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Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
Okinawa. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired October 11, 2015 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[21:00:18] ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST OF "UNKNOWN PARTS" (voice-over): What does it mean to be strong? It implies hardness and flexibility. Okinawa is a place with a fighting tradition, a history of ferocious resistance. But, it is nothing like what you might think. Not at all.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): This is Okinawa, just south of mainland Japan. For all the relative rigidity of the mainland, Okinawa answered in its own unique way. Do not eat the same thing each day. That is boring. There is even an Okinawan term for it, Chanpuru, "Something Mixed."
Mixed borrowed from all over, served up for anyone to eat. But, maybe you are more familiar with the name, Okinawa, from this, as the setting for some of the most horrifyingly bloody battles of the second World War. How horrifying?
For the allies, there were more than 50,000 casualties with around 12,000 killed or missing in action, over nearly three months of fighting. More than 100,000 Japanese soldiers and Okinawan conscripts were killed defending the island.
Civilians were stuck in the middle of the two armies and got crushed. No one will know for sure, but historians estimate 150,000 men, women, and children lost their lives during the battle.
What most do not know is that Okinawa had only become Japan fairly recently, that to a great extent Okinawans did not even consider themselves really Japanese or vice versa.
That Okinawans and Japanese considered themselves to be different ethnicities, spoke two different languages and culturally, culinarily, and in many other ways looked in different directions.
Yet, Okinawans were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice, and they did. That is not just ancient history. It informs the present, still.
Okinawa is the largest of over 100 islands making up the Ryukyu Island chain. It is just over 300 miles from the mainland, but worlds apart. Okinawa is different. It is tropical, clear waters, some of the best beaches in Asia, to the decidedly more laid back, less frenetic, self- serious attitude than the mainland. You can feel it. You can see it. It is just different here.
2,000 pounds of heavily muscled beef enters the arena. You can feel the ground shake under its heavy hoofs. His opponent awaits. Togyu, also known as ushi-zumo. Sumo, yes, but bull sumo.
These are professionals, and like Jake LaMotta and Chuck Wepner before them, they shall live to fight or do other stuff another day. Having shed decidedly less blood than either of those two gentlemen.
Two animals, two handlers, and they do like the job in rocky. And, like fighters are sumo, the bulls are ranked by their ability. Their record in the ring. The highest being Yokozuna. This is Kenny Ehman. He lives up the road.
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BOURDAIN: Is there a time limit or do they go until somebody gives up?
KENY EHMAN, OKINAWA EXPLORER: I think they pretty much go until somebody gives up. When it gets around --
BOURDAIN: A points system?
[21:05:00] EHMAN: No, no, there is no points system. Basically, when the other one turns around and runs away, that is the winner. Few times one bull will actually get around to the side and actually be able to flip the bull over.
BOURDAIN: Right. Win or lose or survive? Both?
EHMAN: Once awhile, they have had injuries, but most of the times the bulls go home --
BOURDAIN: They go home to be happy.
EHMAN: They do.
BOURDAIN: Nobody is turned into steaks or cutlets.
EHMAN: No.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Togyu started as early as the 17th century with farmers pitting bull against bull. They love it in agricultural communities like this so much so that it was briefly banned in some places because farmers were spending too much time at the fights and not enough time growing sugarcane.
Like customado and the young Tyson, their handlers raised these beasts from calves. Caring for them on one hand and training them, conditioning them to be monsters in the ring on the other.
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BOURDAIN: Yes. Does one wager on this?
EHMAN: I guess the official answer would be that gambling is illegal in Japan, but --
(LAUGHING)
BOURDAIN (voice-over): Intermission. Time for a corndog, some funnel cake, curly fries? No. Better. Much better. Yakitori. Yes, they have that. But, when in Okinawa, do as the Okinawans do, Yaki soba.
Start with pork belly as one always should. Some half cup sausage, cabbage, carrots. Fry that stuff up on the griddle, add some Tsukemen noodles, and sauce, soy mirin, brown sugar, vinegar and a bit of Sake. Top with seaweed powder, some pickled ginger garnish and eat, now.
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BOURDAIN: Oh, yes.
EHMAN: Oh, he is ready to go. This guy I think is going to win this fight.
(LAUGHING)
BOURDAIN: We have not seen his opponent. Oh, yes. My money is on him.
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Pretty decisive win at that. I am not accusing anybody of gambling, but I see some money changing hands.
