Smile in front of your gate and fortune will come to you! Lyrics from Gu ha ha (gu ha ha) Ni ho ho (ni ho ho) Lyrics from Guwahhahha (guwahhahha) Nyohhohho (nyohhohho) The splendid Japanese can cross over them Lyrics from Though trouble, drama, sour and sweet things come at once Smile (okay okay), you will lose if you cry Lyrics from Smile, smile, hey, let's smile That's everyone is happy (wearing happi coats)
Lyrics from Ardiasiajaponicainyaburatrail Lyrics from Limitlesslife Limitlesslife Fivelivesrich Lyrics from Jugemu jugemu gokou no surikire Follow the fellowship on Instagram ( and Twitter ( ).New Feature! In kanji view, mouseover a kanji character for lookup information! The fellowship is sponsored by the John Alexander Project, which supports foreign reporting in undercovered parts of the world. Kat Lonsdorf ( ) is NPR's Above the Fray fellow. "But it's important."Īnd as the chorus of "Dancing Queen" blasted over the speakers and the small crowd joined in, it was clear everyone else in the room agreed. "I know my contribution - a karaoke bar - is small," she said, looking around. Lee said this is exactly why she committed to opening this bar - to bring people together. With that, Togashi picked up a microphone and put on ABBA's "Dancing Queen." As the opening piano riff blasted from the speakers, everyone clapped and cheered. When he comes here, he can just be happy, he said, laughing. Sometimes I'll open a refrigerator that hasn't been opened in nine years! Just try to imagine," he said, making a gagging noise.īut then he found Cosmos Karaoke and finally had a way to blow off some steam and decompress after the long days. It was lonely and depressing, especially given the work he had to do. He found Cosmos Karaoke, where he enjoys singing songs like ABBA's "Dancing Queen." At first, he said, "there was no one on the streets - not a single person. They try to meet up as often as they can and remember the lives they once had together in the town.Ĭonstruction worker Takashi Togashi moved to Namie to empty out and tear down some of the rotting houses that have been sitting abandoned for nearly a decade.
The men used to be neighbors in Namie, but after the disaster, they scattered to different areas. In one corner booth in March, three friends in their 70s toasted one another over plates of seafood and scallion pancakes and grilled pork-belly lettuce wraps. That's why Cosmos opens in the late afternoon - for them. The main train line was recently rebuilt to connect with major cities like Sendai, about 60 miles to the north, and Tokyo, about 150 miles south.īut there isn't much entertainment for the 1,000 or so people who have come back to live here, many of whom are elderly. There are several ramen shops open for lunch and a few new hotels. Since 2017, Namie has seen progress and new businesses have sprung up. It's one of the few places to get food in town. In the kitchen in the back, a small staff prepared mostly Korean food, with no set menu - plates of kimchi and rice cakes started flowing as soon as customers sat down. Minza Lee dishes up bowls of kimchi to serve to customers. She pointed to the glitter, the decorations, the ceilings - as if wanting to show evidence that she accomplished what she had set out to do.Īt Cosmos Karaoke, tambourines sit on a stool ready for use during group singalongs. "So I decided that I had to bring the light, the brightness, the energy." Everything was rotting and falling apart," Lee said in March. "When I first came here, it was so depressing. The ceiling is painted like a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The room is filled with glittery blue velvet booths topped with big floral pillows. She hung big, long posters on the walls showing pink and purple cosmos flowers, which appear to be dancing to the near-constant music. So she moved to Namie for good and opened this bar named after the town flower - one of the most popular blooms in Japan, known as the fall cherry blossom.
"They said, 'You're going to live in a nuclear town? You're crazy!' But the more they pushed back, the more I said, 'Yes, I absolutely will.' " "Everyone was against it," she remembered. Minza Lee, 63, opened Cosmos Karaoke to bring "the light, the brightness, the energy," to the town, she says.
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