CROSSING CONTINENTS - Japan

NARRATOR:
There are 16 gentlemen in here - who is over 
sixty in this room?  One two three four five six 
seven are over sixty.  And who's the oldest?  I 
think - there's a bit of an argument here about 
who's the oldest. 

The oldest worker at the Mayekawa factory is in 
fact ninety-one years old.  There are two 
thousand employees here at this refrigeration and 
cooling plant just outside Tokyo and thanks to 
their zero retirement policy, one hundred of them 
are working way beyond sixtieth birthdays. 

Now Mr Daidoo, you've been here thirty-seven 
years.  What's your secret?

DAIDOO:
I like to work!  When I work with the younger 
people, I am very lively and I can keep my good 
condition.  If there were many companies like, 
like Mayekawa, my company, the whole society in 
Japan can be more active and lively.

NARRATOR:
This is the generation that fought in the Second 
World War and then helped re-build Japan out of 
the ashes.  Today as the economy nose-dives, 
their duty and dedication remain strong.  
My interpreter Mai introduces me to another 
worker.

MAI:
He's Mr Sakai Yamamoto, he's now seventy years 
old.  

YAMAMOTO [translated]:
He feels that he's paying back to the Japanese 
society, what the Japanese society gave him.  In 
Japan people work hard for the society, for 
Japan.  It's very difficult for him and difficult 
for the people in his generation just to devote 
themselves only for pleasure or fun.

NARRATOR:
Do you ever worry that you're not able to do the 
work?

YAMAMOTO [translated]:
Never.  He's never thought about it.

NARRATOR:
Japan respects its old people.  That, at least, 
is the tradition and official position.  There's 
a national holiday to honour them, and the state 
appoints living treasures - 115 distinguished 
artists, crafts people and musicians over sixty-
five.  Hozan Yamamoto is one of them, a revered 
composer and Japanese flute player.

HOZAN YAMAMOTO [translated]:
I feel I have to act as a model for senior 
citizens in Japan, Hozan Yamamoto tells me. It's 
a great privilege and we're treated like royalty.  
It's important that we uphold tradition because 
the young don't respect old things.  But, he 
says, being a living treasure is tough to live up 
to sometimes!

NARRATOR:
And they're living longer than anyone else in the 
world.  But the speed with which Japan is ageing 
and the sharp drop in the birth rate are not just 
cause for celebration.  There's alarm too: can 
the weak economy bear the strain of a top-heavy 
society?  And what do you do with so many old 
people?  Questions familiar to us in Britain too 
as we battle with our own pensions and care 
crises.  That's why the whole of this week's 
Crossing Continents is about this new silver 
society emerging in Japan – and the lessons we 
can learn back home.

This place – Sugamo - is Tokyo's version of 
Florida, home to visible hordes of cheerful, 
active old people but without the leisure suits, 
rather grey or brown anoraks, and the occasional 
kimono.  They get around on scooters, work out at 
the gym and eat healthy food.  Now I'm off to see 
the man they call their patron saint: Shigeaki 
Hinohara, doctor, writer, workaholic, 
international VIP, and campaigner for better 
rights for the elderly.  He's ninety-one years 
old.

I must say first of all, Mr Hinohara, it's 
impossible to believe you are the age you are.  I 
think you, you are ninety-one?

HINOHARA:
Yes I was born in 1911.  

NARRATOR:
And you're planning to live at least another ten 
years?

HINOHARA:
Yes, and I want to play golf at a year ninety-
five.  

NARRATOR:
You plan to start playing golf at age ninety-
five?

HINOHARA:
And I believe I can succeed but I don't have the 
time.  I work you see, at least seventeen hours a 
day.

NARRATOR:
Seventeen hours a day?

HINOHARA:
Seventeen hours, more than that you see.  I like 
to change it you see the profile of the elderly 
people.

NARRATOR:
So you want to re-define when people are called 
old?

HINOHARA:
Yes, and you see the most of the people over the 
age of seventy-five, they really are the healthy 
so initiating a new life at the age of seventy-
five, start something new.   Live the simple 
life, simple living but high thinking.

NARRATOR:
Dr Shigeaki Hinohara, thank you very much indeed, 
and I wish you long life and happiness.  How do 
you say that in Japanese, long life and 
happiness?

