第５回世界ウチナーンチュ大会, 5th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival

Well, it is now April 13, 2012. It has been about one year since I really updated my blog. >.< Sorry!! Just been, err..., busy(?) with things. Because it’s been about a year, I’ll split this up into a few parts and organize it by events so it’s easier to read through. :D

So, first off, I’ll start with the 第５回世界ウチナーンチュ大会 (5th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival). It was held last year from October 12 until 16. Prior to this, I played host to my parents who came to visit me for a week. We went all around Okinawa and it was nice to play interpreter. (LOL) I actually don’t have a lot of pictures from that week.


I think my mom has most of them, I should really ask her for them sometime....hahaha. Anyway, it was really fun and I hope that they actually had a lot of fun while they were here. I guess the one new place that I got to go to was to Churaumi Aquarium. Yes, after one year of living in Okinawa, I finally had the chance to go to Churaumi Aquarium for the first time.

My parents were very understanding of the fact that I was super busy with both my research as well as the preparations for the ウチナーンチュ大会. I could only hangout with them during the day and they were on their own for the early morning and night.


Anyway, on to the 大会. It was one full week of different events where I hardly got any rest. I want to say that throughout the whole week I got a total of maybe 15 to 20 hours of sleep.

The first/opening day was very awesome and the performances were amazing. I thought I got videos of it but apparently I didn’t. >.<
I say the opening day, but really the festival preparations were ongoing from much much before that. Balancing that with my research was a challenge, but it definitely gave me a lot of things to do.

The next day we pretty much did a complete run through of the third day event that our group was running. After that, we had dance practices for most of the night after that.

The third day was the event that my group, the WYUA (World Youth Uchinanchu Association), prepared for. It was an all-day event that I was helping with recording (typing and videoing). It was a very interesting conference that gave birth to the new ideas that continue to guide the WYUA now. There were a total of 7 different goals that were set out to be accomplished by the next festival.

After this, we had our final dance rehearsal for Ryukyu stomp (琉球ストンプ). Being the night before the performance, it was a very intense practice with every little thing getting ironed out.

The next day was our dance performance. Not too much to explain. Just watch the videos and look at the pictures: Part 1 Part 2

After the performance, I was finally able to go and enjoy the actual festival for the first time. It was a wonderful experience to see all the different booths from all around the world.
We also had an after party to celebrate everything being finished.

The next day was the closing ceremony and we got special passes to get up close! There were a lot of different people that performed and I was right in the front for it (*^。^*). The following video is the Theme song for the festival sung by Natchy (guess how old she is!!). I actually got the opportunity to meet with her before!