At the heart of the story of the Himeyuri, what turned this from simply being one more example of courage during terrible times into horror (at least for me), was an order given right before Okinawa fell to the Americans; the order commanding the Nurse Corps to be disbanded. I am sure there are many complex reasons to this I cannot even begin to fathom but the history books show that this had two major consequences; the obvious, of course, being that the two hundred girls that made up the Himeyuri no longer were under the protection of the Imperial Army. This certainly sealed their fates since they were caught between the retreating Japanese and the advancing Americans, but there was another outcome that is harder for me to explain but I suspect just as important; since they were now citizens they no longer could expect to win their family the honor of having their names enshrined at Yasukuni; a Shinto shrine in Tokyo dedicated to the spirits of soldiers who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan.

I will be the first to admit I grossly uninformed about Japanese culture; I am an outsider looking in. Because I come from a culture in which such an honor would be dubious at best, in the first draft of this script I left out the controversy surrounding Yasukuni. It seemed far too complicated to explain in a ten minute film. However, doing so not only simply illustrates my own ignorance but also ignores a large motivating factor in many of these girls' decisions as to enlist with the Himeyuri in the first place. Patriotism for the Emperor was not limited to Japanese men only; in the oral histories I have read and listened to plenty of the Okinawan girls stated one of their motivations was to be rewarded with a chance for their families to receive such a high honor as enshrinement at this Shinto temple.

Whatever the reasons as to why the Himeyuri were disbanded (and scholars much more knowledgeable than I would need to answer for that) the facts remain that they were; the remaining girls who had survived for so long suddenly found themselves abandoned with an advancing enemy that was shooting, bombing and burning everything in its path.

Notes:

Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru – Highest ranking officer coordinating the southern defense of the island.

Naguri – Okinawan for farewell. It can also mean a memory, a keepsake, remains or a faint trace of one who is no longer there.

Shinshii – Teacher. While the Japanese would say Sensei, this is the Okinawan pronunciation.

[The order from the Imperial Army to retreat from the American advancing army has been issued. cut to: the surviving members of the 3rd Army Surgery Unit gathering around a map trying to come up with a way to get all the Himeyuri, themselves as well as all the wounded under their care safely back before their cave is attacked]

Doctor #1: This can be done, I know it.

Shinshii: This is insane, we have nearly five hundred people – most of which can't even walk – under our care. We don't even have a truck to use! We might as well stay here and let the Americans kill us in the caves.

Doctor #3: Now is not the time to lose heart. The Army will provide for us.

Shinshii: Where have you been all this time? Where is the Army now? Do you think they'll come back for us? We have been abandoned.

Doctor #3: Nonsense, our nurses are being addressed right now by the section chief for our unit. His orders come directly from Ushijima. We shall get out of this alive, you just see.

[cut to: Section Chief talking to the last Himeyuri. The sound of distant enemy artillery fire and bombs can be heard, constantly, coming closer]

Section Chief: Nurses of the Star Lily Corps. You have done heroic acts under constant enemy fire, risking your lives for the glory of the Emperor. For that the Imperial Japanese Army salutes you. You might have heard rumors by now that your surgery unit will fall back with the rest of the Imperial Army. This is not true! What I am about to read to you comes directly from Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima himself; consider this, then, law. “The 3rd Army Surgery Unit is no longer a desirable asset in the defense of Japan. The Unit will now be disbanded and all members ordered to return home. It is regrettable to do so but we must sacrifice everything for the Emperor.”

Kohitsuji [suddenly realizing what this means]: But, but if we're not part of the Imperial Army we can't get into Yasukuni.

Katsuko [sobbing]: No! No! They can't, we will all die …

Section Chief: As a way of parting please sing “Farewell Okinawa.”

[cut to: Himeyuri all singing]

“But it's goodbye now and forever, farewell/ Say goodbye to Okinawa/ Naguri/ Naguri/ Goodbye/ Goodbye …”

Doctor #3: I was mistaken, we really are abandoned … there is no way any of us will make it home now.

Wounded Soldier #4: No! No! Don't leave me behind —

Wounded Soldier #5: This is the end, the end –

[cut to: two officers whispering in the dark of the caves]

Officer #1: The order has been given, then. We must be strong and carry out our mission.

Officer #2: This is too cruel, I cannot believe Ushijima would tell us to do such a thing! There is no honor in this.

Officer#1: Idiot! We are not to question orders, just to execute them. You call yourself an officer? Bah! You know what to do, now do it!

[cut to: Himeyuri, doctors, medics all sleeping on mats together. They will march away in the morning. Even at night the room is full of tense, miserable energy. Shinshii rises, worried and restless]

Shinshii [to himself]: Tomorrow we leave and … what is going to happen? All these girls are going to die and there is nothing I can do.

Katsuko: Shinshii, I am hungry.

[voices in the dark: yes, hungry, we are hungry too]

Shinshii [getting up]: Yes, food will help! I didn't want to say anything because it is suppose to last us on our trip home but a Colonel left us a box of food. He said “use it as soon as possible.”

[suddenly everyone is awake, excited. Cut to: Shinshii dragging a large box into the room]

Shinshii: Everyone, come here! Let us celebrate our leaving with some good food!

[cut to: row after row of hand grenades, enough for each girl. dead silence as everyone realize what this means for them. fade out]

[The next morning in pouring rain. The Himeyuri are gathered outside their cave, waiting to start the long journey home]

Katsuko: I can't find her – where is Kohitsuji-san?

Higa: She's helping Ashitomi-san get ready.

Tira: Where have you been all this time? Ashitomi-san can't even get up! She's been ill for the last week.

Katsuko [stunned]: What? How can that be? How are we going to take her with us?

Higa: Carry her, I guess.

[cut to: interior of the cave. The wounded have yet to be removed. Shinshii and Kohitsuji find Ashitomi slumped in a corner, too weak to even sit up]

Kohitsuji: [panic at seeing her best friend so ill] No, no, no! We have to get you out of here. Shinshii, what are we going to do?

