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How to find someone in Okinawa

Love long lost

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BDerks

後輩
28 Dec 2014
7
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From 1968 through most of 1969 I was stationed at Kadena AFB and in July 1969 I was very fortunate to meet an Okinawan young lady that swept my heart away. She was 18 I was 19. She was very very nice had a spirit to match and I still miss her dearly today. Now I am retired and would like to find out if she is still around or maybe she married. Her name is Kina Tokiko (not sure on the spelling of the last name but that is how it sounded) and she lived in the Goya - Gate 2 Street area. She did attend the University of Tokyo. She and her family were awesome and accepted me into their family. When I was talking to Kina about our future, (I wanted her to be my life long partner, best friend, my wife and mother to my children) I told her that because my parents were extremely religious and they find it would difficult to accept her. WRONG THING TO SAY - her family rejected me and I never seen her again no matter what I did or said. It wasn't till many many years later I found out what basically said was that Kina wasn't worthy and basically humiliated her and her family. I have tried many times over the years to contact here but to no avail. If she married then I wouldn't bother - but one never knows. I never married I have never met someone as precious as her. She was my first date in my life Sorry for all the mush.
 
Almost the identical story as you only it was Yoshiko in 1970 & 71 at Hakata Air Base. I always figured to try and get in touch with her might upset her and her life . I just tell myself she lived happily ever after and let the past go. I will admit to having the paperwork from the consulate for us to get married still in my old files though , LOL.
 
How long did you actually see in Okinawa this young lady who was attending university thousands of kilometers away and whose name you don't even recall?

We've recently had some success locating a couple of long-lost males for people, but locating a female (who likely married and changed her name) or even her relatives when you don't know her correct name is going to be an impossible task.....and I'm a little loathe to disrupt what may be a happy home with stories of Mom's old foreign fling from decades ago.
 
I never seen her written name. She attended Tokyo U for 2 years. She was very smart. I have no intentions of disrupting her life . Things happen and maybe a child from a blonde blue eyed guy would not bode well. Don't know just saying. If she is happy with hubby and family there is no way would I mess that up . I respect first. If that name can be found then maybe, if not do not pursue any further as is she probably married, I would be very happy for her. I just never met a woman that gave me a rush just being next to her like she did. That she is ok is very important.
 
Did she attend Tokyo University (the Japanese equivalent of going to Harvard) or some other university in Tokyo? How do you know she dropped out of university after two years? Or did she attend a junior college....not the University of Tokyo....and graduate after two years?

How long were you seeing her before she went away to university? If you two were so deeply involved, how is it she didn't write you while she was away at university? Are you sure her family turned cold because of mention of your parents' religious intolerance? Or was it because a starry-eyed lovestruck young foreigner was suddenly talking love, marriage, and babies about their child they had spent the last dozen or more years fighting to prepare for Tokyo University....not a negligible undertaking. And perhaps both she and they thought you were just someone they were being nice to?

Your story comes across like a young GI who thought there was a lot more to the relationship than the other person did and who built it up in his mind to be more lengthy and deep than perhaps it really was.

All that aside, I'd still try to find her for you just for the challenge of doing it, but you really don't give me anything concrete to work with.
 
Did she attend Tokyo University (the Japanese equivalent of going to Harvard) or some other university in Tokyo? How do you know she dropped out of university after two years? Or did she attend a junior college....not the University of Tokyo....and graduate after two years?

How long were you seeing her before she went away to university? If you two were so deeply involved, how is it she didn't write you while she was away at university? Are you sure her family turned cold because of mention of your parents' religious intolerance? Or was it because a starry-eyed lovestruck young foreigner was suddenly talking love, marriage, and babies about their child they had spent the last dozen or more years fighting to prepare for Tokyo University....not a negligible undertaking. And perhaps both she and they thought you were just someone they were being nice to?

Your story comes across like a young GI who thought there was a lot more to the relationship than the other person did and who built it up in his mind to be more lengthy and deep than perhaps it really was.

All that aside, I'd still try to find her for you just for the challenge of doing it, but you really don't give me anything concrete to work with.
 
Thanks for the thrashing I probably needed that - it was 45 years ago. :)

I'm not unsympathetic to your plight. I doubt there is a man or woman alive who hasn't gone through something similar in affairs of the heart. Goodness knows I've got my own decades-old dusty baggage tucked away in my own heart. You can't help but want to drag it out every now and then and look at it.
 
