Karakui – Okinawan Pop Culture
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2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 36,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Featured Posts
It’s been 5+ years here at Karakui.com and over a decade of Okinawan pop culture posts spread out throughout the Web. So, what now? Well, from today, you can find us at the brand-spanking new Karakui.net. Not to worry about this site (what we’re referring to as the dotcom) as it’ll still be here with all of the old posts.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @karakui which is a great place to keep updated on our latest posts and an awesome way to get in contact with us. Thank you for all of your support these many years and we hope that you’ll continue to follow and support us over at Karakui.net.
So here’s my companion to that special I did on actresses from Okinawa back in August 2009. This article will feature actors who were born in Okinawa or who have ties to Okinawa — usually a parent or grandparent who is originally from Okinawa. The list of actors may surprise you as you’ve probably seen them before if you follow J-drama. I hope you enjoy it!
What an exciting time we’re living in if you’re a fan of the sanshin. In the past, those of us outside of Okinawa who play the sanshin would have to either go there or be fortunate enough to know someone who lives or travels there for us to buy the instrument or its accessories (e.g. strings, uma, karakui, etc.). Although there have been ways to order the instrument online (like eBay, Asoviva Sanshin), I’m very happy to announce that sanshin and sanshin accessories can now be ordered in Hawaii. In addition to being able to purchase a variety of new sanshin or its accessories, you can also have the skin from your sanshin’s chiiga (drum) replaced with a new one of your choice: real snakeskin, double-layer (a combination of a layer of real snakeskin over a layer of synthetic covering), or synthetic covering.
I tweeted about it and here it is, the Fauta Blog, totally dedicated to bringing you links to Okinawan artists (and music) found in the iTunes Store (United States).
I’ve been meaning to post an entry on this subject, actresses from Okinawa, for a very long time. If you haven’t noticed, we’re living in a very special time (well, especially for Okinawan pop culture folks) where it’s impossible not to find an actress from Okinawa on TV or on the big screen. I’ve managed to round-up seven actresses who have made and are making a splash in the entertainment world. So, yeah, hopefully this’ll give you an incentive to watch more Japanese TV if only to say that you know that actress is from Okinawa. 
