This was a fun surprise.
Spent most of the day indoors, but in the afternoon my older son wanted to go out and shoot hoops and play catch, so we went to “Yakuin Park”. About an hour later, a large group of tanned kids in sandals showed up. Judging by the buzz cuts most of them had, I figured they were baseball players, but not from these parts.
After chatting and playing with them for about an hour, I learned that they were from Nakagusuku Village, Okinawa, a small town in the middle of the main island, close to Ginowan and the massive Kadena Air Force Base. As I suspected, most of them had distinctly Okinawan family names—Kinjo, Miyagi, and so on. They also had more brothers and sisters than the typical Japanese family. Okinawans are famous for having larger than average families and none of the kids I talked to were only children; all but one had more than two siblings.
They came to take part in a baseball tournament, something they try to do every year and use the Campfire crowdsourcing to fund the trip. (I will be happily donating to the cause in the future.)
When they left, one of the younger boys hugged me. Another, who had been playing basketball with my younger son, told him to come down to Nakagusuku and play with him there. They were all so sweet.
I guess because they were from Okinawa and used to seeing the mixed-race kids of the US military personnel, they had no qualms about approaching us and talking. So very different from kids here in Fukuoka who can be more standoffish towards outsiders.
Later, I googled their school, Nakagusuku Minami. It’s a new school with over 700 students. Liam’s own school has about 600, but Akasaka Elementary which is in the next district has much fewer. Unlike schools here in Fukuoka which are being merged to maintain enrollment, their school was created due to overcrowding at another school.
Our little park hardly has any kids in it most times—the heaviest users are my own two boys—so it was nice to see it packed with kids, spontaneously playing different games and filling the air with their laughter.
