My Obsession with Japanese Music Began with This One Song Two Decades Ago...

My fascination with Japanese (pop) culture started around 2002, when songs of household names such as Utada Hikaru, Nakashima Mika, and Namie Amuro could be heard everywhere from CD shops to shopping malls in major Asian cities. But, thinking back to the time when I first “came into contact” with J-pop, there was this one song that I had heard about 2 years earlier that got me interested in Japanese music. It was wintertime and the whole world had just welcomed the arrival of the year 2000, and, though I’ve forgotten where I heard this song titled “Kabutomushiカブトムシ” by Aiko Yanai, I remember that I liked its melody very much. That said, as an 11-year-old Chinese Canadian boy, despite being able to read some Kanji, I couldn’t understand the lyrics other than the fact that it was something related to “beetles”. As interesting as that song was, it gradually faded from my memory as I became addicted to listening to songs of other Japanese artists that were more internationally well-known, such as The Blue Hearts, Mr. Children and Ai Otsuka – partly thanks to Japanese TV series and movies.

For most of my teenage years, I was heavily influenced by my Japanese friends at school and all of them were international students from Japan. I still remember attending a school concert organized by the Japanese students in my high school, who sang the theme songs of a 2005 movie titled “Nana ナナ”. Mika Nakashima’s “Glamorous Sky” and Yuna Ito’s then debut single “Endless Story”, which were both featured in the said movie, were the “go-to” songs for me and my Japanese friends when singing at karaoke bars.

Fast-forwarding to late 2017, when I moved to Tokyo for work, I started to study Japanese and doing so has enabled me to understand song lyrics in general much better than before. By pure chance, I heard the song “Kabutomushi” again at a friend’s house, which jogged my memory. A few weeks later, when doing karaoke with my then colleagues, one of them picked that song but his vocals didn’t do justice to it (please forgive me for saying that!). That said, I was paying attention to the lyrics the whole time my ex-colleague was singing, when I realized it was more than just a song about “beetles”; it was about how a rhinoceros beetle, despite being known as the strongest insect in the world, is actually weak and delicate beneath the hard shell yet it has to act brave to protect itself. With the life of a rhinoceros beetle being used as an example, the song depicts how someone expresses nostalgia for days spent with their deceased loved one, while knowing that life must go on.

To be honest, I was shocked by the fact that, for nearly two decades since I first heard the song, I had been completely ignorant of what that song was about. Nevertheless, if I hadn’t heard that song back then, I would probably not have developed an interest in Japan that early in life that would eventually make me want to move to Japan – so thank you Aiko-san!

Keywords:
Household (adjective): よく知っている
Go-to (adjective): よく聞く曲/鉄板の曲
(Doesn’t) Do justice to (expression): 実感が出ていない/[ ]より実物の方が好い
Decade (noun): 10年間
Nevertheless (adverb): それにもかかわらず
Nostalgia (noun): 過去を懐かしむ心
Deceased (adjective): 死去した

Author

Name: Brian Yap
Nationality: Canadian
Education :
M.A. in Pacific Asian Studies, SOAS University of London (SOAS: School of Oriental & African Studies)
Past Work Experience :
- Tokyo Correspondent - Bloomberg Industry Group (An affiliate of Bloomberg L.P)
- Asia Reporter (Hong Kong-based) - International Financial Law Review, UK-listed Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC
- General News Reporter (Internship) - Thomson Reuters Corporation
Areas of journalism :
Sports, Entertainment, Politics, Finance, Trade, Business. etc

著者:
Brian yap ブライアン・ヤップ
学歴:
クワントレン工科大学の新聞学科 (バンクーバー、カナダ)
ロンドン大学東洋アフリカ学院の太平洋研究科 (ロンドン、イギリス)
職歴:
ブルームバーグBNAー東京特派員
ユーロマネー・インスティテューショナル・インベスターアジアレポーター (香港駐在)
トムソン・ロイター (インターン) レポーター
報道の経験/分野:
スポーツ、娯楽、政治、金融、貿易、ビジネス

Brian講師が活躍するスパルタ英会話法人部HP：
https://corp.spartan-english.jp/

3ヶ月で英語が話せるようになるスクール スパルタ英会話HP：
https://spartan-english.jp/