Foreigners behaving badly goes down well with audiences in Japan. Stories of Yankee misfits, British conmen and Korean upstarts are guaranteed to find eager readers. Throw in shady espionage rings, guys who started out by sleeping on park benches, plus stories of massive transfers of dollars bills in brown paper bags, and you…
February 14, 2021
rabbit-island.info
Okunoshima is not unique among the some 3,000 islands dotting Japan s Seto Inland Sea, between Hiroshima prefecture and the island of Shikoku. Neither the biggest nor the smallest, the tiny land mass measures less than a square kilometre. There s no natural water supply that s shipped in from the mainland and as of 2010, only 26 people live on the island, but Okunoshima is far better known for its population of four-legged residents.
There is a strange propensity in Japan to name islands after cute critters, and myths abound of how beloved animals arrived in several remote destinations spanning the Japanese archipelago. Tashirojima, for example, acquired its famous cats during the late Edo period (1603-1868), to act as pest control on the island s silkworm farms, a wholesome, practical explanation.