Word: okinawa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Religion Spurned. He could hardly have picked a more difficult place for his labors. The last missionary who had tried to help Okinawa's destitute victims had been deported for meddling. When Aoki arrived, the afflicted were either kept hidden by their families or left on the beaches to starve. Many of them managed to live by creeping into stores, threatening to touch the goods on display unless the storekeeper paid them off with food...
Lowest Point. Aoki's colony was making quiet progress when the islanders were suddenly aroused by a Japanese plan to build a leprosarium on Okinawa. They burned the lumber for the buildings, finally forced Tokyo to postpone the plan. Then an enterprising newspaper printed a story about Aoki's work, and nearby farmers marched on the colony, pulled the huts down with ropes (they were afraid to touch the boards) and burned them. Aoki's small band got until sundown to get off Okinawa. They fled by boat to an uninhabited island off the coast to start...
Undaunted. Aoki slipped back to Okinawa, used intermediaries to buy up a wooded island called Yagaji, just off the peninsula shore. Two wealthy Japanese Christians donated money to build a central hall and two dormitories. A new colony, called Airaku-en (Garden of the Haven of Love) was started, and Aoki became its manager. The following year the Japanese government decided to use Aoki's site for its leprosarium, built a hospital and several other buildings. The colony's population jumped from 42 to 242, and some blamed Aoki for the government's brutally efficient gathering process...
Behind the Symphony of the Air lay a 42-concert tour of Japan, Korea. Okinawa, Formosa, the Philippines. Thailand, Malaya and Ceylon that endowed the U.S. with musical glory and cultural good will, and provided the indefatigable 92 with eight weeks of experiences that will give them anecdotes for years...
Full Cycle. Out of nowhere to Okinawa came World War II. The Japanese turned on Christians, treated Aoki as a spy, and drove him out of the colony. He tried living on an offshore rock, got the police to jail him until they needed the jail for criminals, finally went to live in an abandoned tomb. Later, he dragged himself from his tomb to have a leg amputated. Making his way back to Airaku-en, he found his colony demolished by U.S. bombs (the U.S. thought Yagaji a submarine base) and his old companions back in the caves...