Shinshii: I am going to carry her all the way back home.

[they attempt to get Ashitomi to grab onto Shinshii's back, but she is coughing up blood and can barely raise her head]

Kohitsuji: Ashitomi-san, don't give up please!

[suddenly Ashitomi begins screaming, struggling, sobbing]

Ashitomi: Let me go, I won't go, let me go!

Kohitsuji: Don't say that! You are my best friend!

Ashitomi: Let me die here! Let me die! I can't even move …

[a roar; outside the cave explosions, screams; a soldier rushes in]

Soldier: Shinshii! Run! The enemy has arrived! They are on the other side of the hill! Run!

Kohitsuji [sobbing]: No, my love! I won't leave you!

Ashitomi: Kohitsuji-san?

Kohitsuji: Yes?

Ashitomi: If … if you love me then please, go now.

Kohitsuji: What?

Ashitomi: Hell must be so full … I don't want to bring anyone else. Please, Kohitsuji-san, live.

Shinshii [utterly wretched]: I … see …

Kohitsuji: My friend, my heart …

Ashitomi: I hate this … so much … so much.

Kohitsuji [whimpering, moaning]: Oooooh ….

[they leave as bombs begin falling steadily outside]

Wounded Man [terrified]: They … they left us …

[cut to: the Himeyuri, marching in rain. Kohitsuji and Shinshii defeated, frightened. Bombs begin dropping on either side of the long line of girls. f/x: the sound of gunfire can be heard in the caves they just left]

Kohitsuji: Wh- what is that? Guns? Are the Americans killing them?

Shinshii [softly]: Those aren't American guns.

Kohitsuji: What?! We must go back! Ashitomi-san!

Shinshii: Kohitsuji-san … no.

[cut to: the last remaining doctor, going from body to body, pouring a mixture of milk and cyanide into their bowls]

Doctor: For the Emperor … banzai …

Ashitomi: Hey, don't forget me.

Doctor: No, not you. The Americans won't kill you … you're a girl.

Ashitomi: What the hell does that mean? Am I not to have honor? You stupid men escape and leave me behind? Damn you!

Kohitsuji: Ashitomi, where are you? I have to go back! For all my love I have to go back!

Note on Music Used:

Schubert's “Piano Trio E flat major op.100” arranged and performed on a rainy day in a downtown parking lot by the Armenian cello jam-band Horny Goat Weed (May 10, 2008; Detroit, Michigan) … cellos rule!

A Couple of Notes:

Throughout this movie I have been trying to use only Okinawan phrases and concepts in the dialog. Thus, using the Okinawan term for mother, “Okkaa,” instead of the Japanese,“Okasan,” makes perfect sense to me. However, because 99% of my research comes from books, there are certain phrases I will remain ignorant about until I finally make an Okinawan friend who can correct my mistakes. For example, what would the wounded soldiers call the nurses? I am not sure what the Okinawan word for “Nurse” actually is; plus there are so many other factors to think about. Most of the soldiers are grown men (many Japanese, not Okinawan) all hurt or maimed in some terrible way or other and all requiring deeply personal assistance that they probably have never asked a fourteen year old girl to do before (as a nurse aide myself I have seen the struggle my residents go through just to ask me to do something as personal as wipe them after using the bathroom; never mind if there are social boundaries like age and gender involved).

Finally, I settled on “Wunai” as a good term to use. Its definition is “A sister, either elder or younger, from her brother's point of view” (Sakihaea, 221). If I was slowly rotting from gangrene in a humid cave without pain killers or anyway to keep clean I think I'd consider anyone helping me to be family. However, there is another term closely linked to “Wunai,” which is “Wunai-gami” — which is, “a sister deity, referring to a sister when she is acting in accordance to the traditional belief that she has spiritual powers to protect her brother” (ibid.) Perhaps the closest thing we have in the West is the concept of a Guardian Angel but regardless, since the line is spoken to Kohitsuji by a young man dying of brain fever (a horrific way to die by all accounts; unchecked fevers that literally stripping away one's humanity as the brain rots from within), since she herself was in training to be an onarigami before the war started, his begging to her to play out her role as his divine sister seemed appropriate.

At the end of the film I try to make a point about something I came across in an excellent book by George Feifer, who quotes Shigemi Furukawa as saying: The way of bushido is to die – but in this battle where we and the enemy stand on different dimensions of metal and supplies, it completely loses its meaning. Something is now beginning that has had no precedent in Japanese military: death without meaning.

Ask any Westerner with a professed love of all things Japanese and they might not be able to tell you who the current Prime Minister is but they'll know all about Bushido (since all samurai movies feature at least one Mifune Toshiro wannabe "finding the right place to die" by simply gutting himself like a bluefish on the field of battle). I know the explanations are very complex as to why many Japanese choose to rewrite the Battle of Okinawa in order to cast the Imperial Army in a favorable light (and by doing so negate the atrocities committed against the Okinawans) but I wonder to what extent seeing the defense of Okinawa as a "death without meaning" has been a motivation in this rewriting; especially for people trying to honor ancestors who might not have been very honorable right before they died?

“Amazing Grace” — Let's just say singing in Okinawan is not as easy as I hoped; anyone with a better voice is welcome to submit their version and I will gratefully use it in the film (hint, hint).

Coming up with music for these films has been interesting; sometimes I have been forced to improvise as I went along (that is me mumbling a lullaby in the second film simply because I couldn't find anyone else willing to try to sing in Okinawan … not that I'd call what I am doing “singing” in its pure sense). Still, once in a while I come across a rendition of a song I am so blown away with I think “that's it! If I ever get a budget for this project I want this person to perform on it!” I was blown away by a performance by Natsukawa Rimi singing Amazing Grace in Okinawan! Even though after seeing the Japanese TV version of the Himeyuri, which uses the traditional American Gospel song sung in English, I had decided against using it (after all, I don't want to simply cut and paste somebody else's work and call it my own) … but after listening to Rimi's version I can't but want her to sing an Okinawan version of Amazing Grace in my movie too.

