General | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

August 26, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Blacks in Hawaiʻi

The history of the Black presence in Hawaiʻi goes back to the first sailors; Blacks were crewmembers of Captain Cook’s second and third Pacific voyages.

Thirty years later, Cook’s Black cabin boy was given the opportunity to prove his navigational prowess to George Crowninshield, then captain of the famous Salem, MA built yacht ‘Cleopatra’s Barge,’ in Genoa, Italy. (McGhee) (Liholiho, King Kamehameha II, later bought Cleopatra’s Barge for over 1-million pounds of sandalwood and renamed the yacht “Haʻaheo O Hawai‘i” (Pride of Hawaiʻi.))

There is a “high likelihood” of the presence of Blacks on many of the early ships that crossed the Pacific. Free and unfree Blacks had been serving onboard these ships in a variety of capacities.

Between about 1820 and 1880 hundreds of whaling ships annually pulled into (primarily) Honolulu and Lāhainā, and a significant number of Blacks stayed behind in the islands and became permanent residents, where they worked as cooks, barbers, tailors, sailors on interisland vessels and members of musical groups.

Work on sugar plantations was considered too close to slavery that Blacks were not considered for contract labor by the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Later, however, a significant influx of Blacks to Hawaiʻi involved the migration of the first Portuguese and Puerto Rican contract laborers to work on the sugar plantations (a significant portion of these were of African ancestry.)

Hawaiʻi experienced serious labor problems prior to 1900. Japanese and Chinese plantation laborers had sporadic strikes that began to present real problems for plantation owners.

“Paradise of the Pacific” quoted one sugar plantation owner as saying that his plantation could take 25-families. He stated that “…interest has also been awakened among housewives as to the desirability of Negroes as cooks, nurses, etc and many think they might supplant the Japanese in household duties.” (September 1897)

Over the following decades more Blacks came to the islands. The following is a sampling of some census data on African-Americans in Hawaiʻi:
1900 ……….233
1950 ……..2,651
1970 ……..7,517
1990 ……26,669
2000 ……22,003
2010 ……21,424
2020 ……23,417

A couple of the early, notable Blacks in Hawaiʻi include:

Anthony D Allen
The most notable among African Americans to settle in Hawaiʻi, Anthony Allen, arrived in 1810. Called Alani by the Hawaiians, Allen was a former slave; arriving in Hawaiʻi he served as a steward to Kamehameha and went on to become a successful entrepreneur.

He acquired land from high priest Hewa Hewa in 1811, starting a farm, ‘resort’ (he reportedly had the first ‘hotel’ in Waikīkī,) a bowling alley and a hospital for ill and injured sailors.

Allen died of a stroke on December 31, 1835, leaving behind a considerable fortune to his children. In tribute to Allen, Reverend John Diell noted, “The last sun of the departed year went down upon the dying bed of another man who has long resided upon the island. He was a colored man, but shared, to a large extent, in the respect of this whole community. …”

“He has been a pattern of industry and perseverance, and of care for the education of his children. … In justice to his memory, and to my own feelings, I must take this opportunity to acknowledge the many expressions of kindness which we received from him from the moment of our arrival.”

Click HERE for a link to a prior story on Anthony Allen.

Betsey Stockton
Another former slave on the continent, Betsey Stockton then belonged to Robert Stockton, a local attorney. She was given to Stockton’s daughter and son-in-law, the Rev. Ashbel Green, then President of Princeton College (later known as Princeton University,) as a gift.

When Stockton expressed her interest in becoming a Christian missionary, she was granted her freedom and accepted into membership by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missionaries. On November 20, 1822, Stockton and 20 other American Protestant missionaries in the 2nd Company set sail from New Haven, Connecticut for the Hawaiian Islands. Upon her arrival Stockton became the first known African American woman in Hawaiʻi. Stockton was assigned to a mission in Lāhainā, Maui, in 1823.

Up until that time, missionaries instructed Hawaiians in Christianity but had limited their teaching of reading, writing and math to their own children and the children of the Hawaiian chiefs. Stockton learned the Hawaiian Language and established a school in Maui where she taught English, Latin, History and Algebra.

