Ujō Noguchi

Ujō Noguchi (野口 雨情, Noguchi Ujō, May 29, 1882 – January 27, 1945) was a Japanese poet and lyricist of children's songs and traditional Min'yō folk music. He wrote some of the most beloved and familiar pieces for children and youth choirs, such as "Akai Kutsu (Red Shoes)". He, along with Hakushū Kitahara, and Yaso Saijō are considered to be the three great poets and children's songwriters in Japan.

Noguchi Ujo
Native name	野口 雨情
Born	野口 英吉 (Eikichi Noguchi) (1882-05-29)May 29, 1882 Isohara, Ibaraki
Died	January 27, 1945(1945-01-27) (aged 62) Utsunomiya, Tochigi
Occupation	poet, lyricist
Language	Japanese
Alma mater	Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō
Genre	Shintaishi, children's songs, folksongs, children's literature
Years active	1901–1945
Spouse	Hiro Takashio (高塩 ひろ) ​ ​ (m. 1904; div. 1915)​ Tsuru Nakazato (中里 つる) ​ ​ (m. 1918)​
Children	3

Early life

Ujō Noguchi was born Eikichi Noguchi (野口 英吉) or 栄吉, in the former town of Isohara, Ibaraki, which is now incorporated into the central part of Kitaibaraki city.

He was the eldest son of Ryōhei (量平), a cargo-shipping wholesaler, and Teru (てる). Eikichi was born into a prestigious family that claimed its descent from Kusunoki Masasue, the younger brother of Kusunoki Masashige.)

After completing his 4-year elementary and 4-year senior elementary schooling in his home town, the teenage Eikichi moved to the capital in 1897, where he attended Tōkyō Middle School. It was there he began composing haiku. He continued on to Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō, the precursor of Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō, where he was mentored by novelist Tsubouchi Shōyō. In 1901, he became captivated by the Shintaishi or "New form poetry" movement. He quit college after one year to concentrate on writing poetry.

Noguchi's birth home in Isohara, Kitaibaraki

Head of the household

His father's business failure and death in 1904 forced him to return to his hometown as head of the family.

The family had earlier arranged a marriage for Eikichi to the daughter of a wealthy financier from Tochigi Prefecture as a way to salvage the languishing family fortune. Eikichi's married Hiro Takashio (高塩 ひろ) in 1904, when both were 23. The marriage was a reluctant one, and was ultimately doomed.

Eikichi is said to have drowned himself in alcohol, even as he worked on poetry. He formed a salon for poets where they could critique each other's works. It was around this time that Eikichi adopted the pen name of Ujō. He was now able to avail himself of private funds to make his first publication, a collection of min'yō poems, titled Karekusa (枯草) out of Mito, but it failed to bring him either fame or fortune.

Hiro gave birth to their first child, Masao, in March 1906. In June that year, Ujō traveled to Sakhalin on what became a failed business venture. He had traveled to Ōdomari with a geisha, where she then ran off with most of his investment capital. He tried to make a profit by shipping a train-car load of apples to Tōkyō, but to his misfortune, the apples had rotted by the time they arrived.

Hiro came to Tōkyō to urge him to return home, but Noguchi declared that he would stay in Tōkyō and become a poet. In January 1907 he started a monthly periodical of folksongs, Asabana Yobana(?) (『朝花夜花』), without acclaim. He and fellow members Gyofū Sōma and Rofū Miki founded Waseda shisha (Waseda poetic society), and were to meet on a twice monthly basis.

Noguchi soon found himself in Hokkaido, trying to earn a living as a newspaper correspondent. He started at Hokumei Shimbun (北鳴新聞), a small paper in Sapporo, working there from 1906 to 1909. Hiro and their son later came to live there with him.

When the Otaru Nippo (小樽日報) newspaper was formed in the city of Otaru, Noguchi and Takuboku Ishikawa, who was four years his senior, were recruited by the newspaper, becoming colleagues for a brief period. They had first met while still in Sapporo, and in his journal (9/23/1907) Ishikawa described his first impression of Noguchi as being "gentle and polite, black-moustached, and from his very looks he was obviously of a introverted character". Takuboku in Kanashiki omoide adds that Noguchi was "very self-deprecating and would say -goansu instead of -masu," going on to say that the man was less than dashing, and had certain distinct quirks in his pronunciation. They became fast friends. Noguchi tried to organize an ouster of the newspaper's editor-in-chief, and was fired as a result.