Natsukawa Rimi you are my new hero!

[cut to: the endless rain, mud, night. An Imperial Army hospital truck bringing wounded to the 3rd Surgery Unit. Cut to: nurses unloading countless bodies.]

Tira: How many came in this time?

Ashitomi: Eleven, I think.

Higa: I counted thirteen, but one is dead, I think. He lost his face.

Katsuko: Please, I need a stretcher!

[cut to: stretchers, Himeyuri hauling bodies into the caves]

[f/x: water dripping from cave walls. Ashitomi hurrying from body to body, checking bandages. The wounded are grouped depending on the type of treatment they need to receive, almost all are amputations. In one corner untreated gangrene cases toss about in agony; their limbs swelled dark and grotesquely]

Wounded Soldier #1: Wunai … please, wunai …

Ashitomi: Yes? What is the matter?

Wounded Soldier #1: I am … so ashamed. Please, I need to go to the bathroom … I can't move, it's been two days … please.

[cut to: Ashitomi bends down to pick up a bed pan only to find it is half-full with urine. She undoes the wounded man's trousers and helps slide them down. As the man urinates Ashitomi tries not to vomit. They are both highly embarrassed]

Wounded Soldier #2: Wuani-gami, it hurts! Please kill me!

Kohitsuji: Brain fever … gangrene … tetanus … he will die soon … he is not even human now.

[cut to: A small antechamber set off from the cave. Kohitsuji helps hold down the leg of a screaming boy. There is no pain killer. A doctor takes an old saw and begins to slice the leg off. The boy twists and screams in pain. Suddenly his eyes go blank and the screaming stops but the doctor keeps cutting into the boy as if so exhausted he can do nothing else]

Wounded Soldier #3 [sitting up in bed and shouting]: Hey! You bastard!

[jumps up and grabs a small, wounded officer, begins choking him]

Wounded Soldier #3: You bastard! You ordered us to attack yesterday! You! You killed everyone! You ordered us to attack knowing we would all die! I will kill you!

Ashitomi [rushing over]: Please, sir! Please let go!

Wounded Soldier #3 [slowly turning around in disbelief] : Idiot! What do you know? You are a child! Why are you even here? [strikes Ashitomi]

[Ashitomi lands in mud and urine and feces. Kohitsuji and Katsuko rush over to help her up]

Ashitomi: Me? Me? I'm the idiot? We are in hell and I'm the idiot? [screams]

[f/x: moans and screams all around cave]

Wounded Boy: We are forsaken … Forsaken! Where is my honor? Don't let me die this way … give my death meaning … my death … my death!!

Works Cited

Feifer, George. The Battle of Okinawa. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press (1992)

Sakihara, Mitsugu. Okinawan-English Wordbook. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press (2006)

This is an image I made of a Star Lily, the lilium auratum, which gets used interchangeably throughout both this story and histories of the Himeyuri.

When I started writing this poem I was fascinated with the Okinawa word kusa-nu-nuii; grass roots. Grass isn't as beautiful as lilies, of course, but the lilies are gone from this life for now and forever; it is you and I, the grass, that remains. Then I stumbled upon the phrase kaamii kee-sun; literally translated as “to forcefully flip a turtle over or on its back.”

That seemed more appropriate to the story, though I couldn't work the turtle and the grass into a 3-line haiku. As I understand it, the phrase can have several meanings; to commit an act of violation or rape, to brutally maim or, (perhaps my translation is poor but it is closer to the spirit of the poem I am working on) to annihilate completely.

Star Lilies all gone …
… so let our sleeping grass roots
have long memories.

History, they say, has terrible ways of repeating itself. In this part of the film we meet a 10 year-old girl, Chiaki; a neighbor of Kohitsuji's, someone she tries to take care of even as the Himeyuri begin their fateful march across the island to the battle front.

I chose the name Chiaki on purpose; it is the the pseudonym of a young girl the Okinawa media dubbed “Chiaki Hibi;” a junior high school student raped this year in February by a U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergent. For a full account of the incident as well as the reports of some activists actually trying to get something done, please read the Feminist Peace Network's resolution.

Regardless of my Government's lawyers who appear to be trying to place the blame squarely on the the 14 year-old (labeling her as some sort of Okinawan Lolita) I have a hard time separating the story of this young child from the children who made up the Himeyuri in 1946. In both cases those who claimed to have a vested interest in their protection (and the population of Okinawa itself, truth be told) allowed terrible things to happen on their watch. Whatever your feelings about our U.S. Military bases scattered over Okinawa this rape is not an isolated occurrence with our soldiers. I do not wish to demonetize my Military, most of which do not go about raping children. However, for over the last six decades rape cases have been reported by the locals — both in the Okinawa media, their government and survivor's first hand accounts — only to have my own military administrators look the other way, make embarrassing excuses they should be ashamed of or simply claim some vague form of diplomatic immunity. As long as these men are escaping the law how can anyone claim justice has been served?

I say my military because it is easy for us to distance ourselves from such events and people. Things that happen half a world away by members of an organization many people on the Left already have doubts about has been and will remain far too easy to dismiss. Perhaps because it is so easy to say “That Isn't My Problem;” which might explain why we've let those who need to be held accountable off the hook for so long? To be a citizen is, after all, to be responsible. If I don't start with myself, why should I expect anyone else to?

Still, I sincerely sympathize with the Okinawan people who wish to have such people off their islands; who wouldn't?

Notes:

Naha is the capital city of Okinawa.

“Namu amida butsu” – Pure Land Buddhist prayer, roughly translated as “I trust in the Buddha of Immeasurable Light and Eternal Life.”

