Sagamihara Singers

 

I knew that the city of Mississauga right on the west side of Toronto has had a sister city relationship with Kariya in Aichi Prefecture since 1981. For one thing, an old friend of mine from my hometown had a position as a liaison between here and Kariya by being assigned there on the JET Programme. What I hadn't known was that Toronto itself has had a similar relationship with the city of Sagamihara in Kanagawa Prefecture since 1991 (so I guess we're celebrating (?) 35 years of friendship this year). I only found out about the connection in the last year when I was curiously looking for whether Toronto itself had any sister cities in Japan. The ironic thing is that I had a couple of students who hailed from Sagamihara including one who was my regular Wednesday night Arashi-loving superfan student.

As for singers from Toronto, we have Drake, The Weeknd and Alessia Cara. But I was also wondering which singers hail from Sagamihara. I could find three such people.

(1976) Seri Ishikawa -- Asayake ga Kieru Mae ni （朝焼けが消える前に）

(1984) Sayuri Iwai -- Tokimeki no Kisetsu（ときめきの季節）

(1996) Kenji Ozawa -- Otona ni Nareba （大人になれば）

By the way, I do speak three languages: English, Japanese and food!