A Musical Adventure to the Far East (Part 1-Japan)
By Janice Kapp Perry

Introduction

When our Japanese friend, Nobuaki Irie, first approached me about the possibility of a musical fireside tour to Japan, I hardly took him seriously. Reminding him that Doug and I are in our seventies now and that this was something we should have done a decade earlier, I brushed off the suggestion. He was determined, but I reminded him I had suffered a stroke a few years earlier, Doug had recently had knee replacement surgery and although he spoke many different languages, Japanese was not one of them. I felt we would not have the stamina for such an ambitious tour. Plus I did not know how to sing my songs in Japanese. Nobuaki asked if we would pray about this decision. When we did, we both knew we were going and began our preparations for the programs in earnest.

The Language Barrier

Nobuaki phoneticized the lyrics to six of my Primary songs, and three others, assuring me that the pronunciation of Japanese is almost identical to Spanish, the language we learned on our senior mission. He also assured me that if I wanted to sing some songs in English, he would project the Japanese words on a screen as I sang. We would be giving our fireside talks in English with Nobuaki as translator. He suggested an eleven-day tour with eight firesides and concerts from Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido to Okinawa in the south, traveling each day by plane or bullet train to the next city.

With the help of our Japanese-American friend Mas Watabe, and Larry Shumway from our Provo ward, I began to understand how to sing my songs in Japanese, and I practiced every day for weeks prior to the tour, listening over and over to our Japanese recordings, trying to duplicate the sounds I heard. I didn’t understand the words I was singing but since I had written them originally in English I at least knew the gist of the words. Gradually I gained confidence that I could sing these songs and be understood. Brother Watabe came by to hear me sing the day before we left for Japan and gave his approval.

A Serious Setback

A month before our departure date, Doug became very ill with a cold, and then pneumonia, which led to severe coughing and eventually a muscle tear and hemorrhaging in his torso, which was very painful. We spent most of two weeks in doctor’s offices and numerous tests at the hospital, and were told that this injury would take six weeks to heal completely. We had three weeks. He had a priesthood blessing and we tried to have faith rather than panic. We didn’t mention our predicament to our Japanese hosts at first, but soon had to tell them that we would need help with our luggage as he was not supposed to lift anything for several weeks. Five days before our trip he began to heal and
at a doctor’s checkup the day before we left, his dark red and purple torso had returned to its normal coloring, the first of many blessings we would realize through this experience. He would have to complete his recovery in Japan.

The Adventure Begins

We knew the flight to Japan would be a challenge for us and we tried to strike a balance between sleeping and exercising during those long hours. It was never dark on this trip and somewhere along the way we lost a night of sleep between Salt Lake City and Tokyo where we were met by our friend Nobuaki who led us through customs and onto yet another flight to Chitose on the island of Hokkaido, where Doug served in the military fifty years ago. After a welcome night of sleep Nobuaki came to our hotel room to practice our Japanese duets and also to coordinate my speaking and his translating. We soon fell into a comfortable rhythm and our adventure began.

We first met Nobuaki about twenty years ago when he was a returned missionary and BYU student who came to our door to meet us and inquire about the possibility of translating and recording some of our recordings in Japanese. We had never considered this, but as he shared his remarkable conversion story from Buddhism to Mormonism I was touched by his spirit and his story and felt that we should do such a project. Through the years we have recorded three Japanese CDs with Nobuaki as lead singer, and two others which feature the Utagawa family of Tokyo. On this tour he planned to travel and perform with us and we felt safe in his hands. As we soon discovered, he had arranged every detail of our tour to perfection with help from Church leaders in every city where we would perform. Our admiration and love for him grew exponentially during this tour.

The First Concert

I experienced a bit of anxiety before the first concert, but as we arrived and saw a whole staff of people organized to see that everything went smoothly-parking, security, ushering, programs, and sound– I relaxed a bit. The saints are wonderful all over the world and I could tell this would be no different. We had time for a sound check on a wonderful professional sound system and were ushered to our own dressing room which was complete with snacks, drinks, and other comforts. (This never happens back home!) As Doug and I spoke at the pulpit, Nobuaki expertly translated into a standing mic and things went smoothly. Some of my worries from the last few months began to melt away as I felt the warm response of the Japanese people.