[Graduation Day: Walking over rocky grounds the Colonel and head doctors for the Himeyuri address the collected girls]

Colonel: Himeyuri Student Corps! Work hard so as not to bring shame to the First Girls' School! This is the greatest glory you will ever have! For those who can return to your homes to say goodbye to your families. We march tomorrow afternoon. We shall all die in the service of the Emperor! Banzai!

[cut to: later that day. Kohitsuji has returned to see her mother. She answers a knock at their door to find their Neighbor and her daughter]

Kohitsuji: Oh, it is a pleasure to see you again.

Neighbor: Ah, Kohitsuji-san, I am glad to see you are well [they bow] We have come to ask for your help.

Kohitsuji: Mine? Certainly. What can I do?

Neighbor: I do not want to leave my daughter, Chiaki, alone when I return to Naha to help my father get ready for the invasion. Chiaki is only 10 years-old but I thought she'd be much safer if she went with you, with the Himeyuri.

Kohitsuji [bending down]: Chiaki-san, is this what you want? You know we'll be working all day taking care of wounded men.

Chiaki [softly]: I … want to go home.

Kohitsuji [worried]: But Chiaki-san, the enemy is dropping bombs everywhere. Maybe your village isn't safe right now?

Mother [entering]: Do we have guests? Oh my, it is a pleasure to see both of you. Kohitsuji-san, please show some manners and put the tea on.

Kohitsuji [bowing]: Of course, Okkaa-san. [exits]

Mother: Please forgive my daughter, she leaves tomorrow to the front. I understand there are a lot of wounded men there that need caring for.

Neighbor: Please, will you help us? I must return to the capital city but I want Chiaki to be safe. Would you talk to Kohitsuji? I was hoping she would take her along.

Mother: You mean to the front lines where the enemy is bombing us night and day from what I am told? How could that be safer than your village?

Neighbor: But the Himeyuri won't be at the front, will they? I thought they were assigned to the rear where the hospitals are? Where else is safer than surrounded by our Army? Even the Americans won't bomb hospitals, would they?

Mother: Do not worry, both of you. The Emperor will not let anything happen to us. We might be on an island but we are all Japanese citizens. All of us. I am sure he would have evacuated us if anyone thought this war would drag on too long.

Neighbor: But please, talk to Kohitsuji? For Chiaki's sake …

[cut to: next day the Himeyuri march across the island to the 3rd Army Surgical Unit]

Girls [singing]: “We shall meet again/ This time as friends/ We shall see all we love/ Waiting for us at home …”

Katsuko [laughing]: Colonel-san was so embarrassing yesterday!

Tira: He was drunk!

Niigaki: And what was that terrible song he kept trying to sing? “Give your life for the sake of the Emperor/ Wherever you may go!/ Give your life!”

Tira: I think he should leave the singing to us.

[laughter]

[cut to: Chiaki marching in the crowd, looking miserable and lonely]

Higa: You know, I have never really seen a wounded man before. They kept having us bandage each other. What if I see blood and pass out?

Niigaki [teasing]: Higa-san is a big baby!

Kohitsuji: I wouldn't worry too much. I think once the excitement starts we will all just do what we have to.

[cut to: next day at their new barracks with many girls on washing detail]

Ashitomi [calling out]: Kohitsuji-san, is this what you meant yesterday as “exciting”?

Kohitsuji: Oh, I don't mind, just as long as …

[cut to: a muffled noise, girls looking around in hesitation]

Chiaki: What is that?

[cut to: explosions in the jungle, screams of planes overhead]

Man #1: Bombs! Bombs! Run to the caves!

[chaos as the nurses try to flee, shot of Niigaki looking about in panic, calling to girls still in the dormitory]

Niigaki: Chiaki! Run!

[cut to: long tracer fire as American fighters race to the 3rd Surgery Unit. cut to: Niigaki and Chiaki falling forward as bullets rip past them]

Chiaki [calling out]: Kohitsuji! Kohitsuji!

[cut to: inside of cave, girls screaming, stumbling about in the dark]

Kohitsuji: Chiaki! Run!

[cut to: American fighters dropping bomb after bomb.

cut to: Niigaki, Chiaki and a third girl pick themselves up and try to run for shelter]

Kohitsuji: Chiaki!

[Kohitsuji falls back, blinded as the three girls vanish in a burst of flame and agony]

Kohitsuji: Chiaki! No! Chiaki!

[cut to later that night: Kohitsuji praying and crying]

Kohitsuji: Namu … Amida … Butsu … Namu … Amida … Butsu … I am so sorry, Chiaki … I am so sorry Niigaki … I failed you, I couldn't protect you … you came here to do good and you are gone … Namu … Amida … Butsu … I am so sorry … I failed you.

My favorite band in all their splendor … if only I had a pretzel tree!

The title for this part of the story comes from the Okinawan Creator goddess Uminai-gami; who, along with her brother Umikii-gami, created all humans and the islands. I have yet to find if Uminai-gami was, in fact, a weaver of souls but it seemed plausible in the realm of story telling. I hope I have not offended anyone by taking such liberties.

Later in the film Ashitomi refers to herself and the other girls as being from “Ryukyu,” which is the name of ancient Okinawa back when it was an independent kingdom. Archaeological evidence points to a the island having been inhabited dating back to the Paleolithic era. Just because Japan conquered the island in 1609 does not necessarily mean it has also won over the hearts and souls of its people.

While helping to composing the music to go along with Uminai-gami's Weaving I decided to incorporate a constant static hiss in the background. I did this at first because I have no method of making the sort of ear-shattering explosions an endless rain of bombs might sound like. But the more I listened the more I liked it; static is the sound of pure chaos and that seemed fitting to what was happening. Whether it remains in the final cut has yet to be determined but I find it an interesting experiment.

[f/x: Sound of knitting. Uminai-gami weaving out fate; a sound heavy with rain and bombs falling in the mountains. Cut to: American pilots talking but the only sound is static. Cut to: line of explosions.]

