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Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
Okinawa. Aired 10-11p ET.
Aired October 23, 2015 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
ANTHONY BOURDAIN, PARTS UNKNOWN HOST: What does it mean to be strong? It implies hardness and flexibility. Okinawa is a place with a fighting tradition and a history of ferocious resistance but it's nothing like what you might think. Not at all.
This is Okinawa. Just south of mainland Japan. For all the relative rigidity of the mainland, Okinawa answers in its own unique way. Don't eat the same thing each day. That's boring. There's even an Okinawan term for it, champuru, something mixed. Bits borrowed from all over, served up for anyone to eat.
But maybe you're 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 ally, 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 don't know is that Okinawa had only become Japan fairly recently. That's with great extent Okinawans didn't 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 many other ways looked in different directions.
Yet, Okinawans were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice, and they did. That's not just ancient history. It informs the present, still.
Okinawa is the largest of over 100 islands making up the Ryukyu island chain. It's just over 300 miles from the mainland, but worlds apart. Okinawa is different. It's 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's 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 oshi sumo. 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 verges memories job in rocky.
Unlike fighters of sumo, the bulls are ranked by their ability, their record in the ring. The highest being Yokozuna. This is Kenny Aman. He lives up the road. Is there a time limit or do they go until somebody gives up?
[21:05:02]
KENNY AMAN, OKINAWAN: I think they pretty much go until somebody gives up. When it gets around with one...
BOURDAIN: Is there a points system?
AMAN: No, there's no points system. Basically when the other one turns around and runs away, that's 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?
AMAN: Most of the times you'll have injuries but most the time the bulls go home and...
BOURDAIN: They go home to be happy?
AMAN: They do.
BOURDAIN: Nobody's turned into steaks or cutlets?
AMAN: No.
BOURDAIN: Togyu started as early as the 17th century with farmers pitting bull against bull. They love it in agricultural communities so much 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 Cus D'amato in the young Tyson, their handlers raise these beasts from cabs caring for them on one hand, and training them, conditioning them to be monsters in the ring on the other. Yeah. Does one wager on this?
AMAN: I guess the official answer would be that gambling's illegal in Japan, but...
BOURDAIN: Intermission. Time for a corn dog, some funnel cake, curly fries? No. Better. Much better. Yakitori. Yes, they have that. But when in Okinawa, do as the Okinawas do. Yakisoba. Start with pork belly as one should, some hacked up sausage, cabbage, carrots, fry that stuff up on the griddle, add some chukamen noodles, sauce, soy, mirin, brown sugar, vinegar and a bit of sake. Top with seaweed a bit of pickled ginger garnish and eat now. He looks that scary. Yeah.
AMAN: He's ready to go. This guy I think is going to win this one.
BOURDAIN: But we haven't seen his opponent. Yeah. My money's on him.
Pretty decisive win at that. I'm not accusing anybody of gambling, but I see some money changing hands. (Inaudible)
If you're looking for sushi or ramen, you 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.
UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language)
AMAN: (Speaking in Foreign Language)
This is the tofu...
BOURDAIN: OK.
AMAN: ... which you eat a little at a time.
BOURDAIN: Is it that strong?
AMAN: It is a little strong, yeah. It has, like, a cheese type of texture.
BOURDAIN: It's good.
AMAN: Not bad, right?
BOURDAIN: It is like blue cheese. Pork belly?
AMAN: Yes.
BOURDAIN: 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 awabori (ph). The ears are simmered until tender, thinly sliced and addressed in rice wine vinaigrette. And the ribs after brining in sake and seasonings are slowly roasted. So you grew up in New Jersey. How did you find your way to Okinawa?
AMAN: Well, my mom was from here. My dad was in the navy. He was stationed here, met my mom and wound up back in New Jersey because that's where my dad was from, Paterson. And I was born and raised there. The school I went to was predominantly Caucasian kids. There wasn't many Asian-Americans at all.
[21:10:01]
BOURDAIN: Right.
AMAN: And I always had this kind of like identity complex. There would be, like, times where people would come to the house. They'd say, "Oh, where's your mom from? Is she from China?"
BOURDAIN: Oh God. Yeah. Right.
AMAN: Open the refrigerator and there would be some weird food. Hey, what's that? What do you eat? And every time I heard that, I was like, "Wow, am I like -- am I different?" And also, one day my mom says, "We're going back to Okinawa on a family trip." I was 17 years old.
BOURDAIN: And you'd never been up to that point?
AMAN: No, but when I got off the plane, I don't know what it was. It was like, I'm 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.
AMAN: Sure.
BOURDAIN: And they were acutely and uncomfortable with it when their friends came over.
