50 years after the reversion of Japan’s currency

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50 years after the reversion of Japan’s currency

On May 15, 1972, Mikiko Yamanoha, left, clerk at the Bank of the Ryukyus Matsuo Branch in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, exchanges the U.S. dollar into the yen on May 15, 1972, the day that the southern prefecture returned to Japanese sovereignty. Asahi Shimbun file photo NAHA - In a photo from a historic day 50 years ago, an elderly woman is holding a new 10,000 yen bill in her suntanned hand with a portrait of Prince Shotoku printed on it.

In the picture, smiling Mikiko Yamanoha, a clerk with the Bank of the Ryukyus Matsuo Branch in the capital of Okinawa Prefecture, is handing change to the woman.

Yamanoha, now 75, remembers the day when Okinawa returned to Japanese sovereignty and the currency in use there was switched from the U.S. dollar to the Japanese yen.

She said she took a bus an hour earlier than usual to go to work on May 15, 1972.

It had been raining from the morning, Yamanoha said. I think I went to work that day in a short rainproof cloak and under an umbrella. The street is currently a popular tourist spot, but Yamanoha said the district around it had a more local feel, with department stores, a hospital, eateries and other establishments lining the street.

Yamanoha devoted herself to exchanging U.S. dollars that customers brought in with them, for Japanese yen, instead of taking routine bank duties.

Following Japan's defeat in World War II, the currency system in Okinawa changed many times, falling under the U.S. military administration.

A military scrip called the B-yen was used for some time before it was replaced by the U.S. dollar in 1958.

Okinawa is the only part of Japan where people have ever experienced so many changes in the money system during their lifetime, and the people of my generation are probably the only ones who have gone through all that, Yamanoha said.

A decision on returning Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty was made about a decade after the dollar came into use, where preparations began for another currency switch, this time to the Japanese yen.

That was a big project, which involved using vessels of Japan's Self-Defense Forces to carry 54 billion yen in cash from mainland Japan to Okinawa.

The Matsuo Branch opened on May 15, 1972, the day the currency exchange began, when customers formed two and three lines there. Yamanoha was also there handling yen bills.

She said that all dollar bills are the same size, but yen bills come in different sizes. I remember thinking at the time that the yen bills were more of a nuisance for a bank clerk like me because it took more effort to line up their edges. It was not the first time that Yamanoha had ever held the yen in her hands.

She had made the rounds of Kyushu and Honshu for about 20 days during her high school class trip in the summer of 1964. At the time, Okinawans needed passports to travel to mainland Japan.

I asked myself why I needed my passport despite the fact that I was a Japanese compatriot, Yamanoha said. But when I asked myself if I was an American, I realized that I was speaking Japanese. I thought of myself as someone really not this one, but not the other one. She said that it will allow me to represent myself confidently as a Japanese and go wherever I want to go.

She continued working for the Bank of the Ryukyus after the reversion to Japanese sovereignty and did so until she was 64, including a stint as an employee on loan elsewhere. She used to travel both in Japan and abroad, saving money in yen.

Yamanoha is a volunteer staff member at the Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum in Naha.

There is a check issued when the dollar is exchanged into the yen. She said the exhibit reminds her of the days when she was pressed for time exchanging currency for customers at her bank.