Kohitsuji [fearfully]: Those bombs sound like they're getting closer.

Ashitomi [trying to change mood as noise fades away]: Kohitsuji-san, why are you looking so worried? Those bombs aren't for us, silly.

Katsuko: Ashitomi-san is right. If those bombs were for us they would have sent someone who wasn't so blind. I don't think Americans can see in the dark very well.

Kohitsuji: I know … it's just that this isn't what I was expecting.

Ashitomi: What? The bombs? Don't worry about the bombs. Himeyuri can do anything!

[In the distance the roll of falling thunder; a strange noise that never completely fades away, just grows distant for a time like waves.]

Kohitsuji: No, I know all that. It's just that so far what have we done? I do not know why they are having us work like soldiers … actually, all I did today was carry rocks out of the cave for their stupid surgery unit … but isn't that what men are suppose to be doing?

Katsuko [laughing]: Oh, lazy Kohitsuji-san! I'm still trying to get rock dust out of my underwear. I don't care what I have to do, I just wish those stupid Americans would quit shooting at us. The colonel said it was because all Americans hate Japanese so much.

Ashitomi: Okinawans.

Katsuko: What?

Ashitomi: I'm not Japanese, we're all Ryukyu! [ancient kingdom of Okinawa] I'm from Yomitan.

Tira: I'm from Ginoza.

Higa: I'm from Zamami.

Kohitsuji [laughing]: You are right! I guess no one here is Japanese.

Katsuko: Do you think the Americans will stop bombing us if they knew we aren't Japanese? After all, who wants to kill a star lily?

Tira: You know, I never understood why they call us that. We're not flowers.

Higa [laughing, striking a pose and talking in a posh manner like their Colonel]: Huh! Huh! We must protect the virtue of our pure Lilies! Huh! Huh!

[laughter from everybody]

Katsuko: I hate dirty old men. You thin you had it tough? Me and Ashitomi were put on bandage detail yesterday, cutting strips all day. That nasty doctor kept “bumping” into us. Let me dig in the dirt, at least no one tries to touch you then.

Katsuko: I heard someone say the Third Army Surgery will be safer if it is underground in caves.

Niigaki [airily]: In caves, outside of caves, it doesn't really matter to me.

Miyagi [suddenly, angrily]: Idiots!

[several girls jump up]

Miyagi: What were you expecting? That we're still in school? We can go home?

[Sudden rolling rumble of explosions not far off, lights flicker, girls fall silent staring at the ceiling]

[Cut to: endless bombs falling from bellies of aircraft, static of approaching death. F/x: sound of Uminai-gami's knitting mixed with rain and muffled explosions. Cut to: line of explosions]

Katsuko: Miyagi-san, I thought we were going to do what Himeyuri Student Corps nurses were trained to do … we'll all be working in a little tent with a red cross on it and wrap the men with big white bandages and give them shots like we've been trained to do.

Miyagi [softly]: I can't believe how naive you are. Look about you.

Niigaki: Miyagi-san, what do you think is going to happen?

[long silence]

[All heads to turn to Miyagi]

Niigaki: What do you think is going to happen, Miyagi-san? Miyagi-san?

Miyagi: I don't know but will simply telling dying men “don't give up please” really going to work?

I think I made a mistake; picking to sing and record the song “Strange Fruit” and attempting to use it as a metaphor for the atrocities that occurred during WWII might be doing a grave injustice to the song and for all those for racial violence is still a part this America life. Not that I am the first person to hear the song's power and wish to use it to illustrate horror; in the 1970s the song was used (and the lyrics rewritten) as a theme for Gay Rights. Even as recently as 1998 a lesbian a'cappella group, Amasong, won the prestigious GLAMA award for their interpretation of Holiday and Meeropol's lyrics. As a member of Michigan's Triangle Foundation I fervently believe we need Gay Rights now but to sing this song with the “Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze” removed, in fact to go so far as to turn it into some torch song and sing “Here's a fruit for the world to see/ For no one to pick, running wild and free …” (113) strikes me as horrifically presumptuous.

Of course all listeners of the song come to with different experiences. I explained my own first encounter like this:

The first time I heard Billie Holiday's “Strange Fruit” was in high school (I graduated in 1989); oddly my teacher played the record during our assigned reading of “Hiroshima” by John Hersey. Thus disgust was born on several levels; the image of a victim of nuclear holocaust reaching up for help only to have the skin of her entire arm pull away in the rescuer's grasp like a “silk glove” combined with the “bulging eyes and the twisted mouth” of lynch victims in our American South that my teacher used to illustrate man's “inhumanity to our fellow man.” Both images have never left me.

Perhaps so, but does that give me license to sing it? To use it in a different context? To appropriate it for my own agenda? No.

The reason I bring this up is that the more time I spent thinking about what I did the more I came to the conclusion I was being just as presumptuous as well. I was wrong, this song isn't about the battle of Okinawa and it certainly isn't about being unlucky in love (gay, straight or anything in-between). In the same blog post where I spend some time justifying my actions I wrote: “To hear [Strange Fruit] is look oneself square in the face about the long history of racism in this country. It is not to blink, give excuses, to look the other way but to say that 'we too, have had a hand in all this.'”

Yes, I still agree to that statement (even though now I wish I was paying closer attention to what I was actually saying) because the four key words here are “racism in this country.” To try to put into a different surroundings or to try to apply it to a different group of people who have entirely different histories and experiences than you do is a discredit to those who came before us.

Also, the more I listened to other people's versions the more I returned to the source material. Really, who can sing this with more authenticity, grace and power than Lady Day? It is true we live in a culture in which the mainstream thinks nothing of “borrowing” from other people for our Art; but perhaps more people need to sit up and take note when suddenly a song that once could silence an entire night club, cause audience members to break down in tears over the memories the song evokes, is now performed by people like Sting and Tori Amos (who justified the reason she sang it by saying since her grandfather was Cheyenne that somehow “ties her to the earth” and makes it “authentic” when she sings it … this coming from a millionaire living in yuppie Taos, NM) as well as people like me in which all of my first hand knowledge and experience of the pre-Civil Rights South comes from videos, novels, poetry and songs. All three of us lack anything close to credibility so that the song turns from bearing witness to evil to one more thing mainstream America thinks it can do what it pleases with.