HINOHARA:
….soshite kofuku ni

NARRATOR:
But the long life and happiness of Japan's 
growing band of senior citizens also means more 
care and higher costs.  For the medical and 
social lowdown on Japan's elderly, I'm spending 
the morning with one of Tokyo's top 
gerontologists, Professor Takao Suzuki at the 
Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital.

SUZUKI:
One thousand patients daily come in here and we 
have about seven hundred beds.

NARRATOR:
It's very busy this morning.  There are hundreds 
of people here in the waiting area.

Professor, can I, with your help ask a couple of 
people why they are here, what their problems 
are?

SUZUKI:
She has not so good condition of the abdomen.

NARRATOR:
Stomach problems?

SUZUKI:
Yeah he had a fall, and he had a fracture at the 
wrist.

NARRATOR:
How old is this gentleman?

SUZUKI:
Seventy-four years old.

NARRATOR:
Very young.  

SUZUKI:
Oh yes indeed, indeed.

NARRATOR:
Now Professor Suzuki, I'd like you to help me 
understand a couple of basics.  The problems of 
the elderly in the UK that we hear most about are 
heart disease, cancer, really serious illnesses.  
Do Japanese people suffer those illnesses as 
well?

SUZUKI:
The prevalence of such chronic diseases is much 
less in the Japanese elderly people.  One of the 
reasons is the very good weight control.  For 
example in the United States many people are 
suffering from the obesity and --

NARRATOR:
And also in Britain as well.

SUZUKI:
Right, right but in Japan obesity is not so a big 
problem.  They eat much leaf and with green 
vegetables and they eat much less fat comparing 
with those in the UK or US.  So I think the diet 
is one of the very good factor but social 
relationship or social tie or special network is 
much much worse in Japanese elderly.  Japanese 
people has less contact with their friends or 
family etc.

NARRATOR:
You see, it's very interesting for me coming to 
Japan for the first time because the impression I 
have before I came is that the Japanese people 
respect the elderly.

SUZUKI:
No no no.  The answer is no.  Maybe lower or 
lowest in the developed countries, I think.

NARRATOR:
So respect for the elderly is the lowest you say 
in the developed countries, here in Japan.  
That's astonishing for me.  

SUZUKI:
Yes indeed.

NARRATOR:
I want to talk to you about the political aspects 
of ageing in Japanese society.  You know because 
many of the problems we have in the UK, there are 
not enough beds in hospitals, there's not enough 
nursing care.  What about Japan?

SUZUKI:
I think we have the similar problems because the 
rapid increase of the elderly person means the 
rapid increase of the medical costs so that 
Japanese government is just struggling.

NARRATOR:
As a gerontologist, are you happy with the 
services provided by the state for old people?

SUZUKI:
No, absolutely no.

NARRATOR:
Are there enough care homes, are there enough 
residential homes, nursing homes for elderly 
people in Japan?

SUZUKI:
No, no absolutely no.  So many elderly people are 
waiting.

NARRATOR:
A song about springtime and young love from the 
residents of Century City, a private retirement 
home in the north of Tokyo.  The number of over-
65s has doubled in twenty-five years and to cope 
with them, schools are being converted into care 
homes and the private sector is booming.  Look at 
this place: grand piano in the spacious lobby, a 
restaurant – not canteen, cafés, shops, a 
swimming pool, exquisite suites for the 
residents.

So who should look after us when we're old?  It 
used to be the family.  In Japan, just forty 
years ago, eighty per cent of OAPs lived at home 
– today it's only half that.  Japan's golden 
retirees are taking responsibility for 
themselves.  They have the money.  They hold half 
the country's savings, and this solution suits 
the government fine.  In this ailing economy they 
are happy to further shift the burden of care 
onto the elderly and onto the private sector.  
Tamotsu Kawabe is the director of Century City 
Home.

A place like this must cost a lot of money.  How 
much do the people pay who come here?

KAWABE [translated]:
When you come here, you have to pay between 
thirty million yen and fifty million yen plus one 
hundred and fifty thousand yen a month for food 
and everything else.

NARRATOR:
Now let me try and work that out in sterling.  
That's almost a quarter of a million pounds 
downpayment to live here.  In addition £750 a 
month for food, extra and so on.  That's an 
incredible amount of money.  Can people in Japan 
afford that?

KAWABE [translated]:
Basically the people who live here, you can say 
they're from middle upper class.  They're rich 
enough to live here.  That's right.  Their 
pension is quite high.