This was my first time to try out my newly learned Japanese lyrics, and as I led the congregation of about five hundred in singing a medley of six of my Primary songs, I was amazed at their enthusiasm for singing! I felt a growing optimism about our tour. Our part of the program went well, and then Nobuaki introduced and sang some of the songs I had written specifically for the three Japanese albums he recorded and it was obvious that the people loved him and responded enthusiastically to his performance. As we concluded singing the medley of “As Sisters in Zion” and “Army of Helaman” it was electrifying to hear the audience sing along. The program was followed by enthusiastic applause, gifts of flower bouquets, handshaking, photo-snapping, gift-giving and visiting! We felt completely enveloped in the love of the Japanese people.

Later, as we were exiting the building, three Japanese women asked if I would step into a room with them and listen to them sing one of my songs. Hearing their touching performance of “When I Feel His Love” stirred such strong emotion inside me as it seemed to be the fulfillment of President Bonnie Parkin’s wish that she expressed to me at the time she commissioned the song, “That this new song for women would spread around the world.”

Continuing the Tour with More Confidence

The next morning we flew to Osaka and were met by the stake president who took us to a beautiful concert hall where our next performance would take place. We were welcomed by a crew of thirty from the church and ushered backstage for lunch with the Robertsons (Public Affairs missionaries), and met four sparkling young people who form the group Bless4 who arerising stars in Japan. These four siblings-two boys and two girls-have amazing singing and dancing skills and had flown here to be the warm-up act for our show. They are four spectacular young people who represent the church wonderfully well. The whole concert hall scene was a bit intimidating to me-this was no simple church fireside!

Later that evening Bless4 opened the concert with a fantastic, energy-filled performance which the audience loved. They ended on a quieter note telling how they had learned the gospel through Primary and youth music. An emcee showed a six-minute clip of the documentary BYU-TV made about my life last year which helped us transition into our part of the program. When we invited the audience to sing the Primary Medley the girls from Bless4 sang with me, and the boys sang with Nobuaki.

They joined us also on the “As Sisters in Zion/Army of Helaman” Medley, which certainly added a bit of pizzazz to the songs! For the finale Nobuaki sang a song which he and I co-wrote for the Kobe Mission-“No Greater Joy”-and he had all the missionaries from the Kobe Mission join him on stage and sing with him. It was so moving-one of the highlights of the tour for me. Again we received notes, gifts, sweets, and flowers from the generous Japanese people.

We were able to go to church in the Hanayashiki Ward in Osaka, which was a welcome break. It seemed that all of those who bore their testimonies had been at the concert last night and we heard some interesting things. One lady said her daughter has “I Love to See the Temple” as the ring tone on her phone to remind her that is where she should get married; her son has “Army of Helaman” to remind him of his duty to serve a mission. Another said that when her son sings “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus,” she feels his testimony is heard by God. Many shared touching stories of how different songs had helped them during difficult times of their lives.

I was invited to speak in Primary and hear the children sing many of my songs. It was a disciplined, wonderful Primary and the children fairly shouted the songs when they sang for me. In Relief Society some women sang “When I Feel His Love,” and “As Sisters in Zion” and one of the girls from Bless4 translated as I told the stories behind those two songs. The R.S. president said, “I have raised my children on Sister Perry’s music and I knew she was famous throughout the world, but I was afraid she would be famous like a movie-star, and I’m so relieved to meet her and find out that she is just like us!”

After church, to our surprise, we found they had unfastened the benches in the chapel, moved them to the side and had a very long buffet table, the length of the chapel, filled with potluck dishes the saints had brought. We all enjoyed the delicious food and then had fun in a question and answer session for some time afterward. Not your normal Sunday-back-home but we loved it all.


The Perrys with Bless4, a Japanese LDS performing group.

On to Okinawa

After one very interesting day of sightseeing in Kyoto, we flew to Okinawa where we were met by a young High Councilman who played “For the Strength of Youth” in the car as we traveled, saying that during one year he spent in the U.S. the youth in his Lehi ward performed this production and it solidified his testimony for life. He played it over a hundred times during the school year. As he drove, he sang the lyrics to the songs which he still remembered.
We enjoyed doing our program in Okinawa as the wind blew outside. Every time we sang our “Perry Family Song” the Japanese translation was shown on the screen and the audience clapped along happily. Also, every time I sang the song “By Small and Simple Means” people seemed to be deeply affected by it and we saw tears in their eyes. The audience filled the chapel, cultural hall and stage. Almost one-half of them were American military families stationed here and they were singing out the Primary Medley in English trying to outdo the other half of the audience who were singing it in Japanese. I kept being swayed back and forth to both sides, and it was lots of fun.

