The Seagull Matros and "Kame"

2026 --- Yokohama is a city I have carried with me since childhood. While creating this mural, I found myself returning again and again to two things: the layered memories embedded in this place, and a quiet prayer hidden inside a song. The children's song Kamome no Suihei-san was born in Yokohama and became a sweeping hit during the wartime years. Beneath its cheerful melody, however, one can sense something more intimate — a mother of four, the song's lyricist, seems to have folded into the lyrics a private longing for a world where people simply get along. Yokohama has always been a place where things quietly transform through contact. In the old local dialect, Hama-kotoba, the English call of "Come here!" was heard and absorbed as kame — the word for dog. Language, like life in this city, has always shifted its shape through encounter. This mural holds that history as its backdrop — and carries, above all, a hope for peace. --- SHARE LOUNGE Minatomirai