Shikina-en Royal Gardens

This guide to Shikina-en Royal Gardens in Okinawa opens with a question: how do you rebuild a royal garden that stood almost untouched for one hundred forty-six years, then lost in a single wartime season? It traces the garden's construction in seventeen ninety-nine under King Sho On, built specifically to impress the Chinese imperial envoys whose seal made a Ryukyu king legitimate, with its arched bridge, hexagonal island pavilion and red-tiled state hall. It follows the garden into the Battle of Okinawa in nineteen forty-five, when Shikina-en was flattened along with nearly everything else in Naha.