The scene seems to have sprung from a Greek film of the time, with the blue and white popping up from a poster on the wall, the checkered tablecloth being carefully laid on the narrow table, the sound of Frangosyrian coming out of the “bowels” of the bouzouki and the bouzouki to get up “healthy” of those present. It only takes place in the Greek product store of Nobuka Sunohara, in faraway Kobe, Japan, and all eight (not one) bouzoukis play Japanese, broadcasting this music meeting live on Facebook.
“Last Saturday, our teacher, who lives in Tokyo and plays with us online in class,” threw “the idea for this live on Facebook,” Nubuka Sunohara explains to the Athenian / Macedonian News Agency, who may to be married to a Greek but the bouzouki is purely … a personal matter, since her husband does not deal with it.
“I got my first bouzouki in 2018. My son plays rock music with his guitar and I thought he could play the bouzouki and I could sing, but he stayed true to his guitar and so I started learning to play the bouzouki.” , says Nobuka Sunohara, from her store in Kobe, with a map of Greece on the wall “traveling” her every time she looks at him.
She started playing the bouzouki a few years ago and since then her involvement with it is daily as even when she is sitting in her shop waiting for the next customer to open the door she manages to play a quick goal. “It was very difficult in the beginning. Two years ago I met a Japanese man who is self-taught in bouzouki. So I started classes with him, here, in my shop and I loved the bouzouki very much “, explains the Japanese bouzouki lover, who together with other people who share the same love for this particular instrument try to spread it in their country and make it better known to more people to discover the magic of its sound. In fact, up to 17 people participate in the courses that are hosted twice a month in her store, although in the middle of the coronavirus the number differs from lesson to lesson.
The love for Tsitsanis and the nostalgic sound of rebetiko
The 6-string bouzouki that proudly shows through the computer screen is its latest acquisition and is custom made, ie “cut and sewn” to measure.
“Before that I had an 8-string, but I have heard that the 6-string was what they used in the past and I wanted to try it”, she notes and reveals that her great love is rebetiko and Vassilis Tsitsanis. “Tsitsanis was great”, she says and when asked what is her favorite song without a second thought, she answers, “but of course Cloudy Sunday!”.
“I listen to a lot of rebetika music at home and when I’m ‘posting a song on facebook a lot of people help me find out more about it or suggest other songs,” says Nobuka Sunohara, who practices diligently on a daily basis.
“I practice every day. This is my life now. Many of my Japanese clients have never seen a bouzouki and I urge them to take it in their hands and try to play it. I invite them to participate in the lessons we organize “, she emphasizes, while when asked what she feels when she holds the bouzouki in her hands, she pauses and answers:” It is very difficult for me to explain. I love rebetiko. His music brings out a nostalgia … “.
And she may find Greek a difficult language, but she makes sure that she learns and understands the lyrics of the songs she likes to accompany the music of her bouzouki.
The Greek husband, the oil from Kalamata and the weakness in Greek cheese
Nobuka Sunohara met her husband when he was a student in Japan and in the twenty years they have been together they have two sons (20 and 17 years old), who, as she says, see Greece as a vacation spot since they spend their summers here. them (at least before the coronavirus).
“For my children, Greece is more intertwined with a vacation spot. “We used to come to Greece every summer before the coronavirus and for them Greece is sun, sea and holidays”, she says characteristically and explains that her husband was born in Athens, however his father’s origin is from Mytilene, which she herself loves, while his mother from Kalamata. That is why the Kalamatian … origin of the olives and the olive oil that she has in her shop, along with wine and some other things from Greece.
Greek cuisine may be very different from Japanese, but it has a great weakness in Greek cheeses. “It is impressive how many types of cheese you can find in a Greek supermarket”, he says characteristically and he is looking forward to visiting Greece again, when the great adventure that the planet lives with the coronavirus is over.
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