Man have things changed as far as attitudes, pretty much the engine of the new American cuisine, are kids with childhoods like yours. I don't mean what's hip, what's the next new thing. I mean, literally redefining what is American cuisine?
Let's 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.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still another American invasion in the Pacific. The objective is Okinawa, one of the rings of island fortresses presenting Japan 300 miles way.
[21:15:00]
BOURDAIN: On April 1st, 1945, a U.S. Invasion fleet of nearly 1,500 ships, a landing force of 182,000 people, that's 75,000 more than Normandy, approached Okinawa. What came next was what Okinawa's 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.
MASAHIDE OTA, FORMER GOVERNOR OF OKINAWA: From the very beginning mainland Japanese defense preparation was only 60 percent when the US military landed on Okinawa. So that they had to keep US military forces and their own lives possibly 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.
BOURDAIN: 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 on honor of their outspoken former governor, the restaurant prepared a dish typically served to royals and VIPs and what was ones the Ryukyu Kingdom. It's called Tundabun after the dish the multi bite-sized portions are presented in.
OTA: Let's eat.
BOURDAIN: That's very good. There's 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 corn slow cooked in hot sauce stuck. Okinawan taro flash fried and dressed with sugar and soy. And pork shoulder dredged in black sesame then steamed.
You have described that you were shocked and surprised to see the Japanese soldiers, the -- their treatment of Okinawans was not good during the battle.
OTA: After the United States forces landed Okinawa, General Headquarters of the Okinawa defense force is 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 as a spy, you know?
BOURDAIN: Right.
OTA: But the Okinawan people cannot understand the standard language, you know? So the Japanese soldiers are killed lots of local people, you know?
BOURDAIN: Particularly given the experience of the war, how Japanese do you think most people feel good here?
OTA: There's a fundamental difference between Japanese culture and Okinawan culture. Japanese culture is warian (ph) culture. But Okinawan culture is absence of militarism. Okinawan people I think (inaudible) people. 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 one percent of the landmass of Japan.
[21:20:00] And yet, what percentages 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?
OTA: You are talking about (inaudible).
BOURDAIN: Not in my backyard.
OTA: Yes, yes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: For a place with his bloody history, Okinawa is today noticeably more laid back than the mainland, but that does not mean everybody's 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 1879 when Japan formally annexed the island.
It is believed these prohibitions led directly to the development of a new style of martial art, undisputedly born in Okinawa, karate, or empty hands technique.
And it's even more vicious cousin, kobudo, a form that uses farm and fishing tools for lethal effect.
[21:25:04] Hard and soft, balance for everything soft, there must be something hard.
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 legendary master of goju-ryu. People come from all over the world to study in his goju and the training they get is hardcore.
I've been invited to watch Hokama Sensei's students warm up. Let me repeat, this is only the warm up.
That that does not they look like fun.
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 extremities, and it hurts even to watch.
JAMES PANKOVICH, BLACK BELTER IN RYU KARATE: This is bad. BOURDAIN: James Pankovich, Brit and black belt in showing ryu karate moved to Okinawa in 2009 to study the budo or the way of martial arts. He acts as translator for most of the karate sensei on the island.
Earlier I met James at Hokama Sensei Makishi Public Market in Okinawa's largest city, Naha.
PANKOVICH: That's the tasty one. Right, we're going to take that one.
BOURDAIN: What are these?
PANKOVICH: (inaudible) so these are puffer fish.
UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: (Speaking in Foreign Language)
PANKOVICH: (Speaking in Foreign Language)
So we got some deep fried fish for us.
BOURDAIN: Gurukun, unofficial national fish of Okinawa, and porcupine fish, both battered and deep fried.
PANKOVICH: They're going to do sashimi.
BOURDAIN: Okinawans eat just about any kind fish sashimi style for us flapper and parrot fish and it loves that because what must serve raw and still twitching in the shell.
PANKOVICH: We're going to get some sea grapes as well.
BOURDAIN: Oh good, good, that's super traditional.
Sea grapes, the classic regional side dish dressed in rice vinegar. What you buy downstairs from vendors, for a small fee restaurant will cook it for you upstairs.
Wow.
SENSEI TETSUHIRO HOKAMA, LEGENDARY MASTER OF GOJU RYU: Oh my God, happy.
BOURDAIN: Wow. So go ahead. So Okinawa's most famous sport, perhaps, is karate.
PANKOVICH: When most of us think of karate, we think of striking, exclusively.
BOURDAIN: Is that an accurate representation of what you're doing?
