
Japanese military song (386K)-14 sec.
immutable spirit
photo: Hirohito on horseback (35K)

Image: Before the defeat of Japan by Allied forces in 1945, Hirohito, as commander of the Japanese armed forces, was frequently pictured in military uniform atop his white horse. He cultivated a stern, unsmiling, and god-like image, since, in the Shinto religion, the Emperor was thought to have descended from the Sun-Goddess. Photographs which showed the Emperor smiling or laughing or made him appear shorter than those around him (he was slight in stature) were forbidden to be shown to the public. As he did no public speaking, the sound of his voice was unknown to his people. (credit: by arrangement with Corbis-Bettmann Archive)

DOF anthropologist Kyung-Koo Han sings a stanza from a Japanese military song entitled Sakura. The words to the song are:
--Load time: ~14 sec.

"You and I,
we are cherry-blossoms of the same class,
we fight for the army and navy air-wing,
Like the cherry blossoms which fall,
we will fall,
but we will fall in glory and in fashion."

hear the instrumental version! --Load time: ~22 sec.
