Photo/Illutration Children wave from a ship as it arrives in Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, on Feb. 13, 1949, repatriating Japanese citizens from China. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Lyricist Rei Nakanishi wrote about how he reacted to "Ringo no Uta" (Song of the Apple) when he first listened to the first postwar pop music hit in Japan.

He heard the song playing on the radio in a repatriation ship that left from China.

The lyrics, starting with, "Bringing the red apple to my lips," and the tune, were both so cheerful that it felt cruel to him, Nakanishi writes.

As a boy who grew up in Manchuria, Japan’s defeat in World War II meant a brutal fate for his family.

His father was taken to the Soviet Union for forced labor and died there due to poor health. Left behind in China, the young Nakanishi, his mother and elder sister barely eked out a living by selling things. After more than a year, they managed to get on a repatriation ship.

"I wondered why so many Japanese could nonchalantly sing such a cheerful song while many of their compatriots, yet to return home, ran for their lives" and cried with sorrow, Nakanishi writes in his book about the history of Japanese pop songs and the trends they reflected in the Showa Era (1926-1989).

Not everyone felt encouraged by the pop song that took the ravaged country by storm immediately after the war.

Seventy-five years since the end of the war, it should be remembered that the conflict did not end in August 1945 for some. Japanese nationals trying to return home from Manchuria endured terrible ordeals. They were under constant threat of violence and looting by Soviet soldiers. Many lost their lives while trying to escape from their tragic fates.

A woman who could do nothing to save her dying child composed a heartbreaking short poem.

“As the mother is also exhausted / She did not even / Chase away flies that are / Buzzing around her sick child's face”

Composer Michiko Ueda was a mother who lost her child on her way back to Japan from abroad. She started composing poems to overcome her agony, according to a collection of postwar tanka short poems compiled by Shoji Saito (1925-2011), an educator and literary critic.

Another poem seems to describe a heart-wrenching situation where a parent had no choice but to leave their own child behind.

“Please take me with you / As I promise to walk / Shouting a barefoot child / Desperately following a group of escaping people”

In a foreword to the poem, the composer wrote, "Let war not be," expressing hope that the absurdity of war will never occur again.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 16

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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