Tweet

Today’s story-teller is Kei Ogura, a Japanese songwriter and composer.

His story is about teachers who affected his life.

The story goes back to the time when he was the fifth or sixth grade student. A young male teacher was his homeroom teacher.

The teacher loved music, so they sang songs together in the class every day. However, Ogura never got a compliment from him.

Since his father was a grand master of biwa, Japanese lute, and his mother was a shamisen player, he was able to change the tunes without trying. So he used to sing songs in a unique way. Looking back on the time, he thinks that the teacher was taking him as a strange kid because of the way he sang.

There was only one teacher who gave a compliment to him. It was a young female teacher of the other class’s homeroom teacher

He was just an average student, and he hardly ever got a compliment, so he was over the moon when the teacher praised him.

Meanwhile, a Japanese teacher he met at his high school affected his life, especially in aspects of songwriting.

The teacher privately taught him intensive reading as an extra-lesson.

“What does indicate the pronoun?”

“What is written between lines?”

As he wrote the answers in the books, his book pages turned black.

The materials became more and more difficult.

And as he continued the lessons, he got ‘a philosophy disease’. The more he learned the conscience and philosophy, the more quieter he became, and he took more sick holidays from school. Because he started thinking that he had to take responsibility for what he said.

It was a tough experience, but in terms of having a fixation for words, he thought it was an important experience.

Finally, Ogura says, “When I look back on my childhood, I always wondered and asked to myself, ‘why do I have to do this and that?’ and I hated having to do all of those things. However, I appreciate what I had to do back then. Because these experiences are creating my songs and poems now.”

The NIKKEI 11/26/2010 by Kei Ogura (songwriter and composer)

→ ABOUT  Wasabi Stories… ←

This is JAPAN Style!