The Dark Side of Japan's Paradise Island | Trouble in Paradise

Okinawa is known to many as a postcard perfect paradise. In 2019, before the pandemic stopped travel, the island welcomed 10 million tourists. But despite mass tourism, Okinawa is also the poorest prefecture in Japan.

VICE World News host Hanako Montgomery travels to Okinawa to find out why.

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[arcticblue]

A good documentary could be made on this subject, but I'm sorry to say that this isn't it. I've been in Okinawa my entire adult life and have been married to an amazing Okinawan woman for over 16 years. The topics discussed here are not unique to Okinawa and the culture is not to blame for Okinawa's economic issues. You can find heavy drinking, single mothers in hostess bars, and worse almost anywhere in Japan (and in particular Tokyo). It's almost offensive seeing someone living in Tokyo come here (and based on instagram posts, during a time when travel to Okinawa was strongly discouraged) and lecture on Okinawa's poverty issues without acknowledging Tokyo's very significant role in Okinawa's economic situation. That ties in to the US military presence here as well since that is intertwined with Tokyo. If you want to make a real documentary on this subject, you need to spend more time here and go back many, many decades and learn about how Okinawa has been exploited and taken advantage of again and again and it continues to happen today. Perhaps your placing the blame on the culture is backwards and rather the culture evolved to cope with the never-ending exploitation and impossible upward mobility in the workforce?

[avagelatos]

We see the host slow motion in a bathing suit, then she's having fun on some kind of water jet, then we have a fun night with right wing ethno-nationalists. And in the second half we we talk to someone recovering from alcoholism for a minute and we end with a single Mother working at a hostess bar. I don't understand how these sheds light on issue specific to the native people of Okinawa-you could have done the same documentary in Chiba or Kyushu or wherever. No comment on the vast amount of displacement the native population, the physical and sexual abuses covered up by both the Japanese and American governments, secret pollution and toxic waste dumping, yakuza resorts, and so on. Feels like minimal effort and thought went into this and there is way too much emphasis put on the host goofing around and having a vacation.

[KathyXie]

This documentary feels so superficial, the guy she interview just blame the culture, the laziness and alcoholism, the video seems to mostly focus on the main Okinawa island but okinawa porverty stadistics are affected by the people living on the smaller and less developed islands like Miyako, Minamidaitou, Iejima, Ishigaki, Yonaguni. Some of the smallest islands are almost like a different country from mainland japan, they have very little infrastructure, services and limited jobs outside of tourism

[peterrundog]

"colonialism" doesn't mean just the US control after WWII. Okinawans used to consider themselves colonized by Japan too, before the US ever got there

[sherrymaki]

As an Okinawan-American, this documentary is really offensive to me. Blaming Okinawans' poverty on our culture is really messed up, when Okinawans have suffered so much due to Japanese and American colonization. It seemed like hardly any research went into the making of this video.

[gary]

I live here in Okinawa and my wife is Okinawan. She couldn't watch more than 5mins of this documentary. That professor embellishing the attitude of locals in terms of being lazy is sickening. There are many successful local people who have nice houses. Yes there are poor people like anywhere else, and it gets worse when your around 'base world' in terms of litter and the emulation of what constitutes American culture these days by the youth. However, not every single mother works at a snack bar drinking themselves to death every night. And those right wing guys are seen as kooks by the local people; most won't associate with them. Also get away from Chatan/Okinawa City which is where this documentary is located. Each island has its own personality with their own issues and not everybody lives in the Okinawan 'mainland'.

[renatokobashigawa]

It's an interesting covering since my family emigrated from Okinawa to Brazil during the 1930's, and it's especially interesting to know that it was due to poverty, and while Okinawa constitutes 1% of total population of Japan, it constituted 10% of the japanese immigrants over here.