Ernest Hemingway once said the greatest gift a writer could have is a built-in bullshit detector. I believe that is just as important (if not more so) for musicians. Especially in an age where it is getting easier and easier to rip whole pages out of other people's histories and try to call them your own.

It's not that at some time in the future a white man couldn't conceivably sing this song with some air of authenticity, it is just that at this point that particular person has yet to be born. The director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, Dan Morgenstern, is among those who think that “Strange Fruit” belongs only to Billie Holiday. “Frankly, I don't think anybody but Billie should do it,” he said. “I don't think anybody can improve on it. … [the song] remains a metaphor for the American black experience” (120-21). This is why I am not going to use the Strange Fruit for my movie.

I hope I have not offended anyone. Thank you.

Ghost of Ushijima [fire ranging in the background]: No, don't call me back. No, don't ask me to remember. I do not want to remember …

There was fog. All day our observation posts …

[s/x: water rushing by the prow of a warship]

… reported sea fog, so much was invisible to us. The clotted sea. All day ….

… I never met the men who came to my school, who told me, who told all of us: “the Americans are going to kill you all! It is better to die for the Emperor than to be a slave for the Americans!”

Who could tell that to children? What did I know? I was a fisherman's son.

All we knew was you'd kill us. All of us, mothers, children. We were told our home would vanish from the map.

… how could I know? I was only fifteen.

Soldiers [shouting]: Fog closing in! Impossible to see!

Ushijima: I tell you, we were blind.

[s/x: fire stormy, uncontrolled]

Ushijima: I asked you not to call me. I do not want to remember a time of raining bombs, a violent sea wind, a typhoon of steel. I was burnt alive … my body broken, burned beyond recognition. Why? Because I was bad? Because I was a Jap? That is the term you used, isn't it? The term you still use.

[s/x: falling bricks, small explosions]

Ushijima: Mother! Look what has become of your boy, the last of the Blood and Iron Brigade … we watched the rockets come out of the fog. We watched while every position we held crumbled in flame, while every soldier rose up in fire, screamed, vanished … we watched it …

[s/x: gun turrets raising, clicking into place, the sound of history; missiles preparing ready to launch]

Ushijima: Mother! What else could I do?

Soldier: Enemy! Enemy battle ships sighted! I repeat enemy batt –

Ushijima: Mother! What else could I do? Mother, you are dead …

Father is dead … everybody I loved is dead … and I could do nothing.

I am sorry, I am so sorry …. I could do nothing.

Your only son … your only son failed you. Forgive me.

… I am a dog because I could do nothing.

A note on the song I used instead:

Recently I discovered a lovely children's song sung with amazing grace and skill, Hagoromo no Komoriuta (Okinawan Lullaby) by Aiko Shimada and Elizabeth Falconer from the CD Oyasumi. The lyrics are: "Na ku na yo ya / Naku na yo / an maga tu bin su / Yani kwiyun do / kumidara awadara / ya ni kwiyun do / Hei yo / hei yo / naku na yo." Since I lack both grace and skill with my ragtag voice I decided that I wouldn't even try to match Aiko's but instead to re-imagine the song more as a dirge, which fits the tone of the movie. How I sound to a native Okinawa speaker I shudder to think (I will never make fun of ABBA again, not only did they sing in a language they didn't speak but they made it sound good!) though someday I'd love to listen to other versions of this song.

Works Cited:

Margolick, David. Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song. Harper Perennial (2001)

Perhaps suffering is the only thing that unites humanity; despite our constant complaint that no one ever suffers as deeply we do … in the end a painful death at the hands of others, regardless of the reason, is still a miserable way to end one's life.

For this movie, and for completely different reasons, I chose another song from my country's shameful history. “Strange Fruit” is the most horrific song I have ever heard. To hear it is look oneself square in the face about the long history of racism in this country. It is not to blink, give excuses, to look the other way but to say that “we too, have had a hand in all this.”

But to put the song into a context that is not linked to the immediate American Deep South; that is, to sing about atrocities that are not directly linked to 1930s and '40s lynchings of African Americans … even after I sang all alone last night, even after I wept last night as I sang poetry that has the power to break me every time I hear it; I still wonder if I am committing some sort of heresy simply by singing.

It has something to do with my tone deafness, my terrible voice in which I can only hear my lisp; I know I am a wretched mirror when one can hear what Federico Garcia Lorca calls “duende” in the voices of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone; but to sing “Strange Fruit” is the most honest thing I can think of doing today … even if my voice offends.

Perhaps because my voice offends.

The first time I heard Billie Holiday's “Strange Fruit” was in high school (I graduated in 1989); oddly my teacher played the record during our assigned reading of “Hiroshima” by John Hersey. Thus disgust was born on several levels; the image of a victim of nuclear holocaust reaching up for help only to have the skin of her entire arm pull away in the rescuer's grasp like a “silk glove” combined with the “bulging eyes and the twisted mouth” of lynch victims in our American South that my teacher used to illustrate man's “inhumanity to our fellow man.” Both images have never left me.

It was in college when I stumbled across the recording by Nina Simone that simply devastated me; Lady Day might have made the song famous and painful to listen to, but to listen to Simone sing is to witness evil happening before us. Her emotions are so raw, so painful to behold; I have only had the courage to play the song three times so far. I am in tears and disgrace every time I hear her voice.

This is the reason I chose the song as a theme for this movie. The story I want to tell is the story of the destruction of Ryukyus – once the independent kingdom occupying the island chain between Japan and Taiwan that we call Okinawa. “Strange Fruit” has become to me a song of the suffering of all humanity and as a result to hear it makes it universal.

