Buchikun

Sometimes I get obsessed with a word, and like some kind of lifelong curse, that word slowly but surely ensnares me. One of these words is “mafukwa buchikun.” I think you might translate it as something like, “This blazing Okinawa summer sun is hot hot hot hot hot, I mean hot, in fact I think I better just add a couple more hots on there, because I’m so hot, I’m gonna faint dead away.” So mafukwa probably means “really hot direct sunlight”. And I suppose buchikun means “to topple over”. I’m sure I first heard these words on a day that was undeniably buchikun weather. With the heat waving before my eyes, I couldn’t help but see how this shocking heat might send someone tumbling down in a faint. I’d even go so far as to call mafukwa buchikun a moving phrase. It made me love the people of Okinawa even more, because they’d given birth to this word and used it in their daily lives. These surprising words wrapped me up in Okinawa, all snug and hot.