The elderly in Japan

I realize many people won't read a blog entry titled "The Elderly" but, for reasons listed below, they really are a critical part of Japan. Also, you may be wondering why there is a pic of a devil accompanying the post. That will also be explained.

I always wanted to visit the elderly and disabled, at least once. I was inspired after I saw a documentary about elderly Japanese, forgotten by their children, who lived in onsens. I saw it in Canada, with my friend Yumiko. She was interested in palliative care and I was interested in Japan. In the doc, there was a cool old guy who still really enjoyed life: he was always talking to people, lounging around tanning, and such. Seemed like it'd be neat to hang with someone like that.

I was also inspired by Duplex Planet, a comic and CD series a guy had made from the tales of elderly people he had worked with at a nursing home. As far as the disabled, an inspired music teacher had created The Kids of Widney High, a band composed of mentally and physically disabled kids. He figured that it was more fun for them to write their own music for class than to sing boring traditional stuff. He was right; the band went on to become relatively successful, opening for Faith No More (Mike Patton was a big fan).

So, when I was offered the chance to spend a day (albeit a Saturday), chatting with residents of a nursing home and home for the disabled, I jumped at it. "At least once" I thought.

It must be noted that the elderly in Japan are in a unique situation. Though Japan has the highest life expectancy rate in the world, the population in general is rapidly aging. Currently, around 20% of folks are over 65. Also, the birth rates are among the lowest in the world and, if these rates continue, they say the population will drop to 100 million by 2050, and to 64 million by 2100.

Most of that 20% appears to live in my city. Many times, I've ridden past a rice field maintained by a woman who appears as if she SHOULD NOT BE ALIVE. Once, in Osaka, an old gentleman called me over to chat about Mormons. Though it's rude and discourteous to say this, it's also the truth: his shriveled visage made him appear as if he had just stumbled off the set of a Japanese version of Hellraiser (perhaps an poetic version as directed by Kurosawa). I'm exaggerating, but there's a definite trend of younger people moving to the cities.

The co-existence of these elderly folks, most of whom are fairly conservative and traditional in their thinking, with younger people such as the so-called Neets, Freeters, Otaku, Hikikomori, and the like leads to an interesting Japan. In contrast to these non-working loners and drop-outs, the elderly have a super-strong work ethic. This has led to situations such as described on Ed Jacob's Useless people page: elderly people who are given a token job just to keep busy. It's quite often that you can pass a construction site, street corner, or empty parking area manned (and it usually is a man) by an insanely old character wearing a helmet, glowing safety belt, and waving a baton at non-existent crowds.


Despite the exceptional lifespan, most of these elderly will not be around in 20 years. Discussion of this point usually revolves around who will fill the gap in the workforce. As many Japanese are opposed to the idea of immigration, this is a concern. However, there's another, less often discussed element: the loss of tradition. I saw a good example in a documentary the other day; the family of a craftsman in Kyoto had supplied special geta (slippers) to geisha for generations. However, his young son wasn't interested in maintaining the tradition - he wanted to do something he considered more interesting. So, the method will simply be forgotten and lost. That things change is usually a good thing, but you can't deny that it's a bit tragic that a bit of history will be lost. Yeah, I know, as a foreigner it's ridiculous to pine for a forgotten Japan that I never knew...however, I do know that geisha, even if only due to their relative rarity, are more interesting than the inevitable McDonald's, Starbucks, and parking lots that it seems will inevitably take their place; if every place is the same, why travel anywhere?

It was with these thoughts in mind that I rode down to the nursing home. Would my partner for the morning be a traditionalist, or maybe we'll talk about friends, family and the future... I ended up "chatting", though it was mostly one-way, with a lady who told me: 1. "You are intelligent" and 2. "We have different ways of thinking". As she didn't seem inclined to raise her head from her chest after telling me the latter for the second time, I took it to mean "get the hell away from me". So, I did. I moved to another table and talked with some gentlemen. I suggested a card game and they eagerly agreed. Then, I was pretty surprised to find that the place not only had no cards, they had no games of any kind. I dunno...isn't that weird? There was only a big screen TV and what passed for conversations (no-one was talikin' much) to keep these guys occupied. So, there wasn't any war reminiscences or touching "bridging the generation/culture gap" scenes.


After that, we went to a home for the disabled. However, there was way more of us visitors (about 18) than residents (4 or 5). We had a contest regarding Setsubun, a yearly holiday. Luckily, I lost, as the "prize" was being allowed to demonstrate the holiday: people chant "devils out, good luck in" while throwing beans at symbolic devils. So,in what was the highlight of the day, the three "winners" were instructed to don huge devil masks and find a hiding place. After they came out of hiding, they were vigorously pelted with dried beans. By us. The kids that were present had fun, but by the end we were all hurling handfuls of the stuff at the unfortunate demon-people. It was pretty cool, and I'm sure we totally rid the place of any lingering evil. The beans will probably be there for a while, though.

Then, we each took turns introducing our relative cultures. Keira did a great job of introducing Ireland via an interactive song. Our group of Canadians encountered the usual issues regarding introducing the wonders of Canadian cuisine, culture, etc....there really isn't any. Well, to clarify, the place really is international: I used to live in Little Italy, maybe walk through a parade in Chinatown or Little Portugal, eat Vietnamese food, go to Little Tokyo (a store) to check out Japanese stuff, and walk back home through Koreatown. It's a beautiful, multicultural (interestingly, in my research I discovered there is no word for "multicultural" in Japanese) country, but has no clear culture. Which is really only a problem in situations like this one, when your audience is making comparisons between the countries. Visit the place and make your own decisions.

Overall, it was a good day. It's hard to tell exactly what, if any, impression was made upon the seniors, but the second place was cool. Anything that involves devils and whipping stuff has got to be worthwhile. Apparently, my picture - maybe a shot of me annoying the old lady; I haven't seen it yet - ended up in the newspaper too, which is good stuff. Hey, congratulations: you made it to the end of this post on the elderly!