Japan's Most Famous Song is Scottish? 🤔 | #culturaldifferences #graduation #Japan #scotland

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Japan's most famous song is Scottish?

[00:00:02]Every single person in Japan knows this Scottish folk tune, but why? Compared to high school graduations in the US, Japanese graduations, which happen in March by the way, are very solemn and serious. Some of the differences are that there's no cap and gown, students just wear the uniform that they've been wearing every day. Also, instead of everybody's names being read individually and then they go up and get their diploma, the homeroom teacher or the principal just reads all the students' names from one class and then one class representative gets up and just accepts a diploma on behalf of all of the students in their homeroom class.

[00:00:30]And then it's singing time. So, there's a lot of different songs that people sing, but by far the most popular one is the Scottish folk [music] tune Auld Lang Syne. Hopefully, I'm saying that right.

[00:00:39]Known in Japan as Hotaru no Hikari, which means glow of a firefly. Let's listen.

[00:00:45]>> [music] [singing] [music] >> Since 1881, it's been the soundtrack of saying goodbye. Even stores play it at closing time when they want everyone to get the heck out of there. So, for the past 145 years, every Japanese person has been singing this Scottish tune.

[00:01:03]What are some graduation traditions like where you're from? Okay, that's all I have. Bye.