Fifty-One Years Since the Arrival: Ceremony at Kishihama Park as the Shore Lullaby Is Sung in Public for the First Time in Half a Century

The Arrival Remembrance Day ceremony began at noon on the 7th at Kishihama Park, marking exactly 51 years since the first large-scale permeation event on September 7, 1975. As previously reported, the area around the venue was closed to vehicles from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the bag-check gates opened an hour before the noon start, at 11 a.m. The civic engagement division reported no major crowding or incidents between the opening of the gates and the start of the ceremony, matching the previous day's assessment that having people arrive early would work out better for everyone. The forecast of a mix of sun and cloud held, so no contingency plan to move part of the program indoors was needed, and the entire ceremony proceeded outdoors as originally planned.

The ceremony opened at noon with the first public performance of the Shore Lullaby, sung by the previously reported 37-member chorus centered on students from Bay Third Junior High School. As before, the meaning of the lyrics was not revealed and no translation was distributed. The chorus sang all thirteen verses straight through. Shio Kishiura, the woman who transcribed the song, did not stand at the podium but reportedly sat in the front row with her eyes closed, listening. A newly added request in this year's operational guidelines — to refrain from flash photography and live video during the performance — was largely observed by press and attendees alike, and a civic engagement official recalled that the venue fell so quiet during the song that even applause and coughing were barely audible. When it ended, the applause was especially loud. One third-year student in the chorus said, "They never told us what it meant, right to the end. But while we were singing, I nearly cried before I understood why."

Of the 121 first-generation invitees this year, 103 attended in person; the remaining 18 stayed home for health and other reasons, and the ceremony was relayed, as previously reported, to three welfare facilities across the city. The oldest attendee, 101-year-old Tane Kishitani, arrived accompanied by volunteer driver Misaki Asakura, 20, and — true to her own description of herself as simply "the one who listens" — sat with her eyes closed and did not move during the lullaby (see the separate piece, "People of the Shore (7)"). A civic engagement official said, "Attendees kept telling us, unprompted, that they knew the relay was reaching those who couldn't come. Even as the numbers shrink, we don't want that thread of feeling to break."

As previously reported, the observation point nearest the venue remained active as part of the spring-tide campaign running through that evening, and the civic engagement division and TDA operated a joint field office beside the venue for the day only. A shared radio frequency and vehicle-timing adjustments that kept observation traffic away from the noon arrival peak paid off; a TDA spokesperson said there were almost no moments where observation-vehicle routes crossed those of attendees, while still maintaining TDA's position that "the observation is the observation, and the ceremony is the ceremony" — the overlap, they repeated, was purely a calendar coincidence.

Before the ceremony, Mayor Motoko Ukai walked the grounds greeting first-generation attendees. True to her remark the day before that she wanted it to be "a day the first-generation attendees are glad they came to," she avoided any mention of figures in her closing remarks, saying, "Just for today, I want to look at your faces before I look at any numbers." TDA director Makoto Hiura also attended, telling reporters afterward, "Saying what we don't know when we don't know it is my job, but today, of all days, carries a different kind of weight." All 94 members of the cross-party group seeking to make Arrival Remembrance Day a national holiday attended together as planned, without banners or remarks; convener Seiichi Tonami said only, "I decided today would be a day for listening."

The ceremony ended shortly before 1 p.m., and attendees left the grounds under the guidance of civic engagement staff. As previously announced, this paper distributed a special post-ceremony edition around Kishihama Park, with reporters scrambling to select photographs the moment the lullaby ended. One attendee in her eighties said, "Fifty-one years ago, all I could do here was cry. Today, I got to come and hear my grandchildren sing," before heading home with her family. The civic engagement division said work reviewing this year's ceremony for next year would begin within the week.