I could never have imagined the reaction of the Saints to our coming here-they seem to know all the songs and sing with great enthusiasm. I often wonder how my music crossed the ocean and became part of their lives. It is both humbling and amazing. The emotions I felt during this trip almost overwhelmed me at times.

Miracle at Fukuoka

As we took off in Okinawa we were informed by the pilot that we may not be able to land in Fukuoka because of a snowstorm, and Nobuaki was trying of think of ways we could still make it to the concert if the plane were diverted.

Then we all prayed. By the time we reached Fukuoka the skies cleared and we were able to land. Snowflakes started falling soon thereafter. We were able to stay in the Fukuoka Mission Home for one night and when President and Sister Margetts welcomed us, it was like coming home where we could speak English, do a load of wash, and rest in comfort before the show, which was in a concert hall rather than a chapel.

Predictably, the “Perry Family Song,” and “By Small and Simple Means” were the favorites at the concert again, along with Nobuaki’s “No Greater Joy”. We were taken out for a delicious steak dinner afterward, and then returned to the mission home where Sister Margetts told us to sleep in and she’d have a nice American breakfast for us in the morning. We had enjoyed the Japanese food for the most part but it was definitely a change from our normal diet-probably an improvement. The next morning President Margetts organized his missionaries to help get us and our luggage to the bullet train station and on the way to Takamatsu.

A Smaller but Meaningful Program

On our way to Takamatsu our train stopped briefly in Okayama where there were three enthusiastic church members waiting to grab our luggage and get us to our next train connection in ten minute’s time. What a network of help Nobuaki had set up for us! The three helpers (Three Nephites?) continued on with us to Takamatsu where we were met by other helpers who took us to a Japanese Restaurant and then to our hotel for a brief rest. This concert meant a lot to Nobuaki personally, as he had served his mission here and had many friends in the area. The concert hall was the most beautiful one yet, our luxurious dressing room contained plates of delicious food, the show went especially well and once again we met many wonderful Japanese saints after the show. Our hosts took us to dinner after the show and told us how blessed we are to have the tradition of Mormonism in our families, while they are struggling to create that tradition for their own family. Back in our hotel Nobuaki said, “We are being blessed on our tour-if the last two concerts had been in reverse order, the snow would have prevented us from getting to them, but because I changed the order weeks ago, the weather cleared and we were able to get to both of them.”

By Train to Sendai

We thoroughly enjoyed our rides on the bullet trains-they were often the most restful part of our day. We enjoyed seeing the Japanese countryside out the windows. Some days we wished the rides were longer but then the train would stop and we were off to our next adventure. In Sendai, two dignified brethren grabbed our luggage before we were even off the train and walked at such a fast pace we had to ask them to slow down a bit. They spoke no English so we could not communicate, but we had faith they knew where they were taking us! After a very brief rest at our hotel we left for the concert hall.

The usual large staff of church members greeted us at the concert hall and showed us to our dressing room. An exceptional children’s choir started off the concert singing two Primary songs and then we proceeded with our usual concert and enjoyed great audience participation on the medleys. The tour was drawing to a close and I was now able to sing my songs in Japanese with much more confidence. As we ended the program two beautifully dressed Japanese children came onto the stage, bowed, thanked us in Japanese, and presented us each with a gift.

The next morning, the two faithful men who had been shepherding us in Sendai, again came to take us to the train station. As the train pulled out they stood waving, and bowing, until the train was out of sight. We felt such love for them. We had come to enjoy the bowing tradition in Japan and had gotten pretty good at it ourselves since we knew so little Japanese and this was one way to show our respect and love for them.

Final Two Concerts in Tokyo

There is no word for Tokyo except awesome! Skyscrapers everywhere and the population is more than New York and Chicago combined.

A wonderful couple who were awaiting their senior mission call met our plane and drove us through Tokyo traffic for an hour to the train station. They said they had been married civilly forty-some years ago and saved money for a long time to come to the Salt Lake temple to be sealed, but then the church asked them to donate all their savings to the Tokyo temple building fund, so they were delayed even longer. They said some members sold their homes to pay for their expenses to the Salt Lake City temple to be sealed. So many faithful members have shared stories like this as we have traveled briefly with them-a great blessing for us. With this couple’s help we caught a second train to our destination in Tokyo.

