Japan's national anthem also absorbs Chinese and western cultures. In 1869, an Englishman named John Fenton wrote music for the first generation of Japanese national songs under various conditions, that is, made music. Before that, ōyama Iwao, a Japanese who is very proficient in China culture, wrote lyrics for the Japanese national anthem.
However, the Japanese are very traditional, and they are not satisfied with the slightly lively tunes of the British. Therefore, in 1880, three Japanese men, namely, Hirosuke Nakamura, Siyuan Yishou, and Lin Guangshou, together with a German, revised the Japanese national anthem, but finally chose the melody composed by Japanese court band conductor Zao Hongsheng at that time. This song was also played on the birthday of Emperor Meiji.
Before World War II, Japanese musicians Aohaoyi and Lin Guangshou adapted the songs and words of the Japanese national anthem. In this way, a solemn and appropriate Japanese national anthem was established in 1999.
The national anthem now being played in Japan is taken from the first part of "Jundai", which consists of five sentences:
These five lyrics are translated into four Chinese sentences: My emperor's prosperity has been handed down from one thousand generations to eight thousand generations, until the gravel turned into rocks and the rocks were covered with moss. The remaining three parts also mean permanence.
This scholar Fujita Youzhi, who is very proficient in history in Japan and has specially studied the Emperor, thinks that the thousand generations to eight thousand generations in this song are not like talking to the living, but a kind of eternity after the death of the Emperor. When the gravel turned into rock, it took a very long time, and he thinks that moss seems to grow on the tombstone.