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Japan Okinawa Okinawan food

SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN NAHA

on
June 3, 2013

 

The kid was twanging what looked like a three-stringed banjo covered with snake skin. Behind him the windows of the music store were filled with taiko drums of various sizes. Definitely not Bluegrass Country or Bourbon Street even though the music had some similar sounds. Instead, it was Kokusai-dori on a Sunday afternoon in Naha, Okinawa, capital of the southernmost of Japan’s prefectures, the Ryukyu archipelago. The “banjo” is actually a sanshin and the music is called shima uta, an Okinawan roots-style now popular throughout Asia and on Youtube.
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