The One-legged Okinawan Gangster

     Before I got a motorcycle and zipped around all over the island, I used to take an Okinawan bus from Camp Chinen to Naha main bus terminal.  I would walk out of Camp Chinen and up to Oyakibaru, the little village in front of the fire station.  I would have gladly taken one of those little "kamikaze" cabs if they were available.  It cost less than a dollar for the fare to Naha!  However, there were almost never any in that area.  On very rare occasions one would be found dropping off a fare and I would grab that cab in a hurry!  But for vast majority of the time, there were no cabs, just the bus.
     For the sum of 15 cents the bus would take me all the way to Naha (the cab fare was 90 cents!).  If I was going to one of the teen clubs, the bus ride was a bit of a pain, since after getting off the bus at Naha, I would have to either find another bus or catch a cab to take me to whichever teen club I was going to.  The bus terminal was located in the part of Naha where it was strictly "Okinawan."  During all the trips that I made on that bus route, I never once encountered an American either on the bus or just walking around that part of the town.
     Finding myself in that part of Naha, I couldn't help but get acquainted with the area while leaving the bus terminal.  It was a revelation, that part of Naha was not anything like the Naha that most Americans were acquainted with, Kokusai Dori with all the tourist shops and bars and restaurans.  For instance, around Kokusai Dori you could get a nice Japanese meal for a couple of dollars.  Around the "Okinawan" part of Naha, the same meal would cost you a dollar, sometimes less!  A bowl of noodles would cost less than 50 cents.  During that period, I used to hang around with my friend Tomo.  Tomo attended Kubasaki only for one year, the year we hung around together.  He went to Japan for a year after that, then returned to Hawaii.  His sister Akiko, however, attended Kubasaki until she graduated.
     Anyway, Tomo and I used to roam around the "Okinawan" part of Naha.  We found that with our limited budgets, we could afford a lot more in that part of town.  Meals were good and cheap, and we discovered the very inexpensive Okinawan gambling parlors, the "Lucky Ball" joints.  Yes, I know, high school kids are not supposed to hang around gambling joints, but what can I say, nobody stopped us.  It was cheap entertainment and we never lost a lot nor won a lot.  It was just something that was fun to do.  Lucky Ball was a sort of a "poor man's" roulette, simplified!  A red colored ball was used on a spinning wheel with different numbered and colored slots.  You placed your bets according to the colored slot and number.  If the bouncing ball landed in one of the slots of the spinning wheel where you placed your bet, you won.  Very simple.
     Lucky Ball joints were run by Okinawan gangsters.  They were not yakuza yet, they were simply thugs, street gangs.  There was the Naha gang and the Koza gang.  The two did not mix and their territory was sharply divided at Futenma!  We encountered the Naha gangsters regularly.  They were not mean or anything, I think they found it rather amusing to have us partaking in their Lucky Ball games.  There was rarely if ever any violence, at least not during our presence.
     One evening Tomo and I ran into a one-legged gangster in front of a Lucky Ball joint.  We noticed that all the other gangsters were very deferential to him and some even called him oyabun, a common form of address for a boss among yakuza.  His name was Shima and he actually appeared to be a very friendly sort.  Although he used a crutch, he was very muscular and obviously quite strong.  Later we learned that despite the fact that he had only one leg, he was nevertheless quite accomplished in karate.  Don't know how he lost his leg.  One of his underlings said that he thought he lost the leg as a child during the war.  Shima appeared to be in his early 30s at the time.
     After Tomo left that summer for Japan, I never went back to that part of Naha, but I never forgot those times nor Shima, the one-legged Okinawan gangster.
     In 1976, two years after the reversion to Japan, a Japanese movie titled Okinawa Gokudo Senso  became a big hit.  The popular Japanese action movie actor Sonny Chiba starred with several other well known Japanese actors.  The movie was shot on Okinawa and it more or less stayed true to the factual events of the "yakuza wars" on Okinawa that took place from about 1972 until 1980s, a bit over a decade!  However, like all movies, it took some detours and exaggerated some events.  But, generally speaking, it was more or less an accurate depiction of the yakuza wars between the naichi yakuza and the Okinawan gangs.  Ultimately the Japanese yakuza lost and the Okinawan gangs united and became one, no more separate Koza and Naha gangs.  Today they have become yakuza, following yakuza traditions down to cutting of the pinky!
     What was amusing to me about the movie was that in depicting the Naha gang boss, the Japanese movie director chose to make the gangster a one-armed rather than one-legged man!  He was not called Shima in the movie, instead, he was given the name of Yonabaru,  a very Okinawan name.  To the Japanese, Shima sounds just too Japanese, while Yonabaru sounds "foreign," Okinawan!  There are many names that are typically Okinawan and not found among Japanese, Shima is not one of them!  Kinjo, Higa, Shimabukuro, Yonabaru, are just some of the very typically Okinawan names.
     So, the two bit Okinawan gangster that my friend Tomo and I met so many years ago in the "Okinawan" part of Naha had been immortalized, sort of, by the Japanese movie, albeit, with a missing arm rather than a leg!