Photo Travelogue: 
Life on Chichaishima Island
1992-1994

Chichaishima Island, Japan

Population: 7,000
Resources: scrubby little trees, sand, salt water
Main products: sugar cane and shochu,
a low-grade potato whiskey consumed locally
Motto: "Nobody comes here."
 

Salesmen are born, not made
A roadside statue of Mokori, the mythical god of commerce, sporting a briefcase, a sake jug and an enormous pair of testicles.
 

Budding sumo wrestlers
Shortly before the boy on the far left beat all the others at once.

Withered metal
A one-person vehicle, perhaps a small tractor, left unattended in the salty ocean air.
 

Philipino merchant ship
 This vessel washed ashore one day, and its penniless crew spent the next year on the island working as manual laborers to earn enough money for tickets home.
 

Negi (green onion) farmer
Most Japanese mainlanders picture this scene when they think of Chichaishima, so  . . .
 

...this is as crowded 
as it ever gets.
 Because the rural island is considered pitifully backwards and uncooth, many Japanese tourists fly all the way to Hawaii instead of enjoying these near-empty beaches. This had a certain snob appeal in the beginning, but the feeling wore off during my first long, cold, lonely winter.
 

 On Kamagami's boat
During the summers, I was lucky enough to tour the island's many coral reefs with this veteran commercial diver. Having spent much of his life underwater, Kamagami had an elaborate vocubulary of hand signals and could express even the most esoteric concepts without speaking.

NOT PICTURED:
Jeff "Milk-Does-a-Body-Good" Morgan
 

The Biggest Party
in Chichaishima--Ever
The island sank a few inches when some of our fellow JET teachers visited from the mainland for a weekend of diving and shochu.

NOT PICTURED:
Jeff "Milk-Does-a-Body-Good" Morgan
 

At long last, he appears
Here I am playing a duet with the crisp, refreshing Jeff "Milk-Does-a-Body-Good" Morgan.
(Photo shamelessly embellished)
 

Life on the leading edge
As one of Japan's easternmost islands, Chicaishima is the first landfall for many typhoons, which hit at their peak ferocity.  The sign above cautions people (and dogs that run on two legs) to stay clear of a coastal restraining wall during typhoons.
 

Sugar cane in the wind
Looking north out my back window during Typhoon #12, September 1994

After the storm

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