"Kageboshi Fukushima Kiko: Hana wa sakedomo"

 December 22, 2014

Yamagata farmer-singers write song for nuclear disaster-hit Fukushima residents

Kotaro Endo, left, and other Kageboshi members put on a show and play their song for Fukushima Prefecture, in Tokyo's Nerima Ward, on Nov. 21, 2014. (Mainichi)

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20141221p2a00m0na003000c.html

Amateur folk music group "Kageboshi," made up of local farmers in Yamagata Prefecture, has created a song dedicated to residents in Fukushima Prefecture, who continue to suffer from the nuclear power plant disaster.

The song is included on a CD which was released with a booklet titled "Kageboshi Fukushima Kiko: Hana wa sakedomo" (Kageboshi Fukushima travelogue: Though the flowers bloom) on March 11, 2014 -- the third anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. The group included an English version of their original song "Even Though the Flowers Bloom," so singers from both home and abroad could try the tune.

A passage from the song goes like this:

"Tokyo could not care less about those who have been forced out of their hometowns.

Does the city not have a heart to ache over the tragedy its own electric power has caused?"

The group Kageboshi was formed in 1975 by Kotaro Endo, 62, Yoshikazu Yokozawa, 61, and other farmers in the Yamagata Prefecture city of Nagai. One of their best known songs is "Shirakawa Ihoku Hitoyama Hyakumon" released in 1991 -- named after an old insult about the Tohoku region, meaning that mountains in the north of Shirakawa (in today's Fukushima Prefecture) are only worth 100 Japanese mon each.

The song depicts the complicated relationship between the Tokyo metropolitan area and the Tohoku region, which can be read in a line that goes:

"They forced dangerous technology like nuclear power on us and degraded our land."

The group put together the CD and booklet to show support for Fukushima residents as fellow Tohoku natives, and performed the song at shows in Tokyo, Shizuoka, Kanazawa and other cities across the country in November.

"Of course the flowers bloom even in the disaster-hit areas, but there are those who cannot see them blossom as they are still living away from home," Endo said.

The group plans to tour the country playing the song. A companion booklet includes photos taken by Kenichi Hasegawa, a dairy farmer from Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, where residents are still unable to return after the nuclear disaster. The CD/booklet is now on sale for 1,500 yen. For more information, contact Kageboshi at 0238-84-6445 (in Japanese).