NARRATOR:
I'm now sitting in the lobby of Century City and 
I'm sitting with Mr and Mrs Uchida, and you are 
eighty-three and eighty-two.  You're obviously 
very happy here in this home but would you rather 
you were looked after by your children or your 
grandchildren?

Mrs UCHIDA [translated]:
She never expected to be taken care of by her 
family.

NARRATOR:
What do you feel about the Japanese government?  
Are they doing anything to help elderly people 
like you?

Mr UCHIDA [translated]:
He thinks that Japan is in prolonged recession 
now.  Being independent is the most important 
thing.  We can't depend on the government, we 
have to be independent.

NARRATOR:
There's now a growing silver market in this 
country.  It's a very lucrative business.  There 
are many companies, many designers who are 
creating products just for you.  How do you feel 
about that?

Mr UCHIDA [translated]:
I think they're good, they're excellent.  If I 
were younger, I would definitely go into this 
kind of business, make products for elderly 
people.

NARRATOR:
I want to buy this machine.  I'm sitting in a 
full length massage chair having my feet, my 
calves, my thighs, my buttocks, my back massaged, 
pummelled as never before.  This is Tokyo's 
largest electronic shop.  And there's a huge 
section of this shop devoted to products for the 
elderly.  You've got foot baths, cholesterol 
monitoring machines, you've got extra loud alarm 
clocks, you've got -- I have never had such a 
deep massage in all my life.

But there are winners and losers in this new 
silver society.  I'm now about to leave Tokyo to 
fly to the snowy north, to Akita, a region rarely 
visited by foreigners, to hear a story rarely 
told.  Over the past few years we've got used to 
those tales of Japanese businessmen committing 
suicide.  Suicide has been called here a national 
epidemic, but the largest group of depressives 
and suicides in Japan is not middle-aged men.  
It's the elderly.

It's absolutely freezing, I'm surrounded by snow, 
white as far as the eye can see.  This is Yuri 
Town in southern Akita, population 6,200 and it 
is notorious for having the highest suicide rate 
amongst the elderly population in the country.  
Now there's snow here for five months of the 
year.  It's quite remote, very cold, very 
difficult conditions.  It used to be a prosperous 
farming area, rice farming, and now that economy 
has declined as well.

This town, this house, is the opposite of 
everything I've seen so far in Japan: no gadgets, 
no computers, no neon.  All generations living in 
one house, struggling to get by.  And it's taking 
a long time to find people to tell me their 
stories.  I've entered a culture of silence and 
stoicism.  

Echio Sato is sitting on a mat on the floor, 
dressed in a simple blue cotton smock.  She's 
eighty-one years old.

ECHIO SATO [translated]:
So she lives with her son and daughter-in-law and 
grandchildren and great-grandchildren but there 
is no conversation.  They don't have any 
communication.

She feels like she's a burden for her family and 
she's very stressed-out.  Her meal is always left 
in the kitchen and she's got to eat it by 
herself, not with other members of her family but 
it's not fun to have dinner by herself.  It's not 
fun.  

Of course she is very sad.  She cries every day 
and she wants to talk about her problems to her 
friends but if she does it, that will make her 
friends sad too. It's not a cheerful subject to 
talk about.

NARRATOR:
When you're not feeling well, do you go to the 
doctor?  Do you go to the hospital?

SATO [translated]:
She definitely does go to see a doctor when she's 
not feeling well physically but if she's 
depressed or she's not feeling well mentally, 
does she go to see a doctor?  No, she doesn't 
because there are many other patients waiting for 
the doctor.  She feels really guilty to talk 
about her personal problem.

NARRATOR:
What do you want to happen?  You've led a good 
long life and hopefully you'll live many many 
more years.  How do you want your life to be?

SATO [translated]:
She wants to be happy, she would like to be happy 
for one hour a day at least.

NARRATOR:
I'm inside a traditional wooden house with a 
pagoda roof, sliding screen doors, shoes off as I 
enter.  Outside the window fallow rice fields and 
rusting farm equipment.  Again endless cups of 
green tea.  I'm not sure whether Mr and Mrs 
Takahashi will talk.  They're in their seventies.  
There's a lot of nervous, embarrassed laughter.  
It's a difficult subject.  Both her brothers 
hanged themselves.

Why do you think your brothers committed suicide?

Mr & Mrs TAKAHASHI [translated]:
They think that they committed suicide because of 
pride.  They just didn't want to show their 
miserable features to others.

