The Okinawan Kings

The Sho kings ruled the Ryukyu Kingdom (archipelago between Taiwan and Kyushu) from the early 15th century through 1879. What really set them apart was the fact that they had no standing army and survived by trade and diplomacy alone. The region they’re located in was very turbulent but they still managed to establish strong trade routes stretching from Siberia to Siam.

Ryukyuan ships, often provided by China, traded at ports such as Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Java, Malacca, Pattani, Palembang, Siam, Sumatra, China, and many others. They traded Japanese materials (silver, swords, fans, lacquer ware, folding screens), Chinese materials (medicinal herbs, minted coins, glazed ceramics, brocades, textiles), Southeast Asian materials (sappanwood, rhino horn, tin, sugar, iron, ambergris), Indian ivory, and Arabian frankincense.

While other nations were plotting invasions and developing schemes, the Ryukyu Kingdom earned a reputation as an honest broker. They were known to China as the “country of courtesy”. The Ryukyu Kingdom was filled with peace, trade, and a lively local culture.

The kingdom also managed to avoid any invasions thanks to the integral role it played in international trade as well as the support it received from Chinese emperors. It’s important to keep in mind that Okinawa was not actually part of Japan at this point. The Ryukyu Kingdom was truly its own kingdom.

The Invasion

Which brings us to the next point – when the Ryukyu Kingdom finally was invaded. By Japan. Around 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi asked the Ryukyu Kingdom to help him conquer Korea. If successful, Hideyoshi planned to take on China next. Since the Ryukyu Kingdom was a tributary state of the Chinese Ming Dynasty, they refused the request.

This ticked off Japan, so in 1609 the feudal lord of Satsuma invaded the Ryukyu Islands and put an end to the kingdom’s prosperity. The king was kidnapped, and the Ryukyu Kingdom was forced to swear allegiance to Satsuma. The Satsuma clan also took over all their trade as well.

Even though the kingdom’s independence was gone, the Sho family continued to reign for 270 more years. During this time, the kingdom walked a fine line between the Chinese and Japanese emperors. The Ryukyu Kingdom was still paying tribute to China, and during Japan’s 250 years of isolation, the kingdom was Japan’s main avenue of international trade.

Commodore Matthew Perry even paid a visit to the kingdom. In 1853 he demanded an audience with the king and was received warmly (albeit a little perplexed) by the Ryukyu court. Perry thought the place was “as pleasant as any in the world”. This sounds like a pretty neutral way to refer to a place, but since he took home a number of gifts, he probably enjoyed the time he spent there.

Sneaky Trade Ensues

China was more or less kept in the dark concerning the Japanese influence on the Ryukyu Kingdom. Though it was technically under the control of Satsuma, Ryukyu was given a great degree of autonomy. The reason for this was trade with China.

Ryukyu was a tributary state of China, and since Japan had no formal diplomatic relations with China, it was essential that Beijing not realize that Ryukyu was actually controlled by Japan. So even though Satsuma and Japan were now in control of Ryukyu, they had to leave them alone for the most part. Otherwise China would know something was going on.

Because of this, Japan was unable to visibly occupy Ryukyu or directly control the policies and laws there. The Ryukyu royal government, the Satsuma daimyo, and the shogunate itself all benefited from this strange arrangement.

They made Ryukyu seem like as much of a distinctive and foreign country as they possibly could. Japanese people were prohibited from visiting Ryukyu without explicit permission and the Ryukyu people were forbidden from taking Japanese names, wearing Japanese clothes, or adopting Japanese customs.

The Ryukuans were even forbidden from expressing any knowledge of the Japanese language during their trips to Edo. As the only clan to have a king and an entire kingdom as vassals, Satsuma gained a significant amount of respect from Ryukyu’s exoticism, further reinforcing that it was an entirely separate kingdom.

Eventually, Japan began to harass China for total control over the Ryukyu Kingdom. Japan ordered them to stop paying tribute to China in 1875 and China’s relationship with the islands was abolished in 1879. The kingdom itself was then abolished, and the islands annexed as Okinawa Prefecture. However, the Ryukyuans were not truly considered a part of Japan and the Ryukyu people were not considered to be Japanese.

