Observing New Foreigners

The new JETs arrived a couple weeks ago but this past Thursday and Friday they had their Okinawa orientation. I helped out with the ‘remote islanders/elementary’ session and attended a couple evening social events.

On Saturday 40+ people showed up at the port in Naha for the annual Tokashiki [Island] trip. I helped a little with the organization before the 10am departure, but got on the Zamami boat when it was time to leave. Once home I hurriedly unpacked, ate lunch, then packed up my kayak and headed over to Tokashiki. Even with a slight headwind I did the ~4km trip in 1.5 hours, far faster than expected. I caught a mahi-mahi on the way, too, which provided my dinner.

[This fish looks a lot smaller than I remember it]

The party was what you’d expect from 40 twenty-somethings camping on a beach alone: lots of alcohol, one-night couples, and late bedtimes. It also gave me a lot of insight into the Okinawa JET population. They are very different than the other large group I have seen abroad, that of my Peace Corps class. The JET group seems to have fewer like-minded people (on issues like environment, social class awareness and understanding, gender issues, anti-consumerist). I think the JET community would still fit into the liberal stereotype applied to those living abroad, but the liberalism I see here is more along the lines of a new word I saw last year: latte liberalism. (It means preaching liberal values but not actually observing them.) The diverse crowd makes things interesting, but friendships were easier for me in Peace Corps where I found more similar people.