As the 60th founding anniversary of New China draws close, an old man in Japan is as much elated and inspired as the Chinese people. To sing songs for New China and wish her a happiest birthday is the heartfelt aspirations of Noboru Kameda, a 75-year-old lyricist who has been composing songs for Japan-China friendship over the past 30 years.

"What impressed me most during my first visit to China was its appreciation of truthfulness and friendship," said Kameda in an interview with Xinhua Monday.

A native of Toyama Prefecture, Kameda had worked as a reporter before retiring from the newspaper Kitanippon Shimbun.

In 1975, he paid the first visit to China on a goodwill mission from Toyama Prefecture and witnessed with his own eyes what China was. During his stay there, he wrote the lyrics for a song titled "Propose a Toast from the Bottom of Our Heart," praying for peace and friendliness between the two nations. And it became the first goodwill song composed jointly by Kameda and Chinese composers.

"To date, I have paid 26 visits to China and jointly composed a total of 55 songs with my fellow Chinese composers," said the old man proudly.

"Immortal Five-starred Red Flag," "The Heart of Earth" and "The Blossoms of Heart," among others, were the odes the old man wrote lately to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Indignant over the Japan's aggressive war which claimed numerous lives in the neighboring countries, including China and the Korean Peninsula, Kameda said: "I am determined to spread the seeds of peace and friendship by jointly composing songs of amity with my fellow foreign composers."

"My heartfelt wishes are China's national prosperity and people's felicity," Kameda said affectionately.

(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2009)