Himeyuri

[dedalus]

The Himeyuri Students (ひめゆり学徒隊, Himeyuri Gakutotai), sometimes called in English "Lily Corps", was a group of female high school students formed into a nursing unit for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Okinawa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himeyuri_Students

-- I hope the KANJI (Chinese characters) will show on your computer; if not, there is a phonetic reading just before the English translation --

太陽の下で大手を振つて歩きたい
水が飲みたい、水、水
お母さん、お母さん
学友の声が聞こえます

Taiyou no shita de ote wo futte arukitai
mizu ga nomitai, mizu, mizu
okaasan, okaasan
gakutomo no koe ga kikoemasu

(Sun('s) under at/arms widely swinging/want to walk
water want to drink, water, water
mother, mother
schoolfriend's voices/ can hear)

"I want to walk freely under the sun"
"I want a drink of water, water, water"
"Mother, mother"
I can hear the voices of my schoolmates

私たちは
真相を知らずに
戦場へ出て行きました

Watashitachi wa
shinsou wo shirazuni
senjou e dete ikimashita

(We/
truth not knowing/
battlefield/ going out/ went)

We,
not knowing the truth
were sent to the battlefield

戦争は
命あるあらゆるものを殺す
むごいものです

Sensou wa
inochi aru arayuru mono wo korosu
mugoi mono desu

(War/
living beings/all things/kill
brutal thing is)

War
which kills all living things
is hateful

私たちは
一人ひとりの体験をとうして知つた
戦争の実体を語り続けます

Watashitachi wa
hitori hitori no taiken wo toushite shita
sensou no jitai wo katari tsuzukemasu

(We/
one by one ('s)/ experience/ gone through have
war ('s) reality/ speaking about/ will continue)

We, each of us,
having experienced the reality of war
will continue to speak out.

----------------------
Just back from a trip to Okinawa, which helps explain my interest in this poem.
Check out the Blog photos here: http://dedalus-seapain.blogspot.com

[Lake]

dedalus,

You must be very fluent in Japanese. I can only pick up a few Chinese characters but I'm unable to string them into sentences. I guess though the characters still retain the same appearance, they must pronounce differently in Japanese than in Chinese.

All I want to say is good translation and the war is as what the poem said "brutal". Hope people will remember it.

Thanks for the history class.

Lake