(LAUGHING)
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): If you are looking for sushi or kha sakae or ramen, you will of course, find them in Okinawa. But, what you need to know, what you must know, is that in Okinawa, pork is king. OK, they got tofu, too. Here at Oruzun, they do specifically Okinawan food the Okinawan way.
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EHMAN: This is the tofu yonge.
BOURDAIN: OK.
EHMAN: Which you just eat a little at a time.
BOURDAIN: Is it that strong?
EHMAN: It is a little strong, yes. It has, like, a cheese type of texture.
BOURDAIN: It is good.
EHMAN: Not bad, right?
BOURDAIN: It is like blue cheese. Ah, pork belly?
EHMAN: Yes.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Okinawans love pork. Every part of the magical animal, the pig. At Oruzun, the pork belly is slowly cooked in stock heavily infused with bonito flakes and -- nori. The ears are simmered until tender, thinly sliced and dressed in rice wine vinaigrette. And, the ribs after brining in sake and seasonings are slowly roasted.
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BOURDAIN: So, you grew up in New Jersey. How did you find your way to Okinawa?
EHMAN: Well, my mom was from here. My dad was in the navy.
BOURDAIN: Uh-huh.
EHMAN: He was stationed here. Met my mom and wound up back in New Jersey because that is where my dad was from, Patterson. And, I was born and raised there. The school I went to was predominantly Caucasian kids. There was not many Asian-Americans at all.
[21:10:00] BOURDAIN: Right.
EHMAN: And, I always had this kind of like identity complex. There would be, like, times where people would come to the house. They would say, "Oh, where is your mom from? Is she from China?"
BOURDAIN: Oh, God. Yes. Right.
EHMAN: Yes. Open the refrigerator and there would be some weird food. You know, "Hey, what is that?" And, every time I heard that, I was like, "Wow, am I, like -- am I different?" So, one day my mom says, "We are going back to Okinawa on a family trip." I was 17 years old.
BOURDAIN: You have never been up to that point?
EHMAN: No, but when I got off the plane, I do not know what it was. It was like, "I am here. This is my home." Being able to connect my heritage, I felt something. I was like, "Wow, I belong here."
BOURDAIN: How about the food? What was in that refrigerator? Because I know a lot of kids who grew up with that same sort of uncertainty when they brought their friends home from school to their house and opened the refrigerator. You know, like kimchi or cabbage or fish sauce. They were aware of it when they visited their friends.
EHMAN: Sure.
BOURDAIN: And, they were acutely uncomfortable with it when their friends came over. Man, have things changed as far as attitudes -- I mean pretty much the engine of the new American cuisine, are kids with childhoods like yours. And, I do not mean what is hip, what is the next new thing.
I mean, literally redefining what is American cuisine. Let us put it this way. The central irony of this story is that, you know, your mom would have been, like, hipster hero of New Jersey now.
(LAUGHING)
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER (voice-over): Still another American invasion in the pacific. The objective is Okinawa, one of the ring of island fortresses presenting Japan 300 miles away.
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[21:15:00] BOURDAIN (voice-over): On April 1, 1945, a U.S. invasion fleet of nearly 1,500 ships, a landing force of 182,000 people, that is 75,000 more than Normandy, approached Okinawa.
What came next was what Okinawans called, "A Typhoon of Steel." Having island hopped across the pacific, allied forces saw Okinawa as a key base for fleet anchorage, troop staging and air operations for the final push into the Japanese mainland and victory.
The fighting was brutal for both sides. The cost in lives and resources for the allied forces was tremendous. And, when it was over, military planners looked at the mainland, looked at what Okinawa had cost them, and projected even more appalling losses. What came next, we all know.
What is not widely known is that more people died during the battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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MASAHIDE OTA, FORMER OKINAWA GOVERNOR: Mainland Japanese defense preparation was only 60 percent by U.S. Military landed on Okinawa. So, that they had to keep the U.S. Military Forces in Okinawa, so that they could prepare defense to protect mainland Japan. So, ever since that battle of Okinawa, Okinawan people say we were sort of, what do you call it --
BOURDAIN: Sacrifice?
OTA: Yes. Uh-huh.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Masahide Ota is the former Governor of Okinawa. In 1945, he was a young conscript in the Japanese Imperial Army. He fought hard and bravely against the allies until he saw Japanese soldiers murdering Okinawans for food and water and his faith melted away.
