I was first in Japan in June 1976. Then in 1990 - then for most of the period 1991-2009. Enka appealed when I was taken out by people my age (in their 40s+) - the kind of blues of nostalgia for those long ago days and lost loves and opportunities - the music - but at the same time I was teaching and my students (adults, university, high …
I was first in Japan in June 1976. Then in 1990 - then for most of the period 1991-2009. Enka appealed when I was taken out by people my age (in their 40s+) - the kind of blues of nostalgia for those long ago days and lost loves and opportunities - the music - but at the same time I was teaching and my students (adults, university, high school) were teaching me their favourite singers of that era - Chage & Aska, Nakajima Miyuki, Doriko? (Dreams Come True) folkloric music from Okinawa (some of my students nephews or friends from some noted singers/groups from their) - so many tapes were dubbed for me - and all of it helped me get the kind of feel for for Japan I really needed to feel it - beyond "konnichi-wa aka-chan" or the early 20th century (I hope I get it right): "Uchi no haha hige ga aru" or all the children's songs - tunes brought back from Scotland and other places set with Japanese words - ANNO Mitsumasa did a marvellous picture book with the lyrics and printed music I worked with during my time in Shimane-ken as an exchange teacher from Australia - the other end of the prefecture from Tsuwano where Anno Mitsumasa was born - and further away from Ube-shi in Yamaguchi-shi where he did his secondary and university studies...in fact I taught the daughter of one of his cousins...and exchanged a couple of letters with him. "Akatonbo" among others - "Furusato" - the heart of a child's early years swells with those "nursery rhymes".... So my time was the 1990s and the 2000s - though enka appears almost timeless - with a foundation of the late 19th and early 20th-century children's songs - preparing me for the kind of J-Pop/ballads - Takahashi Mariko? and others... about whom/which you have written so well... (I'm in Coffs Harbour on the north coast of NSW for three days - a contemporary's 70th birthday party this coming Saturday. Walking to the nearby surf beach I got into conversation with two young couples - two vehicles - preparing a barbecue dinner in the local car park. From Japan - here already six months - after time in Queensland - now gradually moving south to finish up in Tasmania... From Ōsaka...but they knew well the Nichinan surfing coast of southern Miyazaki-ken - the region of some of my Japanese kinfolk connections!) Jim
I was first in Japan in June 1976. Then in 1990 - then for most of the period 1991-2009. Enka appealed when I was taken out by people my age (in their 40s+) - the kind of blues of nostalgia for those long ago days and lost loves and opportunities - the music - but at the same time I was teaching and my students (adults, university, high school) were teaching me their favourite singers of that era - Chage & Aska, Nakajima Miyuki, Doriko? (Dreams Come True) folkloric music from Okinawa (some of my students nephews or friends from some noted singers/groups from their) - so many tapes were dubbed for me - and all of it helped me get the kind of feel for for Japan I really needed to feel it - beyond "konnichi-wa aka-chan" or the early 20th century (I hope I get it right): "Uchi no haha hige ga aru" or all the children's songs - tunes brought back from Scotland and other places set with Japanese words - ANNO Mitsumasa did a marvellous picture book with the lyrics and printed music I worked with during my time in Shimane-ken as an exchange teacher from Australia - the other end of the prefecture from Tsuwano where Anno Mitsumasa was born - and further away from Ube-shi in Yamaguchi-shi where he did his secondary and university studies...in fact I taught the daughter of one of his cousins...and exchanged a couple of letters with him. "Akatonbo" among others - "Furusato" - the heart of a child's early years swells with those "nursery rhymes".... So my time was the 1990s and the 2000s - though enka appears almost timeless - with a foundation of the late 19th and early 20th-century children's songs - preparing me for the kind of J-Pop/ballads - Takahashi Mariko? and others... about whom/which you have written so well... (I'm in Coffs Harbour on the north coast of NSW for three days - a contemporary's 70th birthday party this coming Saturday. Walking to the nearby surf beach I got into conversation with two young couples - two vehicles - preparing a barbecue dinner in the local car park. From Japan - here already six months - after time in Queensland - now gradually moving south to finish up in Tasmania... From Ōsaka...but they knew well the Nichinan surfing coast of southern Miyazaki-ken - the region of some of my Japanese kinfolk connections!) Jim