The Sho Family Today

Shuri Castle today

Prince Tsuguru Sho does not live the life of a prince. He owns a bar in Tokyo and hardly anyone realizes he is of royal blood. Tsuguru is too busy running the bar and serving food to care. Sho’s Zen restaurant is just down the street from Japan’s Imperial Palace too.

As for myself and my relatives, we take great pride in the name Sho. But the Ryukyu Kingdom has become Okinawa Prefecture, and we go about our business as normal citizens.
- Tsuguru Sho

The Ryukyu court is gone and their treasures and artifacts now rest in museums inside and out of Japan. The family keeps their traditions alive through use of their own court dialect, much like Japan’s imperial family. They speak it with each other, most often at family gatherings.

They have these family gatherings because these days the family is pretty spread out. In Okinawa, family members run prep schools, nurseries, and parking garages. When the family’s reign officially ended, Japan gave them numerous privileges and signs of respect. They were given seats in the House of Peers, and some of them even married into the imperial family.

Unfortunately, these privileges ended with the battle of Okinawa during World War II. More than 90% of Okinawans were homeless near the end of the war in 1945, including the Sho family. Shuri Castle was reduced to rubble (it’s since been restored) and the House of Peers was disbanded. Okinawa was now under the control of the United States and remained that way for 27 years until it was finally returned to Japan in 1972.

So the Sho family basically lives like any other Japanese family these days. Some family members are worried that the younger generations might not keep with tradition and carry on things like the family’s court dialect, but overall things are pretty decent for the Sho family today. Regardless of how well known they are today, their legacy will always live on in the history books.

Sources Referenced:
Okinawa Prefecture Wikipedia
Ryukyu Kingdom Wikipedia
Baltimore Sun

Japanese vs. European Bullfighting

While you (hopefully) won’t find any bullfighting in Tokyo, it’s something that’s native to the Ryukyu islands in southern Japan, where it’s called 闘牛, or togyu; but unlike European bullfighting, there aren’t any colorful costumes or swords.

European bullfighting is a brutal sport. A matador faces off one-on-one against a bull, in the slow, bloody death of the bull. It’s not a pretty sight, and there’s a huge movement against traditional European bullfighting.

Even though karate master Mas Oyama was a bull-killing machine, traditional Japanese bullfighting is relatively tame.

Togyu is a fight between two bulls instead of a bull and a person. The bulls push and shove each other around the arena, locked horn-in-horn, until one of them is too tired to go on and is defeated.

The point of the fight isn’t to kill, or even hurt a bull. People intervene right away if there’s any risk that a bull will get injured.

Some foreigners call the sport “bull sumo,” and that’s not a bad description. Togyu has much more in common with sumo wrestling than it does with European bullfighting. Togyu even borrows some terminology from sumo—a champion bull is called a yokozuna, just like a sumo champ.

That’s not to say that there’s absolutely no risk involved in Togyu; after all, you can only be so safe with giant, horned animals. Last week, one trainer was gored to death by a one-ton bull on the southern Japanese island of Tokunoshima.

But these kinds of deaths are pretty rare, and even with the dangers of togyu, it ain’t gonna go away anytime soon. Not only is it a culturally important activity that’s been around for centuries in southern Japan, but it’s also a huge tourist draw.

Next time you’re in the Ryukyu islands, take the opportunity to check out togyu and see how the Japanese do bullfighting. Just don’t shout ¡Olé!

Bonus!

Our illustrator Aya has once again not only made animated GIFs of the header image of this post, but a wallpaper sized version too. Enjoy!

Animated GIF (1280×800)

Wallpaper (2560×1440)

While Japan is no India (which has over 20 recognized languages), there’s more to the language than just regular ol’ Japanese. As I saw on Reddit earlier this week, it turns out that there are at least eight different languages that are completely unique to Japan (and even more that have gone extinct).

