Greg Irwin looks back to the year 2000 and can hardly believe how his life has turned around. "I was ready to quit singing doyo. I was not happy in my personal life. I was questioning living in Japan and my career seemed to have hit the glass ceiling."
Doyo, it should be explained, is a genre of Japanese song. Literally, "children's songs," the themes center around the love of home, family, childhood friends and nature. Most Japanese remember them with a deep sense of nostalgia.
Although in recent years they are being set aside one by one, the songs were taught as a part of school curriculum from the Taisho Period until quite recently. This means that for Japanese people over a certain age, they strike a chord of powerful emotions.