300 Mickey mice vol.2
A week stay in Taketomi Island of Okinawa had been passing almost half.
I took a sightseeing carriage with buffalo. The young guide plays the sanshin
guitar very well as guiding.
When we were passing a house, he described "The resident of this house
is the oldest man in this island. He usually sleeps on the terrace in the
afternoon. How's today? He isn't there. You see? I think it's too early
for sleep"
Well, sounds interesting. But ... I thought. "Is it OK that the private
life becomes the subject matter of tour guiding?" On the stand point
of resident, it's quite common that tourist's eyes came into a private
life. Not only for a festival, from an entertainment meeting for elder
people to a graduation ceremony of junior high school, the tourists joined
as a spectator. And the residents seemed to accustom to the situation.
I don't think it's a bad thing. But whenever I got across these kind of
situation, I thought the border line between public and private was not
clear in Taketomi. However, I noticed later. It's not "unclear"
but the border itself was set on the deferent position. The real life of
Taketomi residents are placed much more inside than shown up.
For me, Taketomi was one of the most difficult place for taking photo.
Unless every thing was shown up and 250 thousand tourists took photos,
I couldn't get into behind it.
However, think about it again. I don't need to know inside of Mickey mouse.
"Why can't I just enjoy it as an excellent attraction?" As thinking
like that, I feel like I am a really perverse person.
Sep. 2005
Today's piece
"Nagomi no tou, observation tower in small island" Taketomi Island
, Okinawa, Japan 2002
Inhabitant of white night forest Kihnu and Taketomi |