Getowan is a private home turned restaurant serving very traditional Okinawan dishes. In honor of their outspoken former governor, the restaurant has prepared a dish typically served to royals and VIPs in what was once the Ryukyu Kingdom. It is called Tundabun. After the lacquered dish, the multi bite-sized portions are presented in.
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OTA: Let us eat.
BOURDAIN: That is very good.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): There is some squid. Swordfish wrapped in seaweed and simmered in stock and fermented sake. Dried sea snake wrapped in Kombu and slow simmered. Burdock root wrapped in pork loin and slow cooked in Katsuo stock.
Okinawan taro, flash-fried and dressed with sugar and soy. And, pork shoulder dredged in black sesame then steamed.
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BOURDAIN: You have described that you were shocked and surprised to see the Japanese soldiers -- their treatment of Okinawans was not good during the battle.
OTA: After the United States forces landed on Okinawa, General Headquarters of the Okinawa Defense Forces issued the order. Regardless military people or the civilians, you cannot use other than standard language. And, if you use the Okinawan language, you will be killed and despised, you know.
BOURDAIN: Right.
OTA: But, the Okinawan people could not understand the standard language. So, when Japanese soldiers are killed --
BOURDAIN: Particularly given the experience of the war, how Japanese do you think most people feel here?
OTA: There is a fundamental difference between Japanese culture and Okinawan culture. Japanese culture is older culture, but Okinawan culture is full of charisma. Okinawan people are happy-go-lucky people.
(LAUGHING)
BOURDAIN: Do you think that easygoing, that reputation, that tradition of being happy-go-lucky, do you think that this has led to Okinawans being taken advantage of? I mean, for instance, the U.S. Military bases, Okinawa is 1 percent of the landmass of Japan, and yet what percentage of the military bases are here on Okinawa? Almost all of them. Okinawa seems to be asked to make a lot of sacrifices for the mainland. Will that ever stop?
[21:20:11] OTA: You are -- (INAUDIBLE)
BOURDAIN: Not in my backyard.
OTA: Yes, yes.
(LAUGHING)
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): For a place with as bloody a history, Okinawa is today noticeably more laid back than the mainland, but that does not mean everybody has forgotten their warrior traditions. When the feudal Satsuma Empire from the Mainland invaded Okinawa in 1609, they banned the carrying, manufacturer or use of weapons of any kind.
The ban was later reinforced in 1979 when Japan formally annexed the island. It is believed that these prohibitions led directly to the development of a new style of martial art, indisputably born in Okinawa, karate, or empty hands technique.
And, it is even more vicious cousin, Kobudo, a form that uses arm and fishing tools for lethal effect. Hard and soft, balance. For everything soft, there must be something hard.
[21:25:10] Goju Ryu, is one of the main traditional styles of karate, featuring a combination of hard and soft techniques. "Go" means hard linear attacks, closed hand strikes and kicks. "Ju" means soft, open hand, circular, blocking, sweeping, and takedown moves.
Sensei Tetsuhiro Hokama is a legendary master of Goju Ryu. People come from all over the world to study. And, the training they get is hardcore.
I have been inviting to watch Hokama Sensei's students warm up. Let me repeat. This is only the warm-up.
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BOURDAIN: That does not look like fun.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): The exercises are designed to repeatedly punish your hands and feet, building up stronger, larger, more protective deposits around the bones, basically weaponizing even your weakest and smallest extremeties. And, it hurts even to watch.
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BOURDAIN: This is bad.
JAMES PANKIEWICZ, BRIT AND BLACK BELT IN SHORIN RYU KARATE: This is bad.
(LAUGHING)
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): James Pankiewicz, Brit and black belt in Shorin Ryu Karate moved to Okinawa in 2009 to study Budo or the way of martial arts. He acts as translator for most of the karate sensei on the island. Earlier, I met James in Hokama Sensei's Makishi Public Market in Okinawa's largest city, Naha.
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PANKIEWICZ: That is the tasty one. Right, we are going to take that one.
BOURDAIN: What are these?
PANKIEWICZ: These are puffer fish. So, we are going to have some deep fried fish for us.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Gurukun, the unofficial national fish of Okinawa, and Porcupinefish, both battered and deep-fried.
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PANKIEWICZ: They are going to do sashimi.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Okinawans eat just about any kind of fish, sashimi style. For us, Snapper and Parrotfish, and lobster, because one must. Served raw and still twitching in the shell.
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PANKIEWICZ: We are going to get some sea grapes as well.
