is a Japanese song incorporating the tune of Scottish folk song ''

Auld Lang Syne "Auld Lang Syne" () is a Scottish song. In the English-speaking world, it is traditionally sung to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay/New Year's Eve. It is also often heard at funerals, graduations, and as a far ...

'' with completely different lyrics by Chikai Inagaki, first introduced in a collection of singing songs for elementary school students in 1881 (Meiji 14). The swapping of lyrics without substantial change to the music is known as

contrafactum In vocal music, contrafactum (or contrafact, pl. contrafacta) is "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music". The earliest known examples of this "lyrical adaptation" date back to the 9th century in Gregor ...

. The words describe a series of images of hardships that the industrious student endures in his relentless quest for knowledge, starting with the

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's light, which the student uses to keep studying when he has no other light sources (originating from the story of Che Yin from Volume 83 of the

Book of Jin The ''Book of Jin'' is an official Chinese historical text covering the history of the Jin dynasty (266–420), Jin dynasty from 266 to 420. It was compiled in 648 by a number of officials commissioned by the imperial court of the Tang dynasty, ...

). It is commonly heard during graduation ceremonies and at the end of the school day. Many stores and restaurants play it to usher customers out at the end of a business day. On the very popular Japanese New Year's Eve TV show,

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

's ''

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

'', it has become a tradition for all the performers to sing ''Hotaru no Hikari'' as the last song. From 1993 until 2020, this was also played at

Tokyo Disney Resort The (local nickname ''TDR'') is a theme park and vacation resort located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, just east of Tokyo. The resort is owned and operated by the Oriental Land Company, the Oriental Land Co., a subsidiary of the Keisei Electric Rai ...

during fireworks shows on New Year's Eve. Another song from the same period and used at graduation ceremonies thought to be based on a Scottish folk song is " Aogeba Tōtoshi".

Lyrics

References

Hotaru no Hikari - Everything2
{{Authority control Graduation songs Japanese songs Songs in Japanese New Year in Japan