Two younger men met us and took over luggage duty and drove us for two hours through endless narrow streets, clogged with traffic, to the stake center where we would give our second to last program. All was ready and the Saints were rushing everywhere to help us. We changed into our dressy clothes in an improvised dressing room upstairs in the stake president’s office, and had a quick meal and sound check. As the stake presidency led us up the isle to begin the program, the huge crowd stood and applauded-we could feel the electricity in the air there!

Three groups performed a pre-concert for us: One hundred beautifully dressed Primary children sang for us; an amazing youth choir of about sixty youth sang with great gusto; and the Utagawa sisters performed. I truly had never heard my music performed more beautifully. We felt somewhat overwhelmed emotionally before we even began our part of the program. Our program seemed to go better than anywhere before because of the energy of this huge audience. It was an unforgettable experience to feel the love of the saints to that degree and we hoped they knew we returned that love. If, as President Hinckley once said, “adoration is poison to the soul,” we thought we had better get out of Japan quickly!

In Tokyo we were reunited with the supremely talented Utagawa family who had recorded one of our Japanese albums in the U.S. when their children were young, and another when they were mission age. We love this family! They took us to an authentic Japanese restaurant and treated us to an amazing ten-course tofu banquet which Sister Utagawa thought would be “very healthy for us”. Who knew there where so many different ways to prepare tofu? We loved sharing some time with this remarkable family, who later delivered us to the Tokyo Mission Home where we would spend the last two days of our tour. President Steve Albrecht greeted us and showed us to our room which looked most inviting after our very long day.

Winding Things Up in Tokyo

Sunday morning, and we were so happy to be in the mission home with the Albrechts enjoying a nice American breakfast. We were able to attend church with them, where we had been asked to be the speakers. I also sang a solo between our talks, “Like Jesus,” in Japanese. Nobuaki translated our talks. I had been asked to speak in Primary and introduced six of my Primary song before the children sang them for me. They practically exploded in song-I had never seen anything like it! I also visited Relief Society where someone put earphones on me just in time for me to hear the translator say: “Sister Suzuki will give the first half of the lesson on ‘The Creation,’ then we would like to ask Perry shimai (Sister Perry) to give the rest of the lesson. I turned to Sister Albrecht and asked if I had really just been asked to give part of the lesson and she confirmed that I had. Fortunately I had written a children’s song on that topic recently and had looked up all the scriptures and actually had something to say on the subject. A good translator was provided. After the meetings the whole ward met in the cultural hall to have a picture taken with us.

Our final concert was the largest crowd of all and again the audience stood and clapped as the Area Seventy and stake presidency led us up to the stand.

We were already feeling pretty melancholy about this final concert and the warm welcome from the crowd was very touching. They surprised us with a short and beautiful pre-concert from their musicians-solos, duets, a choir-we thoroughly enjoyed it all.

Our emotions built toward the end of our show and when I paid tribute to Nobuaki Irie for all he has done for Japanese music and for taking such good care of us on the tour, he wept and could not translate my words for some time. We had the Utagawa family come forward and acknowledged their contribution to recording our CDs in Japanese, and we asked them to stand with us and lead the congregation in singing the medley “As Sisters in Zion/Army of Helaman”.

The sound of that huge audience singing with us brought tears to everyone’s eyes and some (including us) could hardly sing. When Nobuaki sang his final song “No Greater Joy” with the audience joining on the chorus it was truly an exhilarating finale to our Far East Adventure. As we looked into the faces of our new Japanese friends we felt like we did when we left Santiago Chile after our mission, wondering if we would ever again see the people we had come to love so much.


The Perrys outside the Tokyo temple with Nobuaki Irie and Brother and Sister Utagawa

The Afterglow

The morning after the concert I told Sister Albrecht that we had been given so many gifts and mementos that there was no way we could fit them into our suitcases, and yet I was not willing to part with any of them. She kindly offered to box them up and mail them home for me. President Albrecht offered another kind of gift that we were greatly in need of. He knew that we were exhausted from our rigorous tour and that we were now going to travel to Taiwan for an additional week of performances, and felt that he should give us an additional priesthood blessing to strengthen and renew us for that tour. He pronounced on us every specific blessing that we would need to continue on. We will never forget the kindness of the Albrechts.

Part 2 – (Taiwan) will follow.