BOURDAIN: Good, good, that is super traditional.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Sea grapes. The classic regional side dish dressed in rice vinegar. What you buy downstairs from vendors, for a small fee restaurants will cook it for you upstairs.
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PANKIEWICZ: Wow.
SENSEI TETSUHIRO HOKAMA, LEGENDARY MASTER OF GOJU RYU: Oh, my God!
(LAUGHING)
BOURDAIN: Wow. So, Okinawa's most famous export, perhaps, is karate.
HOKAMA: Yes.
BOURDAIN: When most of us think of karate, we think of striking -- exclusively. Is that an accurate representation of what you are doing?
PANKIEWICZ: From the basis of Okinawan karate, is that it was used primarily as defensive art. In other words, being able to, you know, control and subdue the opponent. Usually, if you could in a humane way, but then if you had to finish them, then you had the ability to finish them.
BOURDAIN: Right.
PANKIEWICZ: The striking is important, but a lot of the technique is not about striking. It is about submission techniques. Some of that is to do with Kyusho, attacking nerve points. And Hokama Sensei is particularly extremely skilled at dealing with, you know, bigger, stronger opponents.
HOKAMA: Human engineering. Very important. Point, point, point, point, point, point, point, point, point. And, then this point, attack of the fingers, no knuckle -- open.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): The demonstration of Hokama Sensei's open-hand kyusho technique becomes too real for my taste.
Human engineering with a terrifying logic, when attacks the weak point. All I know how to do in this situation, by the way, is poke hard and look for something to choke or lock.
Nope. Apparently, they do not know what tapping out means here, because I was tapping like western goddamn union. I thought h was going to push that 71-year-old finger right into my brainpan.
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[21:30:00] PANKIEWICZ: They are saying in the old days, if there was a fight happening somewhere in town, people would go and have a look and they would say, "Are they fighting with fists or open hands?"
And, if they are fighting with fists, they would say, "Oh, do not bother, it is an amateur fight." If they were fighting with open hands, then they knew they were masters.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALES PEAKER: On the eastern coast of Okinawa --
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): The U.S. Military came ashore in 1945, and to Okinawans, it must seem like they never left. Today, there are roughly 30,000 troops stationed on the island. Put that many Americans in a place, especially young, mostly male Americans, many of them homesick, and it tends to change the environment. Kin Town just outside of Naha right by Camp Hansen, one of the larger bases.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Fight inch by inch to conquer this island.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Kin is a small slice of Americana, both the mainstream of America and its dark underbelly. The Okinawans have made the kind of adjustments the people do in subtle hood neighbors like thousands of marines. And, sometime in the '80s adjusted food as we knew it to this, a mutant classic, "Taco Rice."
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[21:35:17] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Taco and rice. That is Taco Rice.
BOURDAIN: Wow.
VIVIAN TAKEUCHI: Wow, it is big.
(LAUGHING)
BOURDAIN: Is this chili sauce or ketchup?
TAKEUCHI: The original taco --
BOURDAIN: It is taco sauce.
TAKEUCHI: It has Taco Rice sauce. It is a bit spicy. BOURDAIN: Oh, good.
TAKEUCHI: But not super spicy.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Vivian Takeuchi has lived in both the U.S. and Okinawa and her aunt, Sumiko, an entertainer who began singing in American bases after the war.
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BOURDAIN: Wow, that is good.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): There are dueling claims as to how Taco Rice might have morphed into existence, but Saori Shimabukuro is certain. In the 1980s American servicemen introduced the standard taco to Okinawans. And, her grandfather Natsu Giyo Gibo decided to tweak them.
Dumping the fillings straight on to rice for the late night crowd of marines coming back from the bars. This unholy, greasy, starchy, probably really unhealthy delight turned classic caught on big time for both Americans missing home and locals.
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BOURDAIN: So, I consider myself a pretty pro-military guy, but why are the marines here? Look, I like marines, but, you know, I am not Robert McNamara, but it seems to me, if you go to war, sending in the marines is probably not like what you are going to be doing. People of your generation, what do you think the attitude is towards the military bases?
TAKEUCHI: As long as we are not living near the base --
BOURDAIN: Right.
TAKEUCHI: -- it does not affect us that much.
BOURDAIN: Near the base --
TAKEUCHI: Near the base .
BOURDAIN: -- it makes a difference.
TAKEUCHI: Right.
BOURDAIN: I mean, you know right away. I mean, it got two parlors, strip clubs, vape shops.
