We arrived at the Naha, Okinawa airport twice. The first time was on a plane like the one pictured above from a weekend trip to Ishigaki island which I had planned. Except for the hotel restaurant spaghetti incident, the trip was pleasant and uneventful. The other time was on a Japan Airlines stretch DC-8 from Taipei. The whole trip to Taiwan was the strangest and most thrilling adventure I had with Mom and Dad during the time we were all together. However, here I'm only going to tell about the voyage home.
Just before flying home, my mom purchased a sack of delicious mangoes that she enjoyed so much while we were there. She carried them on board the plane. (The plane they held back from departing while we had that terrible scene in immigrations where we tried to get OUT of the country without an entrance stamp in our passports and only a typewritten letter to General Fung thanking him for allowing us to visit his fabulous country. See what I mean?)
The mangoes were prohibited from entry into Okinawa, something I discovered later, but since our departure was so unconventional, to say the least, we didn't notice any signage and nobody mentioned it to us. Besides, all I cared about was getting through customs with contraband in my suitcase!
We had cleverly packed several bootleg copies of record albums we bought for pennies in my suitcase. At the time Taiwan didn't honor any copyright laws so music albums and books were reprinted without fear of the law. The US, though, didn't allow these items and were confiscated at customs if discovered.
The records were all cleverly packed inside a round cookie tin my parents went out and bought expressly for the purpose of smuggling. They even bought extra pieces of paper and twine so that after we ate most of the cookies we could put the records in the bottom, replace the remaining cookies on top and then wrap it all up again. Devious, huh? It was my idea. I had seen the tins and thought they might be the right size and suggested it when we were in the hotel room conspiring.
The plan had an excellent chance of working as long as a customs/immigration/agricultural inspection agent didn't lift the package. Otherwise they'd never know that instead of cookies inside there were actually about 30 vinyl records.
It wasn't my idea to pack the contraband in MY suitcase. But that's what happened since, as my dad explained, I had the most room. It weighed a ton and my poor, skinny little arms strained to lug that suitcase along.
When we arrived at US Customs in Naha I was so nervous and let my mom go ahead of me, clutching a mesh bag of fresh mangoes with both hands held behind her. I remember seeing a sign saying that all fruits and vegetables had to be surrendered due to agricultural reasons. Mom knew about that too, by then, but that didn't stop her from trying. And she got away with it too until I got really nervous when one of the agents started fussing with my suitcase and appeared to be on the brink of discovering my filthy little secret.
To save my own ass and distract the agent I said, "Mother, you can't bring MANGOES into Okinawa!" Their attention went straight to her. In fact another agent came out of the back room where he'd been reading the newspaper. I wasn't sure they could see the bag so I pulled it out from behind her. She gave me the look of bloody murder and immediately I felt relief that the spotlight wasn't on me!
I shut my suitcase and left while she was in there trying to save her fruit. But it didn't work. She walked out with a big bag of nothing, fuming.
She reminded me of that situation many, many times afterwards. She was never again to taste a mango as sweet as the ones the Naha airport officials undoubtedly sat and ate after we were out of sight.
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The very first time we went to Naha airport was to meet my sister who was arriving from the US after her first year of teaching 2nd grade. She couldn't pass up the chance to come and live with us on Okinawa for two years.
I remember seeing her walk in across the tarmac from the observation deck and wondering why her hair was totally straight and wet-looking and hanging down like she had just washed it. I laughed out loud. I'd never seen her look like that in public before. I was too young to make the connection between straight hair, curlers and humidity.
The second time was when we went to meet my brother who was arriving after a long trip from France via Tehran, Delhi and Hong Kong, among other stops. He didn't show up and so we eventually went home, not sure what to think or do. There weren't any reports of planes being shot down over Vietnam, at least not commercial jets. Later he called from a Hong Kong hotel saying his flight had misconnected and Pan Am had put him up for the night.
We returned the next night for our reunion after not seeing him for two years. To my delight I was much, much closer to being able to look straight into his eyes. And he said he wouldn't have recognized me because I had grown so much.
Ah, Pan Am. The assumed airline for everyone and everywhere for so long.
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