Even though Japan is a pretty small country, it has a ton of smaller islands that most people don’t even know exist. And sometimes those little islands developed languages of their own. Let’s take a look at some of those Japanese languages you might never have heard of before:

Standard Japanese

Standard Japanese or 標準語 (hyoujungo), the language we all know (or are getting to know) and love. It’s the national language, so you can speak this to anybody in Japan and they’d understand what you’re saying.

Of course, Japanese changes a bit depending on which part of the country you’re in but for the most part, standard Japanese is universally understood.

Japanese Sign Language (JSL)

Ever since I was exposed to American Sign Language, I’ve had an interest in sign language in general. People tend to think that sign language is just a culture’s spoken language translated into hand gestures, but it’s so much different than that.

While it does share some elements with spoken Japanese (like the characters shown above), it’s fair to say that JSL is an entirely different language altogether.

Ainu

The Ainu are Japan’s native people who mainly live in the north of the country whose culture is different than the ethnic group we now know as ethnic Japanese.

They have their own language too, which is completely unrelated to standard Japanese. Actually, there were a whole bunch of Ainu languages, but most of the variants have become extinct, leaving only Hokkaido Ainu.

Hachijo

Hachijo is spoken is the small set of islands just south of Tokyo, islands which include Hachijo and the beautiful Aogashima (which we’ve written about before.)

Apparently, the language is related to a much older form of Japanese but, being on such isolated islands, changed and grew differently than standard Japanese.

Amami

A lot of Japan’s languages emerge from the smaller island cultures that stretch down from the south of the country and are called Ryukyuan languages. First on that list is Amami, a set of about a dozen island south of Kyushu.

Like a lot of languages on this list, it splits up even more as you move through the islands. Different islands can have drastically different dialects, so learning it on one island doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to speak the language.

Miyako

Keep traveling south and you’ll bump into the Miyako islands, where you’ll find a language that sounds very different than standard Japanese. Just listen to this guy speaking in Miyako language:

If you know or are familiar with standard Japanese, then what he’s saying is probably completely indecipherable. But, believe it or not, it’s still a Japanese language — just not the one you’re used to.

Yaeyama

Keep on truckin’ down the Okinawan islands, and you’ll find yourself at Japan’s southernmost point, in a series of islands called the Yaeyama islands. They’ve somehow become associated with dietary supplements called “Yaeyama Chlorella.”

But more important is the Yaeyama language. The language spoken there is really different — instead of the five vowel sounds you find in standard Japanese (a, i, u, e, o), there’s only three (a, i, o). There are a ton of other differences too, but this one is the most glaring.

Yonaguni

In the Yaeyama islands, within spitting distance of Taiwan is Yonaguni. It’s a tiny little island with only about 2,000 people living there, but it’s famous for being Japan’s westernmost point, and for having underwater alien pyramids (f’reals).

The spoken language shares a lot in common with the other Ryukyuan languages, but one more thing sets it apart from the others — the written language. Up until the 1930s, people in Yonaguni used a writing system called Kaidaa, characters that looked like pictures, a lot like hieroglyphics. You’ll still see them used around the area from time to time, but the written language has mostly fallen in line with the rest of the country.

Language is Always Changing

Sadly, most of these languages are endangered and will probably become extinct within our lifetimes as its last speakers die out. That’s not to say that Japan is becoming a place where everybody talks the same way.

Most people think that because we’re all so connected through the internet and other media now, that languages would start becoming more and more the same; but in some cases, languages are actually getting more different and distinct.

In the US, linguists are observing what’s known as the “Northern cities vowel shift,” a fundamental change in the way in how vowels are pronounced. Some say that it’s one of the biggest changes to English in 1,000 years.

In the same way, Japanese dialects can be extremely different from one another. Some dialects (like Tohokuben, which we wrote about last year), can be so unlike other dialects that native Japanese speakers might have a hard time understanding it.

While these Japanese dialects can’t replace the languages and cultures that are disappearing, it’s nice to see that different, unique cultures are still flourishing.

Read More: Japan: Eight endangered languages in the Japanese archipelago

Header photo by Franck GIRAL