The site of her school is the location of the current Lahainaluna School. Stockton left Hawaiʻi in 1825, returning to the mainland where she was assigned to teach Native American children in Canada. She spent the final years of her life teaching black children in Philadelphia. Betsy Stockton died in her hometown of Princeton, New Jersey in October 1865.

Click HERE for a link to a prior story on Betsey Stockton

Alice Augusta Ball
On June 1, 1915, Alice Ball was the first African American and the first woman to graduate with a Master of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Hawaiʻi. In the 1915-1916 academic year, she also became the first woman to teach chemistry at the institution.

But the significant contribution Ball made to medicine was a successful injectable treatment for those suffering from Hansen’s disease. She isolated the ethyl ester of chaulmoogra oil (from the tree native to India) which, when injected, proved extremely effective in relieving some of the symptoms of Hansen’s disease.

Although not a full cure, Ball’s discovery was a significant victory in the fight against a disease that has plagued nations for thousands of years. The discovery was coined, at least for the time being, the “Ball Method.” A College of Hawaiʻi chemistry laboratory began producing large quantities of the new injectable chaulmoogra.

During the four years between 1919 and 1923, no patients were sent to Kalaupapa – and for the first time some Kalaupapa patients were released. Ball’s injectable compound seemed to provide effective treatment for the disease, and as a result the lab began to receive “requests for their chaulmoogra oil preparations from all over the world.”

Click HERE for a link to a prior story on Alice Ball.

August 23, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

First Sugar Production

He keiki aloha nā mea kanu

Beloved children are the plants

(ʻŌlelo Noʻeau 684)

In the past two decades, significant advances in radiocarbon dating and the targeted re-dating of key Eastern Polynesian and Hawaiian sites has strongly supported a “short chronology” model of Eastern Polynesian settlement.

It is suggested that initial Polynesian discovery and colonization of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200. (Kirch)

Sugar was a canoe crop; the early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands.

In pre-contact times, sugarcane was not processed as we know sugar today, but was used by chewing the juicy stalks. Its leaves were used for inside house thatching, or for outside (if pili grass wasn’t available.) The flower stalks of sugar cane were used to make a dart, sometimes used during the Makahiki games. (Canoe Crops)

The first written record of sugarcane in Hawaiʻi came from Captain James Cook, at the time he made initial contact with the Islands. On January 19, 1778, off Kauai, he notes, “We saw no wood, but what was up in the interior part of the island, except a few trees about the villages; near which, also, we could observe several plantations of plantains and sugar-canes.” (Cook)

Cook notes that sugar was cultivated, “The potatoe fields, and spots of sugar-canes, or plantains, in the higher grounds, are planted with the same regularity; and always in some determinate figure; generally as a square or oblong”. (Cook)

It appears Cook was the first outsider to put sugarcane to use. One of his tools in his fight against scurvy (severe lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in your diet) was beer.

On December 7, 1778 he notes, “Having procured a quantity of sugar cane; and having, upon a trial, made but a few days before, found that a strong decoction of it produced a very palatable beer, I ordered some more to be brewed, for our general use.”

“A few hops, of which we had some on board, improved it much. It has the taste of new malt beer; and I believe no one will doubt of its being very wholesome. And yet my inconsiderate crew alleged that it was injurious to their health.” (Cook)

While the crew “would (not) even so much as taste it”, he “gave orders that no grog should be served … (he) and the officers, continued to make use of this sugarcane beer, whenever (they) could get materials for brewing it.” (Cook) Others later made rum from the sugarcane.

But beer and rum were not a typical sugar use; “in 1802 sugar was first made at these islands, by a native of China, on the island of Lanai.”

“He came here in one of the vessels trading for sandal wood, and brought a stone mill, and boilers, and after grinding off one small crop and making it into sugar, went back the next year with his fixtures, to China.” (Torbert; Polynesian, January 31, 1852)

While HSPA – HARC states, “The first successful sugarcane plantation was started at Kōloa, Kauai in 1835. Its first harvest in 1837 produced 2 tons of raw sugar, which sold for $200”, others suggest the first commercial production actually started on Maui. (Hawaii Agriculture Research Center (HARC) (successor entity to Hawaii Sugar Planters Association (HSPA))

A couple guys named Ah Hung and Ah Tai, who combined their names in order to identify their company – a 1939 news ‘Short’ says Hungtai “is said to have been one of the earliest manufacturers of sugar in the islands, at Wailuku, Maui in 1823.” (Star Bulletin, April 6, 1939) Others say Hungtai started commercial sales in 1828; still, seven years before Koloa.

