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Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

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  • Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

    Today's news about live giant squid being caught on film off of the Ogasawara Islands made me wonder where exactly those islands were.

    I did a little googling and was surprised to learn that the Ogasawara Islands, also known as the Bonin Islands, were first settled in the 1820s by Europeans and Americans, then taken over by the Japanese in the 1870s, and then taken from Japan by the USA after WWII in the 1940s, and then given back to Japan in 1968.

    The islanders also stress the uniquely multicultural roots of the Ogasawara life, where roughly one-tenth of the population is descended from early European and American settlers, many known by 'katakana' (Japanese syllabary) names and their families going back up to seven generations. Visitors to Ogasawara are unanimous that it is precisely the differences from the rest of Japan that they cherish about island life.
    Wow! I never knew that such a place existed. I wonder how much intermarriage there has been between the Euro-Americans and the Japanese?

  • #2
    Re: Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

    That's a fascinating link, Glen. "The Galapagos of the East." Imagine -- no pigeons, but nightingales and bulbuls instead. And I'm familiar with the Japanese white-eye, but I'd never heard of the "black-eye" before.

    Different human racial groups living together without noticeable discord. And not a single golf course!


    It sounds gorgeous.

    If word gets out, it'll be ruined.

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    • #3
      Re: Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

      Originally posted by MadAzza
      It sounds gorgeous.

      If word gets out, it'll be ruined.
      I suspect it's too late for that. The Ogasawaras are part of Japan, and Japanese tourists go there all the time - just like how American tourists come to our islands.

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      • #4
        Re: Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

        Hey, here's a Hawai‘i connection. This is from Commodore Matthew Perry's 1853 report to the U.S. Congress regarding the Ogasawaras, or the Bonins as they were called then:

        Peel Island is the only one of the Bonin group inhabited, and it contained on the visit of the Commodore only thirty-one inhabitants, all told: of these, three or four were native Americans, about the same number Englishmen, one a Portuguese, and the remainder Sandwich islanders and children born on the island.

        [...]

        The Sandwich islanders, or Kanakas, as they are not familiarly known to sailors and traders, live very much as they do in their native islands, and have grouped together their palm thatched huts which have very much the appearance of one of their native villages. The inhabitants, living a quiet and easy life in a climate which is genial and wholesome, and upon a land whose fertility supplies them, in return for but little labor, with all they want to eat and drink, do not care to change their condition. The Americans and Europeans have taken to themselves wives from among the good natured and substantial Kanaka women.

        (link)

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        • #5
          Re: Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

          Why are they administered as part of Tokyo? That's like making the U.S. Virgins part of Washington, DC... or Midway part of DC, for that matter.

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          • #6
            Re: Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

            It's not so unusual. The Northwest Hawaiian Islands, except for Midway, are part of the City & County of Honolulu.

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            • #7
              Re: Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

              Originally posted by Glen Miyashiro
              It's not so unusual. The Northwest Hawaiian Islands, except for Midway, are part of the City & County of Honolulu.
              Good point.

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              • #8
                Re: Japan's multicultural Ogasawara Islands

                Originally posted by Rickyrab
                Why are they administered as part of Tokyo? That's like making the U.S. Virgins part of Washington, DC... or Midway part of DC, for that matter.
                Seems like someone was offended enough to give this post a negative Reputation score. How come?

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