Furusato

This is a Japanese folk song. It is one of my most beloved songs. Furusato literally means your homeland. The graceful melody and the simple, direct yet meaningful lyrics trigger my nostalgia. Deep within the palpable beauty lies something that makes this song immortal in me. Why some place is your homeland is essentially destined by the fact that you were born there; that your parents live there; and that your friends have been living there with you since childhood. These attributes cannot be changed because they are elements embedded in your history which are not erasable. However, there are some more factors, more subtle ones that define furusato. The lyrics go, after talking of the parents and friends,

Some day when I have done what I set out to do,
I will return to where I used to have my home.
Lush and green are the mountains of my homeland.
Pure and clear is the water of my homeland.

This is the part where the essentiality is. And only if a place essentially bears this capacity that it can be called furusato to a certain person. If you were born there, your parents lived there and your friends worked there but you shall not return after you have completed what you are required to do, and you do not feel the mountains and water are beautiful and worth your treasure, then the place that is called your homeland is indeed deficient in the aspect that it essentially is your homeland, your furusato. I should say, perhaps it is your homeland, but it is not your furusato.