Sadao China/Nēnēs -- Bye-Bye Okinawa（バイバイ沖縄）

 

Over the past week, NHK has been reporting on the fact that on this day 50 years ago, Okinawa had been returned from the United States back to Japan. This was just a couple of months before my first trip to Japan as a boy, and so at the time, I had no idea about what had happened and for that matter, I don't think I would have known about a place called Okinawa at the time.

Although I have friends and former students who have either visited or lived in Okinawa, I can't say that I know all that much about Japan's southernmost prefecture even with its distinctive culture including its nomenclature. I've had my fine samples of Okinawan delicacies through sweets such as chinsuko and the more savory dishes including goya champuru in Tokyo restaurants that specialized in the cuisine, and have gotten that image of the province as a popular island resort as well as a political hot potato in terms of the American military bases stationed there. Still, I've yet to actually visit Okinawa in person.

This past week's "Uta Con"（うたコン）contributed much of its time to the traditional and poppier music of Okinawa in recognition of the 50th anniversary, but for this first article today, I will be going with a song that didn't appear on the episode but it is a tune by a band that I'd always wanted to write about since encountering them through the pages of "Nippon Pop".

Nēnēs（ネーネーズ）is an Okinawan folk music group that was first formed by famed musician Sadao China（知名定男）in 1990. The name means "sisters" in Okinawan and the lineup has changed periodically over the decades so according to J-Wiki, they've been in their 6th incarnation since 2019. Although a couple of albums had already been released by Nēnēs by that time, in August 1993, the group released their very first single, "Bye-Bye Okinawa", a gently uptempo and cheerfully-delivered song that even has a bit of that American country twang and even some 70s guitar funk embedded in the Okinawan melody.

I also discovered that "Bye-Bye Okinawa" had been a cover of the original song created and recorded by China for his 1978 debut album "Akabana"（赤花...Red Flowers）. With a vocal delivery reminiscent of a slightly smoother-sounding Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, the original version has included some reggae elements in its arrangement, and for me at least, it has that really welcoming tropical feeling. According to China himself, he wanted to send a message to the young people at the time to not forget about Okinawa even though by the time of the album's release, the prefecture had been part of Japan again for some years. The lyrics themselves speak on a person going over his experiences in Okinawa during a vacation before heading back to the mainland.