Okinawa

I am writing this from roughly the middle of the East China Sea on a twenty hour sea passage from Shanghai to Okinawa.  Actually, I’m not going to Okinawa but to Ishigaki-Jima which is a part of the Okinawa chain of islands which are, in turn, are part of Japan. I don’t want to insult anyones intelligence by dwelling on what you already know, but, if you, like me, missed this part of the world in your world geography class, a little context might be useful. Okinawa is a chain of 150 or so islands midway between Japan and Taiwan, and lies, as I previously indicated, in the midst of the East China sea.  Of the 44 islands which are inhabited, a...