PANVOKICH: From the basis of Okinawan karate 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. The striking is important, but a lot of the technique is not about striking. It's about submission techniques. Some of that is to do with kyusho so attacking nerve points. And Hokama Sensei in particular is 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 of (inaudible) fingers no - not working open.
BOURDAIN: The demonstration of Hokama Sensei's Open-hand Kyusho Technique becomes a little 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 don't know what tapping out means here because I was tapping like western god damn union. I thought he was going to push that 71-year-old finger right into my brainpan.
[21:30:00]
PANKOVICH: People were saying in the old days if there was a fight happening somewhere in town, people would go and have a look and they'd say, "Are they fighting with fists or open hands?" If they're fighting with fists, they'd say "I don't bother, it's an amateur fight." If they were fighting with open then they knew there were masters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the Eastern Coast of Okinawa gangs under the village of Kin.
BOURDAIN: 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.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Yanks have look inch by inch to conquer this island.
BOURDAIN: Kin is a small slice of Americana both the mainstream America and it's dark underbellies.
[21:35:00] The Okinawans have made the kind of adjustments that people do neighbors like thousand of marines and sometime in the '80s adjusted food as we knew it to this, a mutant classic, taco rice.
VIVIAnt: Taco and rice. That's taco rice. BOURDAIN: Wow.
VIVIAN TAKUSHI: Wow, it's big.
BOURDAIN: Is this chili sauce or it was ketchup?
TAKUSHI: It the original taco...
BOURDAIN: It's taco sauce.
TAKUSHI: ... taco rice sauce. It's a bit spicy but not super sweet.
BOURDAIN: Oh, good.
TAKUSHI: ... but not, not super spicy.
BOURDAIN: Vivian Takushi has lived in both the U.S. and Okinawa and her aunt Suni Koh, an entertainer who began singing in American bases after the war.
Wow, that's good.
There are dueling claims as to how taco rice might have morphed into existence, but Saluri Shima Bakudo (ph). In 1980s American servicemen introduced the standard taco to Okinawans and her grandfather Natsugiyo Gibo decided to tweak them, jumping 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 of goose map turned-classic caught on big-time to both Americans missing home and locals.
So I consider myself a pretty pro-military guy, but why are the marines here? Look, I like marines, but, you know, I'm not Robert McNamara but it seems to me if you go to war we're trying to ascending in the marines is probably not what you're going to be doing. People of your generation, what do you think the attitude is towards the military bases?
TAKUSHI: As long as we're not living near the base...
BOURDAIN: Right.
TAKUSHI: -- it doesn't affect us that much.
BOURDAIN: Right. Near the base...
TAKUSHI: Near the base.
BOURDAIN: ... it makes the difference. I mean look it
TAKUSHI: Right.
BOURDAIN: Probably but if you know right away, I mean, its tattoo parlors, strip clubs, a (inaudible) shops, I mean, you know.
TAKUSHI: And also it's very loud. That's the big issue in that.
BOURDAIN: Tourism is probably the future of Okinawa. You have sunny beautiful weather, beaches. If the bases leave, it's going to be big hotels and resorts and golf courses. Which is worse, Chinese tourists or American marines?
TAKUSI: I'll stick with the marines.
BOURDAIN: Simplified.
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 to provoke by what Okinawans see as high-handed treatment from a central government with different cultural and historical traditions who don't consider their needs or priorities.
And they are 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's 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.
The military base issue, is this more important for older people or the younger people?
KENJI YODA (ph), OKINAWAN FARMER: It's for older people.
BOURDAIN: It's 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 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...
BOURDAIN: Act out.
YODA: ... act or out.
BOURDAIN: This is Kenji Yoda. He's an Okinawan farmer and this Nishimachi (ph), a small noodle shop that bears only the owner's name and serves only Okinawan-style soba.
Pork belly or ribs 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 not perhaps to the spaghetti eating marines they lived with all these years.
[21:40:00] Garnishes are spring onion, fish cake and slices of omelet. Add you pickle ginger and togorashi hot sauce and hooray.
It seems the anti-base sentiment also coincide with that anti-central government sentiment. You do bear with the hugely disproportionate burden of bases or isn't some activism called for here?
YODA: I think the young generation should decide what to do with our future instead of the old people just fighting for their beliefs. To me I really feel a strong need to forgive. And then forget. And then move on.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: 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.
[21:45:05] 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 they sense, a feeling of that long-gone empire remains. Kumejima is a small island that has been largely untouched by the changes in the world. People farm and fish as they always did.
And the war never came here?
PANKOVICH: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
BOURDAIN: This is Bonshura Nagama (ph)and Yulhena Tomohiro (ph) Kumejima residents and friends of James.
