A Walk Around Minna Jima

Early Spring 2007, Okinawa, Japan

The world now finds itself in a situation where billions of people are practicing social distancing. Quaranting and isolation have become normal and many people are slowly trying to adjust to this new reality. No one is unaffected by this, although the degree to which any individual is affected varies. For many people this may be the first time that they have been confronted with isolation and a lack of social interaction for such a long period of time. There are many technologies that help close the distance between otherwise isolated people. Video conferencing, social media and good old fashioned phone calls all help to give us a sense of connection in an otherwise disconnected world.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve faced isolation, nor do I feel isolated like I have in the past. This crisis has made my mind wander back to 2006 and 2007 when I found myself in the North of Okinawa Japan, where I was working as an English teacher at a high school through the JET program. I was straight out of college and had ambitions to change the world, but I found myself in a situation for which I was clearly unprepared.

During the first month after my arrival the school where I was to work was closed and everyone gone except the security guard. I had to report to the office each day as normal but there was no one there and no assignments for me. I hadn’t even met my students nor did I have any idea what classes I would be assisting. So I just sat in the office and studied Japanese and I would occasionally glance out the window and peer down over the jungle towards the coast far below and the ocean and islands beyond. I would day dream about all of the adventures I could have and I was captivated by the sheer beauty of the island, but behind it all I always had this feeling of unbearable melancholy and loneliness.

I had arrived in Okinawa with $800, half of which I spent in the first week buying the bare necessities. I had no car, no cell phone, no phone line, no internet connection besides in the office, no TV, no washer or dryer, no bed or furniture and no money to buy anything until I could save up a few paychecks. I lived like this for about 4 months at which time I had finally saved enough to pay cash for a 15 year old 4×4 Mitsubishi. Those first few months I felt completely cut off from the outside world and I remember spending a lot of evenings down in the little town sitting by myself on the sea wall behind the supermarket watching the sun sink into the ocean. I felt more or less trapped on the island.

Over time I met a lot of great people who were teaching through the same program and we became friends and shared that year together. Getting a car helped me be able to do many things and to see other parts of the island. But those first few months I certainly felt hemmed in and I lived an extremely socially distant lifestyle. I lived on top of a large hill that overlooked the Toguchi Port on one side and the ocean on the other and I was always mesmerized by all of the islands that surrounded Okinawa, many of which you could just barely make out far, far away on the horizon. I bought a tent and a backpack and about every other Friday I would catch a boat to a new island where I could explore.

I made sure to buy food before I went because you never knew what you’d find when you got there. Usually the islanders would be making their way to the mainland for the weekend and I would wait for the boat to come in and once they all got off I would board and usually I found myself either completely alone or in the company of a couple locals going home. I always had the same plan; get off the boat, find a beach on secluded section of whatever island I was on, make my camp, then take a walk to explore. Typically I could go the entire weekend without encountering anyone, or maybe just bump into a few people here and there. My Japanese wasn’t so great back then anyways, but I learned a lot.

I believe I ended up visiting about 15 different islands over that year, but I made multiple trips to several of them. The brief video I’ve included with this post is of a day trip I did to Minna Jima just off the coast of Motobu on the main island, the town where I lived. The ferry ride was about 15 minutes and didn’t cost very much. Minna Jima is a crescent shaped island and at the time had under 50 permanent residents, but far fewer on a weekend. Some of my friends and fellow teachers even went to the island to teach English to the 3 or 4 children that were in the elementary school there. There’s not much on the island besides a gorgeous beach, but it was cool and overcast on the early Spring day when I went so I was content to just roam around.

I decided not to edit the short film very much and to leave it without any background music so that you could get a sense of what it looks and sounds like to be alone on an island for a day. The sound on my old Sony MiniDV camcorder isn’t great and the tape got corrupted, but I decided not to clean it up too much. I spent 5 or 6 hours on Minna Jima that day (or however long it was between the morning and afternoon ferries). I walked completely around the island, and this video will show you some of the things I saw. So if you’re getting tired of social distancing and longing for interactions with your fellow man, trust me, I understand. For me, the year that spanned from July 2006 to July 2007 was the year of isolation and social distance. If the outside world had ceased to exist it wouldn’t have affected me very much. Looking back at it now, I think I can say that it was one of the tougher periods of my life but certainly one of the most rewarding. I had countless adventures and learned many new things, but most importantly I learned how to navigate a life of boredom and isolation.

So we’ll get through this most extraordinary phase of life, and before we know it normal will return. Who knows, maybe we’ll even miss some aspects of it, just like how I sometimes miss waking up to the wind coming through the trees and the sound of sub-tropical birds singing from the forest, or the sound of waves gently breaking on the shore and the freedom to just set out and see something new each day.

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