TAKEUCHI: And, also, you know, it is very loud. That is a big issue.
BOURDAIN: Tourism is probably the future of Okinawa. You have beautiful weather. Beaches. If the bases leave, it is going to be big hotels and resorts and golf courses. Which is worse? Chinese tourists or American marines?
TAKEUCHI: I will stick with the marines. .
(LAUGHING)
BOURDAIN: Semper fide.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Not everybody here agrees with Vivian by a long shot. Okinawans maybe easy going and laid back, but the island is also a relative hot bed of political activism, largely inspired or provoked by what Okinawans see as high-handed treatment from a central government with different cultural and historical traditions, who do not consider their needs or priorities.
And, their hugely disproportionate shouldering of the U.S. military presence for the entire country. Currently, there are close to 30 military installations on Okinawa, and even though it is one of the smallest Japanese prefectures in terms of livable area, they accommodate more than half of the foreign military presence.
Even more problematic, much of Okinawa's arable land suitable for farming on an island whose whole traditional identity was built around farming is eaten up by military bases.
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BOURDAIN: The military base issue, is this more important for older people or younger people?
KEIJI YODA, OKINAWAN FARMER: It is for the older people.
BOURDAIN: It is for the older people.
YODA: Yes. So, when you actually go to a place where they have, like, a protest going on, I will say over 80 percent of the people are all retired persons.
BOURDAIN: Why do you think that this is?
YODA: This is only my opinion, but Japanese imperial army did a lot of brutal stuff on this island and war never ended for some people. And, the feelings that they got suppressed, all of a sudden after they retired, they kind of burst and they wanted to kind of --
BOURDAN: Act out.
YODA: Act out.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): This is Keiji Yoda. He is an Okinawan farmer and this is Nishimachi, a small noodle shop that bears only the owner's name and serves only Okinawan-style soba. Pork belly or rib is the meat. The broth a mix of fish, chicken, pork, and vegetable stocks.
Okinawan soba differs greatly from what we know from the mainland. They use wheat noodles instead of buckwheat, a nod to the spaghetti eating marines they lived with all these years. Garnishes with spring onion, fish cake and slices of omelet. Add your pickled ginger and togarashi hot sauce and hoorah.
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[21:40:09] BOURDAIN (voice-over): It seems the anti-base sentiment also coincides with an anti-central government sentiment. Do you do bear with a hugely disproportionate burden of bases? Is not some activism called for here?
YODA: I think the young generation should decide what to do for our future instead of the old people just fighting for their beliefs. I feel a strong need to forgive.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
YODA: And then forget. And, then move on.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Long before the war, the Americans arrived. Long before the Satsuma invaded from the mainland, Okinawa was a kingdom, the Ryukyu kingdom. A prosperous and peaceful island chain with no standing army.
They were farmers, traders, and necessarily diplomats whose eyes more often than not looked west to China rather than to the more isolated mainland. While Japan as it existed then was isolationist, racially and ethnically, culturally and every other way, the Ryukyu Kingdom was not.
[21:45:04] They were more open, more multi-cultural, more used to and predisposed to dealing with the outside world and its influences. Today, just a short ferry ride from the main island, a feeling of that long-gone empire remains. Kuba Jima is a small island that has been largely untouched by the changes in the world. People farm and fish as they always did.
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BOURDAIN: The war never came here?
PANKIEWICZ: No.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): Bonshiro Nagame and Yuhina Tomohiro, Kuba Jima residents and friends of James.
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PANKIEWICZ: They suffered very little damage in the war.
BOURDAIN: And, no military bases. No American --
PANKIEWICZ: Well, up until '72, there was an American base.
BOURDAIN: There was.
PANKIEWICZ: But then in '72, the base was taken away.
BOURDAIN: Now nothing?
PANKIEWICZ: Only the Japanese self-defense forces now.
BOURDAIN: What do people do here? Agriculture? Growing sugarcane?
PANKIEWICZ: Tourism. Fishing.
BOURDAIN: Have there been attempts to develop here and have the locals been able to resist that impulse?
PANKIEWICZ: They have rich lives. They have everything they need. They have produce from the land, from the sea. They do not need much else.
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BOURDAIN: I have been invited to a beach barbecue, Kuba Jima style. Go big, or go home. To eat some fresh caught tuna that comes straight from the market to be butchered into sashimi. Also caught this morning, some sea snails for the grill, and mozuku, seaweed, which can be cooked but today is enjoyed raw. And, local prawns eaten either raw or grilled, or both.