I'm not unsympathetic to your plight. I doubt there is a man or woman alive who hasn't gone through something similar in affairs of the heart. Goodness knows I've got my own decades-old dusty baggage tucked away in my own heart. You can't help but want to drag it out every now and then and look at it.

Happy New Years Mike. Some more info: Kina did live in Koza. I was seeing and dating her for about 3 months. She worked in a bar and cleaned tables and the bar counter and made sure the bar had plenty of clean glasses, emptied ash trays etc.... One day I went there after work and she wasn't there and the lady that was doing Kina's work. I asked where Kina was and she said Kina had something to do and she ask if she could help me as she was her mother and she had heard about me. So we talked for a while, really hit it off. The next night Kina was there and she told me that her mother had met me and said her parents had invited me for supper (cool). The next evening I met Kina at the bar and we went to her house in Koza. Her parents were very poor but happy and loving folks. Kina also had a sister that was 5 to 7 years younger that her. So, she probably went to school in the area. I had to dig deep but the details are still there. The last six month I've had such a pull from Oki .......................... as if Kina is reaching. Maybe wishful thinking - - but maybe........... Some connections are never broken. That's why I'm searching and asking for help. I have no access to the correct records. Kina went Tokyo U for 2 yrs and I met her after. I didn't care if she went there or not she was just a beautiful person. I was curious how they could afford the education and I was told it was a 2 year scholarship and I never questioned it. This is how I am, I look at what the person is like - I DO NOT PREJUDGE because prejudging is NOT the best way to know someone.
 
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Ignoring the Tokyo U thing since, although I think it is highly suspect, I wouldn't blame a girl for padding the resume a bit, there's still the issue whether this is a good idea.

You know how you made that original faux pas? If Kina is a respectable woman then having an old foreign lover show up in her life could be devastating to her marriage, family, friends and social standing.

You need to ask yourself if your wish to contact her is worth the havoc you could cause by this faux pas.
 
The reason I asked about the university is that it might prove to be a help in finding her if you knew which university. There is a big difference between "Tokyo University" and "a university in Tokyo". However, if she was 18 when you met her and she had supposedly already been to university for two years then I'm afraid either you have misremembered something, misunderstood something, or were just fed a load of bunk. It is possible she graduated junior high, didn't go to high school, and attended a vocational school for a couple of years before coming back at 18. But that doesn't help with locating her either.

In all honesty, it sounds like even at the time you probably built it up to more in your mind that what it actually was and the passing of years has just embellished it. There aren't a whole lot of sincere and lasting romances to be found with the bar girls in the bars outside the gates of military bases, but there is a never-ending stream of young GIs who find out the hard way. It's practically a military tradition. Did your dates consist of going places together? Or of going to her bar and hanging out?

If she stayed working there for very long, the chances that she remembers you at all are really rather slim, I would imagine. If you're simply concerned whether she's doing alright or not, take comfort in the fact that the standard of living in Japan is so far ahead of what it was 45 years ago that you wouldn't recognize the place. We have very affordable socialized health care, and Japanese women have a life expectancy that is probably the longest on the planet. Chances are she's doing just fine.

EDIT:

"Kina" (喜納) is a family name that seems to be concentrated mostly in Okinawa.

I have found an address and phone number for a Tokiko Kina living in Naha. I have no idea if it is the same person or not. I also found a quote from a 63 year old woman of the same name and city from a 2008 news article, which would mean either it is a different woman (not in likely) or you remember or were told a wrong age. Might it have been the younger sister who was 18 and 5-7 years younger than Tokiko? Could she have been about 24? That would also make the having been to school and come back but much more plausible.
 
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Ignoring the Tokyo U thing since, although I think it is highly suspect, I wouldn't blame a girl for padding the resume a bit, there's still the issue whether this is a good idea.

You know how you made that original faux pas? If Kina is a respectable woman then having an old foreign lover show up in her life could be devastating to her marriage, family, friends and social standing.

You need to ask yourself if your wish to contact her is worth the havoc you could cause by this faux pas.
 
If she is married then she is off limits and I am not going to do anything but go away. If I cannot confirm wither she is married or not the assumption is she is married. RESPECT FIRST !!!!!
 
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