Around this time (October, 1907), Noguchi's wife gave birth to a girl, Midori. The child lived for only eight days. It has been said that Noguchi wrote the lyrics to "Shabondama (Soap bubbles)" in 1922, when he wrote of a bubble blown out of a straw that burst and faded before uplifting itself into air; in remembrance of his own child that died without her chance in life.

Noguchi moved to The Hokkai Times (北海タイムス), and worked for three other newspapers before moving to Hokkaido. before he left Hokkaido, he returned briefly to his hometown, eventually returning to Tōkyō. He worked at six papers during this time.

With the death of his mother in 1911, he again returned to his hometown to manage the family-owned timber forests and farms. He had not wholeheartedly abandoned literature, and loathed his livelihood.

His divorce from Hiro

In 1914, Noguchi went to the Iwaki Yumoto Onsen hot springs in Iwaki, Fukushima to treat his hemorrhoids. There, he became intimately involved with a geisha house madam named Kosumi (小すみ) (whose real name was Machi Akimura (明村まち)). He began living at the Kashiwaya geisha house, staying there for three and a half years. In May 1915, he obtained a divorce by consensual agreement from Hiro. Noguchi then took custody of and raised his two children.

In 1918, at the age of 36, Noguchi went to Mito where he married Tsuru Nakazato (中里 つる). It was at this time he resumed composing poetry.

Literary fame

Rabbit Dance, 1924, text by Noguchi, art by Kiichi Okamoto

In 1919, Noguchi published the poetry collection Tokai to Den'en (都会と田園) ("Urbanity and pastoral"), returning to the literary circle. That same year, the magazine Kin no fune (『金の船』, "golden ship") (Later to be called Kin no Hoshi) was founded, and through the referral of Yaso Saijō, Ujō was able to publish a series of children's songs beginning in November. Teaming up with such composers as Shinpei Nakayama, and Nagayo Motoori, and the prolific but obscure Kiyomi Fujii, Noguchi wrote a number of classic songs of lasting fame.

In the recession in the wake of World War I, Noguchi & Nakayama's minyō folksong Sendō kouta (Boatman's song, 1921) struck chord with he audience with its melancholic strains, with its use of the pentatonic minor scale (五音短音階). This song was turned into a film in 1923 (Shōchiku studio), the year the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake struck the Kantō area. Another song lyric that Noguchi wrote that year was set to music by Nakamura in 1928, and became the hit song Habu no uta set in the port of the Izu Ōshima island, it was recorded by Chiyako Sato and by tenor Yoshie Fujiwara.

Noguchi visiting Shosenkyo Valley in 1927

Noguchi's children's pieces have a distinct "lonely, melancholic note" (compared with other songwriters of the period), as evident in such works as Jūgoya Otsukisan (十五夜お月さん, "Harvest moon") (the old nanny was given her leave, younger sister was sent away, I wish I could meet mother again), Nanatsu no ko (七ツの子) (why does the crow cry, because it has seven dear children it has left in its old nest in the mountains), Aoi me no ningyō (青い眼の人形 (楽曲), "Blue-eyed doll") (I am a doll from America came to port in Japan, I don't know what I'll do if I lose my way; will the darling girl from Japan play with me?), Amefuri otsuki san (雨降りお月さん, "Rainy moon") (When going off to be married, I will be going all alone holding the karakasa umbrella).

Noguchi before 1945

Noguchi was one of the major exponents of the "first literary movement for improvised children's tales and children's songs (fairy tales and nursery rhymes)" (童話と童謡を創作する最初の文学的運動), to borrow the oft quoted words from the manifesto of Akai tori (although that publication was not where Noguchi published his works). The movement was part of a tide of liberal reforms to children's literature, art, and music, reacting against what musicologist Saburō Sonobe has called the "moralistic and individuality-suppressing, government-brand type of songs and tunes". The movement was not dismissive of the traditional warabe-uta, but respectful of it. For this reason, educators such as Michio Namekawa characterize the movement merely as the "creation of new songs infused with the modernist spirit [and] drawing on existing traditions of Japanese folksong and children's song".

