2 - Japan's 'Self-Portrait' in 1943: An Analysis of Children's Songbook “Daitoa Kodomo no Uta: Uta no Ehon (Songs for Children in Greater East Asia)”

This paper focuses on a children’s songbook, Daitoa Kodomono Uta: Utano Ehon (Songs for Children of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere: a Songbook with Pictures), published in 1943. This songbook has two editions: the Japanese and the ‘Nampo (Southeast Asia)’. Both were compiled and published by the Asahi Shimbun Tokyo Head Office, a notable newspaper company, Nihon Ongaku Bunka Kyokai (the Japan Music Culture Association), and Nihon Sho-kokumin Bunka Kyokai (the Japan Children’s Culture Association). They sent the ‘Nampo’ edition to Southeast Asia to familiarise the children in this region with the Japanese language and to help them learn about Japanese culture and society. The Japanese edition has the same contents with some arrangements in the notation of lyrics.

This paper analyses the lyrics and the pictures accompanying each song from the perspective of Japanese cultural identity. These lyrics and pictures reflect a self-understanding of what Japan and Japanese people were like and what they desired to be. It shows a ‘self-portrait’ of Japan and Japanese people at the time. Japan should be a civilised country with material wealth and advanced science, technology and industry; at the same time, it should preserve a long tradition. Therefore, the Japanese with such a self-image were to be the leaders at the top of all other Asians in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which turned out to be a mere illusion through the occupation of Southeast Asia.