Hungtai had a plantation and a water-powered mill in Wailuku, and sold the sugar in their store at Merchant and Fort Streets in Honolulu. They were still selling that sugar as late as 1841, when they were advertising in local newspapers. (TenBruggencate)

Early plantations were small and didn’t fare too well. Soon, most would come to realize that “sugar farming and sugar milling were essentially great-scale operations.” (Garvin)

Then, King Kamehameha III sought to expand sugar cultivation and production, as well as expand other agricultural ventures to support commercial agriculture in the Islands. In a speech to the Legislature in 1847, the King notes:

“I recommend to your most serious consideration, to devise means to promote the agriculture of the islands, and profitable industry among all classes of their inhabitants. It is my wish that my subjects should possess lands upon a secure title; enabling them to live in abundance and comfort, and to bring up their children free from the vices that prevail in the seaports.”

“What my native subjects are greatly in want of, to become farmers, is capital with which to buy cattle, fence in the land and cultivate it properly. I recommend you to consider the best means of inducing foreigners to furnish capital for carrying on agricultural operations, that thus the exports of the country may be increased …” (King Kamehameha III Speech to the Legislature, April 28, 1847; Archives)

Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880. These twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system. Basic features of rural factory life were established.

This was a period of rapid growth for the sugar industry, building upon the momentum triggered by the Māhele of 1848, the Kuleana Act of 1850, and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. Likewise, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai‘i to compete with elevated prices for sugar.

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. Sugar‐cane farming proved to be the only available crop that could be grown. However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885 and Filipinos 1905. Several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands; the sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaii’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar. That plummeted to 492,000 tons in 1995.

With statehood in 1959 and the almost simultaneous introduction of passenger jet airplanes, the tourist industry began to grow rapidly.

A majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s.

As sugar declined, tourism took its place – and far surpassed it. Like many other societies, Hawaii underwent a profound transformation from an agrarian to a service economy.

August 22, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kalonakikeke

“There has never been any agreement, as to the origin of this isolated island people, or the reasons why this type is only found scattered over all the solitary islands in the eastern part of the Pacific.” (Thor Heyerdahl)

Solomon Lehuanui Kalaniomaiheuila Peleioholani (also called Peleioholani the 4th or Lehuanui, or simply, Peleioholani) (1843-1916) was the son of Peleioholani (uncle to the Kings Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V) and Piikeakaluaonalani (mother.)

His great grandfather was the high chief Keʻeaumoku (father of Kaʻahumanu,) one of the ablest supporters of Kamehameha I.

As a boy, Peleioholani was the protégé of Kamehameha IV and his Queen Emma and the companion of their son Prince Albert (“Ka Haku O Hawaiʻi, “The Lord of Hawaiʻi.”)

During the short life of the little Prince, Peleioholani was his playmate, and both were treated with utmost respect by all they met. During this time, Peleioholani lived at the residence of Kekūanāo’a (hānai father of Bernice Pauahi Bishop.) (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 22, 1902)

In 1874, he returned to Hawaiʻi and was a well-respected genealogist. For many, Peleioholani was considered an important Hawaiian antiquarian and the final word in Hawaiian genealogy, especially of the chiefs and royal families.

Peleioholani was a High Chief, and in many ways both the pinnacle and terminus of the old royal blood lines from Maui, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi and Kauai.

His grandparents were among those who sided with Kamehameha I to achieve unity of the islands. His father was an uncle to the Kings Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V and he was himself one of the highest ranking chiefs in the Hawaiian Islands. (kekoolani-org)

He also wrote of the Hawaiian history. One work, ‘The Ancient History of Hookumu-ka-lani Hookumu-ka-honua,’ was a commentary of the ancient Hawaiian cosmogonies (creation theories.)

One of Peleioholani’s theories in that book notes, “The ancestors of the Hawaiian race came not from the islands the South Pacific – for the immigrants from that direction were late arrivals there – but from the northern direction (welau lani,) that is, from the land of Kalonakikeke, now known as Alaska.”