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BOURDAIN: That looks awesome. Off with the head?
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): There is more. Local beef grilled and then tossed with moyashi, seasoned bean sprouts. We will need our energy, it appears. Takumi is as old school a martial art as it gets. No ring, no octagon. The rules are simple. Known as Okinawan sumo --
It looks easy. It is not. Your hands are wrapped in your opponent's belt. Object is to get him onto his back, both shoulders before he does it to you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BOURDAIN: Nice.
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BOURDAIN (voice-over): You land on your back for even a second, you lose.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PANKIEWICZ: There, he got him. Yes. Awesome. Would you like to try?
(LAUGHING)
BOURDAIN: Yes, sure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN (voice-over): In the end, it is a less than smoothly executed judo move, Kasodogake, I believe, that brings my opponent to the ground.
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(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
BOURDAIN: Thank you for going easy on me. Awesome.
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BOURDAIN: So, I have given up many vices in my life, many shameful, filthy, guilty pleasures that I used to like that I will -- that I just do not do anymore. Cocaine, heroin, prostitutes, the musical stylings of Steven Tyler. I put aside these childish things, as it were. In favor of a newer, more mature me.
But there is one shameful secret. One thing I just cannot give up. One thing I keep coming back to every time I come back to Japan. One thing that still has an unholy grip on me. For no reason that I can gather, it is the convenience store formerly of mere Akron, Ohio, that mutated into a massive Japanese chain.
Behold the wonders that is Lawson. What is it exactly about this place? It is got its tentacles so deep into my heart and myself and my soul.
Where are you? I know you are around here somewhere. Pillows of love. Egg salad from Lawson. Need a beverage. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN (voice-over): In Naha, you would be advised to avoid International Avenue unless you are homesick for fellow Americans. Head down the side streets, shuttered store fronts give way to packed izakayas. A few beers, if somebody breaks out and the good times begin.
People go out here. And, after pounding your fists and feeding on meat hooks and shitting out bone chips, you can drop by Jojo Bar. James' refuge where the island's most esteemed masters and their students come for what is recognized internationally as the cure for all martial-arts related ailments. Alcohol.
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PANKIEWICZ: Would you like a drink?
BOURDAIN: I think I would like a beer and maybe a shot of something.
PANKIEWICZ: Well, I do have a little shot of something.
BOURDAIN: What is this thing?
PANKIEWICZ: The sake is like the spirit of Okinawa.
BOURDAIN: Is this sake or whiskey?
PANKIEWICZ: This is sake. This is Okinawa's sake, like mainland Japanese sake but then they distilled it like whiskey. So, it becomes stronger and now it is aged. It has been in here with the snake maybe three years. The essence of the snake has gone into the alcohol.
BOURDAIN: There seems to be a conflict of interest here. You train karate very seriously.
PANKIEWICZ: Yes.
BOURDAIN: I mean, should you people be drinking? This is why I am asking. Where is the point of diminishing returns?
(LAUGHING)
PANKIEWICZ: Many teachers who do not drink, but Aomori is intrinsic to the Okinawan culture.
BOURDAIN: Right.
PANKIEWICZ: Most enjoy Aomori as part of their lifestyle, the same way karate is part of our lifestyle.
They are saying, please eat. Less talking, more eating.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN (voice-over): Sashimi of, well, let us just say it is an animal you like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PANKIEWICZ: This is horse meat.
BOURDAIN: Horse? All right. Thank you. Good. And, this?
PANKIEWICZ: Goat.
BOURDAIN: Goat. Oh, that is good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOURDAIN (voice-over): Pure protein for people who need it and pork belly, some pickled pigs ears, and baked yam. I watch a lot of mixed martial arts. I watch a lot of jujitsu. My daughter trains. Mostly jujitsu, but some standup. Some of the most exciting fighters that I have seen lately who really show the most heart are women. Is there -- is there a future for women in karate?
PANKIEWICZ: Okinawa -- INAUDIBLE
HOKAMA: Ya, ya --
PANKIEWICZ: He has a female student here tonight.
This is Yaya. Tony is asking what is the future for women in traditional karate?
YAYA: When I first started karate, I did not know this world and now I am learning karate, as the performance and also life.
Everything is all about love. And, karate is showing you if you have this kind of power and the ability to perfect yourself, your family, you can be really kind. That is about Okinawa. Okinawa people, I think, always have this love to everybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:00:00] (MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
