Faces of Okinawa

			Lefteris Kafatos From The United States of America

	Q1. Can you introduce yourself?
		A. My name is Lefteris Kafatos. I'm from the United States, originally from Washington DC. I studied Japanese in Hawaii for 4 or 5 years. And now, I've been in Okinawa for two years, working at the Okinawa Prefectural Board of Education.
	Q2. What is your impression of Okinawa, before your arrival, and after your arrival? What is the good points and bad points you found?
		A. My impression of Okinawa before my arrival was, because it is full of military bases here, especially because of the three soldiers who raped an Okinawan elementary school girl, I thought Okinawans resented Americans and American presence. But when I came, I found that not so many people resent Americans. However What I was really surprised about was that even though Okinwan people and American military people live right next door to each other, they don't know much about each other, which is a very unfortunate. It shows a lack of effort. Especially on the American military side the base is just like a city, that you can just stay on the base. Really good thing about Okinawa is that everybody is very warm-hearted, Okinawans are generally very kind.
	Q3.Anything you want to say about your own country, the United States, as a memer country of the Summit?
		A. I think that the United States, in a way, has washed its way, in terms of how to deal with the world community. Their foreign policy has became a military policy, so I hope that the Summit will be a chance for the United States to be more leveled, not putting itseslf above the other nations.
	Q4.What do you think Okinawa can do with the opportunity of holding the Summit here? Is there anything okinawa should do?
		A. I think Okinawa should not expect the Japanse government to help Okinawa. In the prefecture they say many times over in the speeches,"This is an opportunity to show the appeal of Okinawa to the world." So how do you do that? It's important to plan. Just by some leaders comming, I don't think it will reaaly change people's views on Okinawa, because it is not like Olympics, where many people come, it's only few people. So Okinawa should take the opportunity to make business ties, as much as possible with other countries. If they want to make Okinawa change.