The Islands of Okinawa

Sun, Sea and Staying Forever Young - Abigail King samples Ryuku island culture.

"You must try it," says Kuki, translating what the waiter's body language already makes clear. "He says it's the secret to a long and healthy life."

On the one hand, Okinawa does hold the record for life-expectancy. On the other, the "secret" looks like a test-tube of seaweed that's been rescued from an oil spill and marinated with enucleated frogspawn.

I reach for the chopsticks and tease out a stringy, snotty column of goo. It tastes of vinegar chilled with rotting jellyfish.

"Delicious," I hear myself say. "Thank you."

This is Japan after all and manners matter. Yet it's hard to believe that anyone would want to live to 100 if it meant enduring this every day. The secret, if there is one, must lie somewhere else in Okinawa.

In political terms, the home of longevity is only a baby, having joined feudal Japan a mere 500 years ago. We're almost 1000 kilometres from the mainland, flung southwest through the Pacific and the East China Sea to land closer to Taiwan than Tokyo.

From the air, the sub-tropical water forms haloes around the islands, as crescents of coral peer through the waves. From the ground, it's Japan, but not as you'd know it. Chinese-style lions peer down from the rooftops and locals sport floral shirts and suntans instead of business suits and briefcases.

While geography has served up a flawless menu of sun, sea and sand, the shifting powers of history have left an intriguing cultural footprint, with influences from local giants China and Korea mingling with those of the uninvited US troops. Yet Okinawa's in no danger of an identity crisis, with islanders continuing their own Ryukyu dialect and customs.

Okinawa's also the birthplace of karate, the breeding ground for the poisonous Hebu snake and the world's largest producer of purple potato ice-cream. Plus, it possesses the knowledge that man has sought since the beginning of time: the key to longevity.

Scientists point to the diet here, highlighting the low-fat nature of Okinawa's wheat noodles, pork broth and gōyā (a bitter melon shaped like a cucumber with bobbles along the side.) They discuss the high proportion of tofu, in contrast to Japan's fondness for fish and the West's craving for red meat. A "low stress lifestyle" routinely gets thrown in as the final defining factor.

Locals, however, have their own ideas.

"Find a star in the sand," a woman whispered to me as I strolled along Hoshizuna beach, "and you've found the secret to a long and healthy life."

Luckily, I'd come to the right place. On the shores of Taketomi Island, the skeletons of thousands of tiny marine creatures wash up onto land, where their bleached bodies snuggle down and hide among traditional particles of sand. Invisible to passers by, a scattering of stars appear on your palm if you press your hand into the ground.

It's hard to imagine that these idyllic islands witnessed Japan's only land battle in WWII, one of the most brutal in the Pacific War. Those 83 days of fighting claimed more lives than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings combined, leaving a third of the civilian population dead, many from suicide as defeat seemed inevitable and surrender unthinkable.

Ultimately, the US troops arrived - and never really left. They introduced fast food and shopping malls and made everyone drive on the right. When US command, if not its bases, withdrew in 1973, Okinawa kept the McDonalds but switched the roads back to the left.

Not that this traffic skirmish disrupted the transport link between Iriomote and Yube, where water buffaloes continued to plod through the waves along whichever route took their fancy.

To the sorrowful twang of a three-stringed sanshin, one man and his buffalo line up on the shore. Each pair hauls a cart through the ankle-deep water to reach the tiny island of Yubu, where the sand has the colour of shortbread and the fish swim like tumbling sapphires. It's a soulful procession, despite the tourists. A blend of religious reverence, farming and sustenance. A throwback to when buffaloes mattered, to when they dominated the local harvest by transporting the key crop, sugar cane.

"Brown sugar reduces stress and lowers cholesterol," a leaflet tells me, making first one and then the other eyebrow rise. Stacked next door are hunks of the brown stuff, a pool of toffee-like dust at the base, and a thermos of hot water on standby for making a Yaeyama sugar brew.

"Long life", beams the girl who serves me as I sip the malty and somehow bitter drink. It's certainly better than the seaweed, even if the reasoning flies in the face of modern healthcare advice.

My musings on diabetes, obesity and ocean life are interrupted by the shriek of whistles and thumping drumbeats behind. A line of men with scarlet headdresses and striped trousers leap and chant to the strums of the sanshin guitar and the simple song of a tall man in purple. In between the dancers, a Buddha-like man with white face paint and rosy cheeks bounces around, whistling and grinning at the crowd.

"That's the chondara", Kuki tells me. "He used to chant Buddhist prayers to commemorate the dead. Now he makes people laugh".

I'm not sure how to respond.

"In Ryukyu culture, remembering ancestors is not sad. You have seen the graves along the roads?"

Yes, it's hard not to. Six foot high granite structures with plinths large enough to be seats.

"Families have picnics in them", Kuki explains. "To feel closer to those who have gone by including them in a happy day out".

By now, it's obvious that the rules about life and death work a little differently over here. A relaxed ocean culture that never surrenders and a seaweed and sugar diet that defies the laws of high blood pressure.

Someone hands me a glass of colourless liquid that sends fireworks across my throat.

"Awamori", I'm told, as I examine the local liquor.

"It's distilled from rice and black yeast", says Kuki.

A warmth spreads inside me.

"Apparently, it's the secret to a long and healthy life."