“According to this tradition, a great flood that occurred during the reign of Kahiko-Luamea on the continent of Ka-Houpo-o-Kane, (“The Bosom of Kane”) and carried away a floating log of wood named Konikonihia.”

“On this log was a precious human cargo and it came to rest on the land of Kalonakikeke (“Alaska”).”

“On this log were the first man and woman who came to Kalonakikeke from the continent of Ka-Houpo-o-Kane, they were Kalonakiko-ke (“Mr Alaska”) and his wife Hoomoe-a-pule (“Woman of my dreams”).”

“They were said to both be high chiefs of the countries of Kanaka-Hikina (“Person of the east”) and Kanaka-Komohana (“Person of the west”) and were descended from the great great ancestor Huka-ohialaka.”

“Many generations later, Chief Nuu, travelled with his wife, Lilinoe, their three sons and their three wives in a canoe called Ka-Waa-Halau-Alii-O-Ka-Moku (“The royal canoe of the continent”), and it rested upon Mauna Kea (“White Mountain”), on the island of Hawaii. They were the first Hawaiians.”

“According to Hawaiian genealogies, Chief Nuu lived around 200 BCE. (This agrees closely with the genetic evidence showing the time of arrival of Polynesians in the Pacific)” (Peleioholani; Poepoe translation; UC Riverside)

August 15, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ala Moana Beach Park and ʻĀina Moana (Magic Island)

In 1899, the coastal road from Honolulu Harbor to Waikīkī, formerly called the “Beach Road,” was renamed “Ala Moana.”

At the beginning of the twentieth-century, this stretch of coast makai of Ala Moana Boulevard was the site of the Honolulu garbage dump, which burned almost continually. The residue from burned rubbish was used to reclaim neighboring wetlands (which later were more commonly referred to as “swamp lands.”)

In the 1920s, Kewalo Basin was constructed and by the 1930s was the main berthing area for the sampan fleet and also the site of the tuna cannery, fish auction, shipyard, ice plant, fuel dock and other shore-side facilities.

In 1928, a channel was dredged through the coral reef to connect the Ala Wai Boat Harbor and the Kewalo Basin, so boats could travel between the two. Part of the dredge material helped to reclaim swampland that was filled in with dredged coral.

When the area became a very popular swimming beach, the channel was closed to boat traffic.

The City and County of Honolulu started cleaning up the Ala Moana area in 1931. They used funds provided by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Project to create a city park in the Ala Moana area.

Back in the early twentieth century, most playgrounds consisted of large areas of pavement used to get children off of the street and had no aesthetic value.

In 1933, Harry Sims Bent was chosen as the park architect for the City and County of Honolulu. Bent’s design went beyond the modern level and into the realm of art deco, allowing for play, as well as contact with nature. His works at Ala Moana include the canal bridge, entrance portals, sports pavilion, banyan courtyard and the lawn bowling green.

President Roosevelt participated in the dedication of the new 76-acre “Moana Park” in 1934 (it was later renamed Ala Moana Park in 1947.) During his visit to the islands, Roosevelt also planted a kukui tree on the grounds of the ʻIolani Palace.

Ala Moana Park was developed on a swamp and the Honolulu garbage dump.

In the mid-1950s, reef rubble was dredged to fill in the old navigation channel (between Kewalo and the Ala Wai); it was topped with sand brought from Keawaʻula Beach (Yokohama Beach) in Waianae.

At the same time, a new swimming channel was dredged parallel to the new beach, extending 400-feet offshore; in addition, the west end of the fronting channel was closed by a landfill project that was part of the Kewalo Basin State Park project. A large fringing reef remained off-shore protecting the beach area.