Am I detracting from the importance of the song? I hope not; it was written by a Jewish Socialist in the 1930s, Abel Meeropol, who went under the pen name Lewis Allan (the first names of both of his children who died in childbirth); Billie Holiday and Nina Simone made it immortal and since then numerous artists have sung their versions – Josh White, Lena Horne, Tori Amos, Sidney Bechet, Cassandra Wilson, Carmen McRae, Karan Casey, Eartha Kitt, Diana Ross, drag queen Squeaky Blonde, Siouxsie and the Banshees, UB40, Catherine Wheel. Marcus Miller, even Sting – I would like to think I am following in a beloved tradition, if I am doing anything.

When trying to tell history it is true that often whole facets of a story get left out. Usually not on purpose but the story teller has only so much time to explain things to an audience with short attention spans so often complex events get stream-lined. I hope not to do this here; to say that the island population of Okinawa sacrificed its girls for the Japanese Imperial Army leaves out the fact that the young boys of Okinawa were also sacrificed. They formed the Blood and Iron Student Brigade; which was incorporated along with many impressed Okinawan adult soldiers into helping defend their homeland.

On a personal level I am not as knowledgeable about the fates of these young boys as I am about the Himeyuri; which is why I have the protagonist of this part of the story speak to us as a ghost. I can recall being fifteen; what a frightful age to die in, to be burned alive by the constant shelling of enemy ships. We dubbed the battle of Okinawa a “typhoon of steel” for the incredible amount of bombs, rockets, missiles we dropped on the enemy. Over 90,000 Japanese soldiers perished on Okinawa – if I was to die then who would blame me crying out forgiveness? What ghost wouldn't speak to us with a slightly bitter voice from across the void? They say that the Samurai code of ethics, bushido, is the act of “looking for the right place to die,” but who wouldn't, at any age, be flabbergasted to find out they died for nothing, burned to a charred carcass from enemy bombs over nothing more than the vanity of their superior officers' total disregard for their fellow man?

Ghost of Ushijima [fire ranging in the background]: No, don't call me back. No, don't ask me to remember. I do not want to remember …

There was fog. All day our observation posts …

[s/x: water rushing by the prow of a warship]

… reported sea fog, so much was invisible to us. The clotted sea. All day ….

… I never met the men who came to my school, who told me, who told all of us: “the Americans are going to kill you all! It is better to die for the Emperor than to be a slave for the Americans!”

Who could tell that to children? What did I know? I was a fisherman's son.

The terms you use today: lynching, extermination, genocide … how could I know? I was only fifteen.

Soldiers [shouting]: Fog closing in! Impossible to see!

Ushijima: I tell you, we were blind.

[s/x: fire stormy, uncontrolled]

Ushijima: I asked you not to call me. I do not want to remember a time of raining bombs, a violent sea wind, a typhoon of steel. I was burnt alive … my body broken, burned beyond recognition. Why? Because I was bad? Because I was a Jap? That is the term you used, isn't it? The term you still use.

[s/x: falling bricks, small explosions]

Ushijima: Mother! Look what has become of your boy, the last of the Blood and Iron Brigade … we watched the rockets come out of the fog. We watched while every position we held crumbled in flame, while every soldier rose up in fire, screamed, vanished … we watched it …

[s/x: gun turrets raising, clicking into place, the sound of history; missiles preparing ready to launch]

Ushijima: Mother! What else could I do?

Soldier: Enemy! Enemy battle ships sighted! I repeat enemy batt –

Song:

“Southern trees bear strange fruit,/ blood on the leaves and blood at the root,/ black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,/ strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees …

“Pastoral scene of the gallant south,/ the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,/ scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,/ then the sudden smell of burning flesh …

“Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,/ for the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,/ for the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,/ here is a strange and bitter crop …”

Ushijima: Mother! I am so sorry ….

* This is me singing, yes; but I was accompanied by a friend on bass and bassoon from the group Severus & The Death Eaters, thanks mate!

"cleaning the wounded" ZJC (2008)

This is Yukio, a 10 year-old girl from the story I am trying to tell of the Himeyuri nurses of Okinawa. The goal of this movie is not to judge one side or another but to tell a story; however, being an American born many years after all this happened, it is much harder to be non-biased than I ever thought. Perhaps it is impossible.

I chose to make an animated movie based on the events surrounding these girls for the simple fact that the medium known as anime, that is, animated movies from Japan, has the potential to be astounding. It is true that in the last twenty years or so American cartoons have been created with messages so simplistic that even ape creatures with sub-par intelligence cannot fail to get the meaning (“Teasing hurts!” “God is good!” “Lying to Homeland Security is bad!”) but the beauty and craft being used today in Japan rivals anything Hollywood has produced; and because it is a drawing anime can do things live-action movies simply cannot … plus the more obvious fact that I can get this project done on a shoe-string budget, poverty having its limitations.

However, having said all that, I find it frustrating that Japanese anime, much like some modern American poetry, has shown the tendency over the years to reach for the lowest common denominator again and again. I find it rather pathetic that, when boiled down to its roots, most stories being told in anime appear content to revolve around only a couple of themes — most of which are geared at 12 year-old male fantasies of big-breasted girls with big guns causing big explosions in one form or another. Much like our current instance that poetry needs to confuse to be deemed deep (“It all has to mean something!”); I am sure there are plenty of consumers who feel that animated porn-brain-candy is as far as the art needs to go, thank you very much.

But there are real stories out there that need to be told; I write this at a time of scandal within the Japanese public school system concerning textbooks (i.e., the histories currently being taught to the next generation) that rewrite the Imperial Army's role and actions not only on Okinawa but all during the first half of the century leading up to WWII as almost benign:

“Reflecting [on] Japanese tendency towards self-favoring historical revisionism, historian Stephen Ambrose noted that the Japanese presentation of the war to its children runs something like this: 'One day, for no reason we ever understood, the Americans started dropping atomic bombs on us.'”