[japansofar]

I have lived in Okinawa for 6 years. I feel like these problems are a mix of the culture and not getting enough support from mainland Japan. A lot of people have mixed feelings about the US presence here, and I’m not commenting on that. But, if not for that I don’t know how this island would have made it through COVID the past few years without the tourism dollars. In places where I live like Okinawa City, I feel even the Okinawa government does not do enough for its citizens. Lots of gambling parlors, resorts, and shopping malls, but not what most of the residents need.

[kenjisakamoto]

Blame the main island and the government because we always have been seen as a second class and not a true Japanese. This is true throughout history and always have been in the back of the mind of main landers, government and its influence.

[catholiccrusader]

Single motherhood is no piece of cake. I'm from a single parent home where Mom + GOD rest her soul + raised all 4 of us boys by herself. Her coming from an abusive home she naturally had a lot of issues but considering all the enormous work and prayer she put in raising us that great lady was a real hero and I salute her!

[franklopez]

Very patronizing story. The island was basically destroyed by outside forces; the US and Mainland Japanese. The locals are considered "2nd class" Japanese by Mainlanders. It's is very similar to US native American tribes, recovery may take hundreds of years or never come at all.

[Kitsune-kun]

not a word about the Japanese annexation and colonization of the Ryukyu Kingdom and subsequent forced assimilation of the Ryukyuan People as Yamato Japanese? these issues presented here (especially alcoholism) are well observed in other indigenous populations that went through similar processes of cultural assimilation/acculturation. You are treating Okinawa Prefecture as a regular Japanese prefecture and completely ignoring its very peculiar history.

Also, you guys talk about intergenerational poverty, but say no word about the intergenerational trauma that the Ryukyuan People carry because of that atrocity called "The Battle of Okinawa"?

You can go way deeper than that, Vice.

[pkawas]

Poor journalism. I'm surprised that this was recorded, edited and approved by a group of people. You just watched the reporter going to beaches, talking to a "specialist" that blames CULTURE for poverty (this was specially disturbing for me), going to a random party and getting drunk, etc. Please, take some of criticism shared in the comments. I appreciate that vice tried to give some attention to Okinawa, but you really should hire someone competent from Okinawa.

[WorldPeaceThruJokes]

I’m American and a former Marine. Okinawa and its people will forever hold a special place in my heart. I pray it gets better for them.

[doingtime]

The presenter brings a little too much attention to herself, it's like its a travel vlog combined with some interviews. Also as someone else said it doesn't point out the root reasons for Okinawas problems.

[wakuluriel]

This is an eye opening to those men who disrespect girls. They are mothers and we men have mothers too. Respect and love them. in Japan they don't ask equality as in America but even if they don't say it they need treated with respect and love and all of the women all over the world.

[eilois]

1:56 Aru Aru, similar to Javanese life of style... especially in Special Region Yogyakarta decades ago. They don't bully hardworking people nor lazy, but as long as family is fed and kids education is guaranteed that's enough. The community is solid, no one left behind is the priority rather than race for the best.

[nyimatsering]

My heart goes to all those single mom who had to go such hardships...

[coltonvanessa]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who found this "documentary" to be garbage.

It's largely based on an interview with some professor (who isn't Okinawan) peddling stereotypes about the local culture. His explanation for poverty is that bosses don't pay much because the locals are lazy and discourage hard work. Really? What is the evidence for that?

Then we get the host drinking with the equivalent of Japanese neo-Nazis she met randomly, that apparently proves that alcoholism is a problem.

The host then shames the hell out of one single mother for her life choices, and apparently that's proof that single motherhood is a problem.

WHY are all these things more common in Okinawa? You expect us to believe it's because alcohol prices are low? They're low everywhere in Japan.

What are the root causes of poverty? Does the American presence have anything to do with it? Colonialism? The ryukyu culture was a distinct society before being conquered by Japan.

But no, it's because of drunks and single moms that Okinawa is poor

[TheKeithvidz]

When Japan sees poverty as a moral blight then the world's 3rd richest nation can care. I've felt strongly about Japan's poverty before.