(lit. "Soap Bubbles") is a Japanese

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. From t ...

written by

Ujō Noguchi 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, an ...

in 1922. It is widely taught in Japanese

nursery school A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school ...

s and

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...

s as a simple melody; it is also sometimes used in

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

moral education courses, where students learn that it is a meditation on the death of a child. Noguchi's daughter Midori died at the age of just 7 days in 1908. In the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, the

infant mortality Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The under-five morta ...

rate was quite high and 20 to 30 percent of children died before reaching schooling age. It was common to have many children to aim for success of the household, but Noguchi was divorced, and he thus mourned the loss of his only child for a long time. It is widely believed that Noguchi, seeing the girls in his village play with bubbles, was reminded of the brief existence of his daughter, and wrote this poem on that occasion. However, other than the above facts, the direct inspiration for the song is unknown. The tune is a modification of the Christian hymn "

Jesus Loves Me, This I Know "Jesus Loves Me" is a Christian hymn written by Anna Bartlett Warner (1827–1915). The lyrics first appeared as a poem in the context of an 1860 novel called ''Say and Seal'', written by her older sister Susan Warner (1819–1885), in which th ...

". It is used as the melody for departing trains in

Yumoto Station is a railway station on the Jōban Line in the city of Iwaki, Fukushima, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Lines Yumoto Station is served by the Jōban Line, and is located 201.5 km from the official starting point ...

, Iwaki,

Fukushima Prefecture Fukushima Prefecture (; ja, 福島県, Fukushima-ken, ) is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Fukushima Prefecture has a population of 1,810,286 () and has a geographic area of . Fukushima Prefecture borders Miya ...

Melody and lyrics

\relative c' \addlyrics \addlyrics

References

External links

Performance at Toyama University''Hiroshima Piano'' (2020 film) (official website)
{{Authority control 1922 songs Japanese children's songs Japanese-language songs Japanese nursery rhymes