Reportedly, in 1955, Henry Kaiser was the first to propose building two artificial islands and six hotels over the fringing reef. His proposal included inlets for boats, walkways and bridges. He called it Magic Island and offered to pay the $50-million cost. (Sigall, Star-Advertiser)

In 1958, a 20-page booklet was sent to Congress to encourage them to turn back Ala Moana Reef to the Territory of Hawaiʻi for the construction of a “Magic Island.” Local businessmen and firms paid half the cost and the Territory paid half through the Economic Planning & Coordination Authority) (Dillingham interests were among contributors, Henry J. Kaiser interests were not.) (Honolulu Record, February 13, 1958)

The booklet puts forth the argument that “Tourist development is our most important immediate potential for economic expansion,” and displays pictures of the crowded Waikiki area to show the lack of room for expansion. Then it directs the reader’s attention to land that can be reclaimed from the sea by utilizing reefs, especially the 300-acre area of Ala Moana Reef. (Honolulu Record, February 13, 1958)

It was supposed to be part of a new high scale beachfront resort complex with a half-dozen hotels that would have included two islands built on the fringing reef, offshore of the Ala Moana Park.

The Interest of the Dillingham’s in developing off-shore areas is obvious, since Hawaiian Dredging is the only local company large enough to undertake such sizable dredging operations.

The Dillingham interest in the current “Magic Island” project is more obvious because of the immediate increase in value it would bring to Dillingham land mauka of Ala Moana Boulevard. (Honolulu Record, February 13, 1958)

The Dillinghams figure to do the dredging and construction of Magic Island, itself, of course, and it must be recalled that the original Dillingham idea was to use Ala Moana Park for hotels and apartments and build the reef island for a park. (Honolulu Record, May 15, 1958)

But now that Magic Island is being proposed as a hotel and apartment site, it doesn’t mean for a moment the first plan has necessarily been abandoned. There is good reason to fear Ala Moana Park may be wiped out entirely so far as the people of Oahu are concerned if they don’t keep alert and guard” against every effort to encroach upon it. (Honolulu Record, May 15, 1958)

Substantial changes were made from the more extensive original plan for the Ala Moana reef; rather than multiple islands for several resort hotels built on the reef flat off of the Ala Moana Park, in 1964 a 30-acre peninsula, with “inner” and “outer” beaches for protected swimming, was constructed adjoining the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor and Ala Wai Canal outlet.

The project stopped after the development of “Magic Island,” leaving the State with a man-made peninsula, which they converted into a public park.

In 1972 the State officially renamed Magic Island to ‘Āina Moana (“land [from the] sea”) to recognize that the park is made from dredged coral fill. The peninsula was turned over the city in a land exchange and is formally known as the ‘Āina Moana Section of Ala Moana Beach Park, but many local residents still call it Magic Island.

Between 1955 and 1976 the beach eroded, and in 1976, more sand was brought in from Mokuleʻia on the north coast of Oʻahu.

August 14, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Ue o Muite Arukou’

On December 10, 1941, Hiroshi Sakamoto welcomed his ninth child into the world with his second wife Iku. Called Hisashi, the alternate kanji reading of his given name was Kyu (pronounced ‘cue’), meaning nine. He was subsequently given the nickname Kyu-chan.

During World War II, Hisashi and his family were forced to evacuate from Kawasaki and headed to his grandparents’ house in Kasama City, Ibaraki Prefecture.

On the way there, they were riding in a vehicle that collided with a train at Tsuchiura Station and fell into a river resulting in a number of fatalities. Fortunately for the Sakamotos, they had transferred to another vehicle shortly before the accident.

Kyu was just 20 months old at the time, but when told about the incident, he believed the God of Kasama Inari Shrine protected his family.

When his parents divorced in 1956, Kyu and two other siblings adopted their mother’s maiden name, Oshima. The older children kept their father’s surname, Sakamoto.

In 1958, 16-year-old Sakamoto joined The Drifters (then known as Sons of Drifters), but ended up quitting after six months due to in-house fighting. One of the main reasons for this was his dissatisfaction with being the second vocalist.

He then joined his classmate in a band called Danny Iida & Paradise King before going solo. The Drifters, meanwhile, went on to become the most famous rock/comedy group in the country and, in 1966, supported The Beatles at the Budokan.

Kyu became famous for a song. First released in Japan in 1961, Sakamoto’s seminal track, “Ue o Muite Arukou” was composed by Hachidai Nakamura with lyrics by Rokusuke Ei.

“Ue o Muite Arukou” became a global phenomenon and in 1965 an instrumental version was played over the radio by NASA for astronauts aboard Gemini 7, on what was the 21st crewed spaceflight.