This is, of course, not an isolated event — as Winston Churchill noted, “History is rewritten by the victors” … or at least their children. I live in a country that prides itself on the democratic ease of our collective amnesia over things we just did (“What? We allowed our President to invade Iraq? I thought my edgy bumper sticker put an end to war! Say, let's pull out!”) but instead of allowing our institutions to gloss over, dumb down or simply rewrite activities that have occurred in our country's name, wouldn't it be better to bring these issues into the spotlight for discussion and discourse?

That leads to a problem, however; it is frightfully easy to make a bold claim like I don't want to judge other people when trying to tell a story such as this … but actually doing it is another thing. Perhaps I am incapable of being non-biased? I do not know.

To tell the stories of the Himeyuri nurses is to tell of teenage girls willing to sacrifice themselves for such issues as patriotism, their families and Okinawa homes, as well as a deep fear of what the invading army would do to them if they were caught. It is a story of the Japanese Imperial Army that exploited these fears and the local population, using them as cheap labor, indentured soldiers, human shields against an enemy it had no hopes of defeating. It is also a story of an American army that carpet-bombed the civilian Okinawa population with missiles and rockets; that had no qualms about going cave to cave across the island, burning alive anyone — solider, civilian, mother, father and child — who didn't immediately surrender. “The Battle of Okinawa has one of the highest casualties rates throughout World War II: the Japanese lost over 90,000 troops, and the Allies (mostly United States) lost over 50,000 men in combat. It is unknown the exact number but conservative estimates put the number of civilians wounded or killed in the 'hundreds of thousands.'”

Perhaps I won't be able to be as nonjudgmental as I hope; coming as I am from the safety of a life in Michigan, United States, in the year 2008. Even though all of this takes place twenty-five years before I was even born it is a story I don't want to forget; even if cartoons and poetry seem a simple way of telling it, it is better than not telling it at all.

Since this is a cartoon and I'm not good
drawing and it is a history and
it is not mine, yet; I would, if I could,
draw the last Army Medic Unit – bland
and blank – right before our bombs start falling.
I love color so right before fire claimed
them, I'd show you the young nurses picking
maggots from the bandages of the maimed.
The job of ten year-old girls; every grand
image that words protect you from seeing.
Since this is a cartoon full of unnamed
lives, full of childlike morals that demand
nothing from us; only that once hurting
others made us both humble and ashamed.

The narrator of the story is a teenager named Kohitsuji, which is Japanese for the word lamb, baby sheep. The original title of this story was going to be Red Lamb, an homage to the L.A. band The Monolators and the song I was listening non-stop to throughout February. While I am still in love with the song I have since abandoned attempts to work it into the plot though I am keeping the name.

Since this is a rough draft attempt at a movie, I placed the dialog where I imagine it go in the form of subtitles but I am sure with better direction things can be changed around. Either way, please enjoy.

The Last Himeyuri — Prologue

Prologue:

[Kohitsuji in half-shadow, reading aloud]

“Can we do nothing?
Even the red lamb cannot
make nothing happen.”

That is the last poem I ever wrote. But what good are words if there's no one to hear them? What good is a story if there is no one to tell it to? I cannot tell you what should have happened; only what did. There are too many “ifs” to say anything else … If we had not gone to war. If the Americans had not crossed the ocean seeking revenge. If the Imperial Army had not seen Okinawa as its last defense against an unhonorable, miserable defeat …

[Cut to Mother]

… then I would have been an onarigami like my mother and her mother; a shaman, my village's priestess …

[Cut to Kohitsuji in tears]

… but of course, that never happened.

[Cut: small Okinawa house. S/X: the world is oppressive with humid air and the suffocating racket of incests. Cut: to Mother at her writing desk.]

Mother [calling]: Kohitsuji?

Kohitsuji [off screen]: Yes, Okkaa-san?

Mother: I see you are going against my wishes. You are really going to do this?

Kohitsuji: Why are you asking me this? Of course. I am going to earn the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun! I want to make you proud of me!

Mother [close up of her writing the word “kata/ direction” in Japanese script]: You are my daughter … of course I am proud of you!

Kohitsuji: That's not what I mean, I am part of the Himeyuri! That is … an honor!

Mother: Kohitsuji, what do you think will happen when the Americans get here? Do you have any idea what they are capable of doing? Look at this word I am writing …

Kohitsuji: That's why I need to do something! I can't just sit here and let nothing happen.

Mother [echo]: “Let nothing happen?” But what about your poetry? What about being our priestess? Our onarigami? Are you giving all that up then?

Kohitsuji: My poetry? What good are poets when our family, our friends, our neighbors and gods – all of us, all of this, everything worth putting into a poem – can be raped and bombed and killed by the enemy?

[Sudden cut to Kohitsuji half in shadows, a memory]: I really should have tried to lie to my mother but I am so blunt. I am always getting lost. Like I have any direction … like either of us had any idea of what was about to happen.

Mother [softly]: I didn't raise you up to the age of fifteen only to die.

Kohitsuji [angry]: I am done writing poetry, I am going to make something happen!

[Cut to Kohitsuji in half-shadow]

“To make something happen?” [laughs] I so badly wanted to “make something happen” … to be part of something … part of the glorious Himeyuri, the Star Lily Corps., the nurses of the Imperial 3rd Army preparing to defend our beloved Okinawa.

“To give our lives saving lives,/ to die caring for the wounded.”

… My name means Lamb. There are no sheep on our island … my mother thought Lamb would sound like something new, rare, astounding … a bloody little lamb of war.

But I never lied to my mother. This really is my last poem. The only thing I leave behind so you can remember me.

“Can we do nothing?
Even the red lamb cannot
make nothing happen.”

* Most of the music, unless otherwise stated, are original bits from one of the members of from Severus & The Death Eaters. Cheers, mate!