Have You Ever Heard Of 'Yuyake-koyake', A Japanese Children's Song?

I introduced a local park named "Yuyake-koyake Fureai-no-sato Park" in my previous post on the June 16th. Actually the park was named after a famous children's song "Yuyake-koyake", and the meaning of the whole park name is "Yuyake-koyake Friendship village".

The song "Yuyake-koyake" was written by Uko Noguchi (1897-1972). He was a school teacher lived in Kamiongata town, Hachioji city. He started writing stories and songs for children's education while he was teaching at school. Yuyake-koyake song is one of his works and widely known today. Therefore "Yuyake-koyake Fureai-no-sato Park"was established right beside his house as a memorial park of this song. 

Apparently he was working at a school in the center of Tokyo, thus he had a long commute everyday and saw sunset on the way to home. It is said that he got the idea of this song from beautiful sunset views from Hachioji city.

"Yuyake" is a Japanese word means "a sunset glow", but "Koyake" was a word created by Uko Noguchi. From the Chinese characters used for the word "Koyake", we can guess it would mean "a small glow", so the title can be "A Sunset Glow, And A Small Glow" as a direct translation.

The sunset photos were taken from Hachioji city, so they may be similar to the views Uko Noguchi had been seeing on the way to his home.  You can listen the song from here (link to Youtube).