January 29th to 30th, the "Okinawa Festival by Churashima Ichiba" was held at Seven Park Amami in Matsubara City, Osaka Prefecture. A booth of Okinawa Karate was set at the festival as part of the “Reiwa 3rd Year* Okinawa Karate Promotion and Awareness Project” sponsored by the Okinawa Prefecture Karate Promotion Division.
This project, which has been carried out for several years, aims at exposing the general public to Okinawa karate at various Okinawan products fairs and tourism events held in Japan. The goal is to convey the charm and to raise awareness of “Okinawa, the birthplace of karate”.
While no karate and kobudo experts were dispatched due to the corona pandemic, the booth, which was composed of a photo experience corner, an exhibition corner, and a headless karate character decor for photo attracted the attention of mall customers. Furthermore, the movies "Okinawa, the birthplace of karate" and "Okinawa Karate World Tournament 2022 Promotion Video" were repeatedly screened all day long at the venue.
According to a staff member, more people than expected came to the venue, and more than 600 people visited the karate booth alone. Below are some photos from the event.
* Fiscal year 2021-2022
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Committee for the Okinawa Karate UNESCO Listing is organizing an online symposium on February 14th. Part one of the event will be a keynote speech by Koizumi Takeo, Professor Emeritus of Tōkyō University of Agriculture, "Introduction of registration initiatives - leaning registration strategies from the case of sake, shōchū, and awamori." Part 2 will be a panel discussion titled "Martial arts physical manipulation and expression - A community custom that created Okinawa karate". For details, please check the leaflet below. (In Japanese). According to the organizers, there will be no simultaneous interpretation in English on the day, but an English version will be uploaded later on on YouTube.
The Facebook page for the Okinawa Karate World Tournaments has been launched. It will introduce posts and news in relation with the two scheduled world tournaments as well as reviews of past tournaments... Please check it out!
In the "Museum Bulletin" of the Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum, a report (in Japanese) titled "Consideration of about the movie 'Ryukyu no Fubutsu' (The Scenery of Ryukyu); focus of Karate" by curator Sakihara Kyoko is available.
A new video about karate tourism in Okinawa has been released. For details, visit the related site!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iH9gYbu_UM&t=9s