Noguchi resurrected the Nihon Minyō Kyōkai in 1935, becoming its chair (note that this is a different group from the eponymous society active today, which was founded in 1950). He traveled widely throughout Japan, composing pieces that were set locally. In January, the Buddhist music society was founded, and Noguchi was selected as a peer. He also had a hand in creating new Buddhist music, and aiding in its propagation. In 1943 he suffered a mild brain hemorrhage, and died in 1945 in the suburbs of Utsunomiya, Tochigi, where he had been evacuated during the bombing of Tokyo in World War II.

Memorials

• 
  Noguchi Ujo's Memorial Yumoto Hot Springs Children's Song Hall
• 
  Song monument to Wakasa kouta at Wakasa Station

List of other works

• Shojoji no oshosan 
• Kogane mushi
• Ano machi kono machi 

See also

• Hakushū Kitahara

References

Texts and translations

• 野口 雨情 (Aozora bunko e-texts by author)
• Ujo, Noguchi (2001). The Blue-Eyed Doll. Yukie Ohta (trans.). M.E. Sharpe. p. 173. ISBN 9780765605566. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)

Biographical sources

• Heibonsha (1969) [1968]. 世界百科事典(Sekai hyakka jiten). (world encyclopedia, in Japanese).
• Torigoe, Shin(鳥越信) (2001). はじめて学ぶ日本児童文学史 (snippet). ミネルヴァ書房. ISBN 9784623032525.
• Hirawa, Kozo(平輪光三); Sasaki, Yasuaki(佐々木靖章) (1987). 野口雨情 (snippet). 日本図書センター. ISBN 9784820506874.
• Kurata, Minoru(倉田稔) (March 2005). 石川啄木と小樽 [Ishikawa Takuboku in Otaru]. 人文研究 (in Japanese). 109. Otaru, Hokkaidō, Japan: Otaru University of Commerce: 70–122. ISSN 0482-458X. OCLC 458294835. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 April 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
• Ishikawa, Takuboku (1909). "悲しき思出 (Kanashiki Shitau Izuru)" [Sad thoughts]. Aozora bunko. This piece was started a few years before Ishikawa died, after he was misinformed of Ujō's death, but left incomplete after Ishikawa learned of the mistake.
• Isoda, Kōichi (1988). 新潮日本文学辞典 (Shinchō Nihon bungaku jiten) [Shincho Japanese Literature Dictionary] (in Japanese). Tōkyo: Shinchōsha. ISBN 978-4-10-730208-3. OCLC 17885028. (瀬沼茂樹)野口雨情のち明治一五一二・九ー昭和二〇・一・二七(一八八一一九四五)詩人。本名英吉。茨城多賀郡北中鄉村紀生れた。豪家の長男である。家運が傾いたため東京専門学校「早大を中退。最初の民謡集『枯草』を明治三八年に出し、その年に結婚。 ([(Senuma shigeki) noguchi ujō nochi Meiji ichi go ichi ni kyū ̄ Shōwa ni 〇 Ichi ni nana ( 一八八一一九四五 ) Shijin. Hon'na Eikichi. Ibaraki Taga-gun Kitanaka 鄉村 Kisei reta. Gōka no chōnandearu. Kaun ga katamuita tame Tōkyō senmon gakkō `Sōdai o chūtai. Saisho no min'yō-shū "karekusa" o Meiji san hachi-nen ni dashi, sono-nen ni kekkon.] Error: {{nihongo krt}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 73) (help), (Shigeki Senuma) After Ujo Noguchi, Meiji 1512/9-Showa 20/1/27 (18811945) Poet. He is his real name Eikichi. Born in Kitanaka, Taga-gun, Ibaraki. He is the eldest son of a wealthy family. He dropped out of Waseda University because of his luck, and he published his first folk song collection "Kakusou" in 1883 and got married that year.)

External links

• 濱田美和; Hamada, Miwa (2004). "Japanese Songs-Classified by Lyrics Writer". Japanese Songs. Retrieved 18 March 2014. (romanized transcription, score, audio)
• Ujo’s Monuments Inscribed With His Poems (Minami-Ise, Mie site)
• 野口雨情の童謡自然詩 (Noguchi Ujo's children's song naturalism poetry)
• Doyokan (2012). "野口雨情記念湯本温泉童謡館". Retrieved 18 March 2014. (Noguchi Ujo's Memorial Yumoto Hot Springs Children's Song Hall)in Iwaki, Fukushima
• 早稲田図書館長 (1998). "早稲田と文学". Retrieved 18 March 2014. (Waseda University and Literature site).