PANKOVICH: You know, they've been -- they suffered very little damage in the war.
BOURDAIN: And no military bases. No American bases?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
PANKOVICH: Well, up until '72, there was an American base. BOURDAIN: There was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
PANKOVICH: But then in '72 on the migration, the base was taken away.
BOURDAIN: Now nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
PANKOVICH: Only the Japanese self-defense forces now.
BOURDAIN: What do people do here? Agriculture, growing sugarcane?
PANKOVICH: Tourism.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
PANKOVICH: Fishing.
BOURDAIN: Fishing. Have there been attempts to develop here and have the locals been able to resist that impulse?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
PANKOVICH: They're saying in Kumejima they have rich lives. They have everything they need. They have produce from the land, from the sea. They don't need much else.
BOURDAIN: I've been invited to a beach barbecue, Kumejima 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.
Well, that looks awesome. Off with the head?
UNIDENTIFED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
BOURDAIN: There's more. Local beef grilled and then tossed with moyashi, seasoned bean sprouts. We will need our energy, it appears.
Tagumi is as old school of martial art as it gets. No ring, no octagon. The rules are simple. Known as Okinawan sumo. It looks easy. It's 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.
Nice.
You land on your back for even a second, you lose.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There, he got him that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Awesome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like to try?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Try it.
BOURDAIN: Yeah, sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
BOURDAIN: In the end, it's a less than smoothly executed judo move because Sarugaki (ph) I believe that brings my opponent to the ground.
Thank you for going easy on me. Awesome. Awesome.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:53:18]
BOURDAIN: So I've given up many vices in my life. Many shameful, filthy, guilty pleasures that I used to like that I will that I just don't do anymore, cocaine, heroin, prostitutes, the musical styling 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 can't 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's the convenience store formerly of Mere Akron, Ohio, that mutated into a massive Japanese chain behold the wonder that is Lawson. What is it exactly about this place? It's got its tentacles so deep into my heart and myself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Konnichiwa.
BOURDAIN: Where are you? I know you're around here somewhere. Pillows of love, egg salad from Lawson need a beverage.
[21:55:15] In Naha, you would be advised to avoid International Avenue unless you are homesick for fellow Americans.
Head down the side streets, shuttered storefronts give way to packed Izakayas. A few beers when somebody breakout a shamisen and the good times begin.
People go out here. And after pounding your fists and feeding on a hard meat hooks and shitting out bone chips, you can drop by "Dojo Bar".
James's refuge where some of the island's most esteemed masters and their students come for what's recognized internationally as a cure for all martial-arts related ailments, alcohol.
PANKOVICH: Would you like a drink?
BOURDAIN: I think I would like a beer and maybe a shot of something.
PANKOVICH: Well, I do have a little shot of something.
BOURDAIN: What do you think snake?
PANKOVICH: There have is here sake is like the spirit of Okinawa.
BOURDAIN: Is this sake or whiskey?
PANKOVICH: This is sake. This Okinawa sake with awamori so like a mainland Japanese sake but then they distill it like whiskey so it becomes stronger, little sweet now and now it's aged. It's been in here with the snake maybe three years so all of the essence of the snake has gone into the alcohol.
UNIDENTIFED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
BOURDAIN: There seems to be a conflict of interest here. You train the karate very seriously.
PANKOVICH: Yeah.
BOURDAIN: I mean should you people be drinking? This is why I'm asking. Where is the point of diminishing returns?
PANKOVICH: Many teachers who don't drink, but Awamori is intrinsic to the Okinawan culture.
BOURDAIN: Right.
PANKOVICH: Most enjoy Awamori as part of their lifestyle, in the same with the karate is part of our lifestyle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
PANKOVICH: They're saying, please eat. Less talking, more eating.
BOURDAIN: Sashimi of, well, let's just say it's an animal you like.
PANKOVICH: This is horse meat.
BOURDAIN: Horse, wow, all right.
PANKOVICH: (Speaking Foreign Language)
BOURDAIN: Good, and this?
PANKOVICH: Goat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language)
BOURDAIN: Oh, that's good.
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've seen lately who really show the most heart are women. Is there a future for women in karate?
PANKOVICH: (Speaking in Foreign Language)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yaya (ph), (Speaking Foreign Language)
PANKOVICH: He has a female student here tonight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language).
PANKOVICH: This is Yaya.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Foreign Language).
PANKOVICH: Tony is asking what's the future for women in traditional karate.
YAYA, KARATE FEMALE STUDENT: When I first started karate, I didn't know this far and now I'm learning karate, as the performance and also in 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's about Okinawa. Okinawa people, I think, always have this love to everybody.