Down the years it has been covered or sampled in various languages by numerous artists including A Taste of Honey, 4 PM, Selena and Avicii on his posthumous album “Tim.” The original has featured in several movies and dramas such as “M*A*S*H,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Mad Men” and the Ghibli Film “From Up on Poppy Hill.”

More than just a one-hit-wonder, Sakamoto continued to have a successful career after “Ue o Muite Arukou” as an actor, presenter and more famously as a singer thanks to tracks such as “Ashita ga Arusa” (“There’s Always Tomorrow”) and “Miagete Goran Yoru no Hoshi o” (“Look up at the Stars at Night”).

Though Sakamoto is most well-known as a singer, he also appeared in numerous films including the movie adaption of Higuchi Ichiyo’s famous novel “Takekurabe,” Seijun Suzuki’s “Subete ga Kurutteru” (“Everything Goes Wrong”) and Yoji Yamada’s “Kyu-chan no Dekkai Yume” (“Kyu-chan’s Big Dream”).

In 1965, he provided the voice for lead character Ted in the animated feature, “Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon.” A young Hayao Miyazaki, working as an in-between artist, impressed Toei with his contribution to the end of the animated production.

Wanting to use his fame to help give back to those less fortunate, Sakamoto did a lot of work for charity during his career. In the 1960s, he held a concert to raise money for the Tokyo Paralympics, which was struggling for funding. He was most passionate about supporting children with disabilities, particularly those who were blind or visually impaired.

In 1979, he released “Soshite Omoide,” Japan’s first song in sign language. At that time, sign language was prohibited at deaf schools so people studied it independently.

Tragically, Sakamoto was killed when Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed in 1985. He was 43 years old. Due to faulty repairs, the plane crashed into a ridge near Mount Osutaka just over 30 minutes into the journey.

All 15 crew and 505 out of 509 passengers died, for a total of 520 deaths and only 4 survivors. It was one of the worst single airline disasters in history.

Oh, Kyu Sakamoto’s famous song “Ue o Muite Arukou”, we know it as ‘Sukiyaki.’ (They named it such as it is easier to pronounce for Americans, and it is a word that people associate with Japan. Sukiyaki is a kind of Japanese dish and has nothing to do with the song.)

The song topped the US pop charts for three weeks in 1963. It is the only Japanese language song to hit #1 in the US. It sold over 13 million copies internationally. (ThoughtCo)

Here is Kyu Sakamoto and Ue o Muite Arukou, “Sukiyaki:”

During a stop in Hawai‘i, Sakamoto told reporters, “Songs and laughter have a common language all over the world. I hope to show American audiences what the Japanese younger generation actually is and to let them know the wonderful meaning of the original title of the sukiyaki song.” (Sakamoto, SB, Aug 14, 1963).

“Ue o Muite Arukou,” is a song about loss that translates across languages and cultures. It’s at once sorrowful and hopeful. The light melody bubbles at the surface and sparks joy in listeners.

Yet the lyrics are more bittersweet and sad. It’s a song about loss, love and alienation. And it perfectly captures the mixed emotions listeners may feel in the wake of a loved one’s death.

Although “Ue o Muite Arukou” is a song that any listener can understand on an emotional level, the tune actually has layers of meaning under the surface. For instance, when you first read the song’s lyrics, they appear to be about a young couple falling out of love.

Kyu Sakamoto sings, “Ue o muite arukou” (I look up as I walk); “Namida ga kobore naiyouni” (So the tears won’t fall); “Omoidasu harunohi” (Remembering those happy spring days); “Hitoribotchi no yoru.” (But tonight I’m all alone.)

But the inspiration for the song’s mournful lyrics wasn’t love or the loss of a loved one at all. Lyricist Rokusuke Ei wrote these words in response to political tension and protests in Japan during the 1950s.

Although WWII had ended, the US still had a strong military presence in Japan, and many Japanese youth felt alienated by this continued military occupation.

Young people in Japan were protesting against the Japanese government’s security treaty with the US. Yet despite their efforts, the two governments agreed to the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. (SevenPonds)

Later, the group A Taste of Honey recorded English words to the melody, turning it into a hit for a second time in the 1980s. The English words made popular by A Taste of Honey were not a translation of the Japanese version of the song but probably revived interest in the original Japanese version. (Hawaii Herald) (Lots of information here is from TokyoWeekender.)