to like?

Yes, it may rain much of the time I’m there, there’s every chance of an autumn typhoon, so I might not see too much of the wild cats, mangroves and the rest. But there will certainly always be food, drink and music!