Memoirs of the Battle of Okinawa: From the Perspective of ‘Mabuigumi’

This article focuses on the story ‘Mabuigumi’ (‘Spirit Stuffing,’ 1998) by Medoruma Shun, a contemporary writer of Okinawan descent. The story explicitly depicts the history of the Battle of Okinawa and the people who were traumatized by the war. First, this article demonstrates that landscapes and living things evoke memories of the war and people, and they play a significant role in showing that people’s present lives remain threatened. Second, the article conjectures that an āman (a hermit crab) represents Okinawa, which was traumatized by the mainland, and shows that Uta (the protagonist) is burdened by the guilt of her own survival. In addition, it considers the love of a mother (Omito) and son (Kōtarō) for each other. Third, this article illustrates that the history of the mainland was decentralized through visual expressions of personal memories of war. The history of mainland Japan does not regard the fact that Japanese soldiers killed Okinawans during the Battle of Okinawa. History, as officially narrated by the Okinawans, changes its narrative content depending on the shifting relationship between Okinawa and the mainland. This work relativizes and decentralizes the official historical narratives of the mainland and Okinawa through repressed personal memories of the war.

The effect of escape gap on the cube folding trap on fish catches composition and trap rate at the northern coast of Tuban regency

This study aims to determine the effect of escape gap on catch composition, CPUE, and trap rate at the northern coast of Tuban Regency. The research was conducted by ten trips of experimental fishing at different locations in November 2019. A total of 60 units of cube folding traps were installed long line, consisting of cube folding traps without escape gaps, cube folding traps with escape gaps 6x3 cm, cube folding traps escape gaps 7x4 cm, 20 units, respectively. The fish catch composition consists of 18 species of 6 groups, i.e., fish, swimmer crab, shrimp, hermit crab, and snail. Fish were the most dominant group captured by cube folding traps in the northern coast of Tuban Regency (59.7%), followed by swimmer crab, snail, crab, shrimp, and hermit crab. The highest catch per unit effort was found in cube folding traps with escape gaps 7x4 cm as much as 6,94 gr/traps/trip. The highest of the trap rate (18%) was obtained in the cube folding traps without escape gap. There was a significant difference (p=95%) in the weight of fish catches and CPUE between cube folding traps without escape gaps and the cube folding traps with escape gaps 7 x 4 cm.