For them suicide means hanging, in this area.  
It's because there's a old saying, it's like a 
proverb.  When they face financial problems or 
when they stuck and they say oh I don't want to 
depend on anyone, I don't want to be a burden.  
Let's hang ourselves.  You know that's the best 
solution and those people who are in that 
generation, they are not afraid of death.  They 
experienced the World War II and they were 
educated to be ready to die for the country at 
any time.

NARRATOR:
Do you believe that it's better to keep these 
troubles within the family or did you think well, 
let's try and get help from somewhere else?

Mrs TAKAHASHI [translated]:
She wants to solve problems inside her family.  
She thinks it's better.  

And oh my god, they face a financial problem and 
Mrs Takahashi one day she went upstairs with 
ropes and tried to hang herself and she just 
realised that she was, what she was trying to do, 
and she doesn't know what stopped her but she 
just realised that she was standing upstairs with 
ropes in her hands.  And she was so scared.

NARRATOR:
Well I've just heard that Mrs Takahashi has never 
told that story before, even to the psychiatrist, 
Dr Naoki Watanabe, who introduced me to her.  He 
comes here regularly from Tokyo, a rare expert in 
depression and suicide among the elderly.

NAOKI WATANABE:
It has something to do with family relationships 
where the elderly feel very isolated.  This is 
one point and the other is the lifestyle of 
youngsters and the lifestyle of the older persons 
are now quite different.  Also Akita is a male-
dominated society.  After the man get old, they 
will lose this role.

NARRATOR:
So if the men in Akita have been farmers all 
their lives and then suddenly they have no work, 
nothing to do, then they start to feel useless?

WATANABE:
Then the depression can set in, yes.

NARRATOR:
You've worked abroad.  Do you find a different 
attitude here in Japan to the United States or 
Britain?

WATANABE:
Oh yes, and we found that the elderly from this 
eerie town in Akita seem to be very neurotic and 
also introverted, and they would like to hide 
everything.  It is difficult to investigate 
suicidal people because it is sort of shame to 
talk about someone in the family who committed 
suicide.

NARRATOR:
Are doctors and nurses and health care workers in 
Japan, are they trained to recognise the symptoms 
of depression?

WATANABE:
I don't think so.  They will only prescribe 
medicine for headache or stomach ache and finish.

NARRATOR:
You've got a long way to go.

WATANABE:
Yes, long way to go and this is my life work.

NARRATOR:
The first time I've heard some hale and hearty 
laughter since I arrived in Akita three days ago!  
This is a keep fit class for the elderly in a 
gleaming new community centre in Yuri Town.  
There are some changes.  The government – local, 
regional and national - has been shocked by the 
suicide statistics.  Some money's now going into 
research, health education for seniors, telephone 
helplines, special training for GPs and nurses, 
and into funding places like this so the old 
people get out of their homes.  The 
transformation is stunning.  One person in 
particular I recognize: great-grandmother Echio 
Sato.

You're laughing here now.  You are surrounded by 
your friends here in the community centre, you 
have loving nurses and care here.  Does it make 
you happy coming to the community centre? 

SATO [translated]:
It definitely does help and now she knows some 
other people have very similar problems so it's 
nice to know that she's not the only one.

She likes dancing, origami and do some games 
together, and then start drinking in the 
afternoon.

NARRATOR:
Start drinking tea?

SATO [translated]:
Sake.

NARRATOR:
The seventy eighty and ninety year olds I've been 
meeting in Japan are resilient and inspiring, in 
spite of their problems.  I doubt whether my 
generation will cope as well.  And they've taught 
me some simple lessons - save, care for your 
friends and family, eat healthily, be active.  
And my final lesson awaits me in this café back 
in Tokyo over specially requested English tea and 
biscuits.  After weeks of exchanging e-mails and 
terrible jokes, I'm about to meet Japan's most 
irrepressible senior citizen, the satirist, 
writer, interpreter to American presidents, 
champion skier and Anglophile, seventy-two year 
old Masumi Murumatsu.  So how does he do it?

MURUMATSU:
I only do things I enjoy doing, amusing people 
and thus amusing myself.

NARRATOR:
When I think of the Japanese, I don't connect 
humour with Japanese people.

MURUMATSU:
Our humour is least known to the rest of the 
world because we don't show it on our 
expressions, the facial expressions or 
countenance.  But you know in our language we 
don't have the difference between l and r, so 
humourless is humorous for us.  We try to be 
humorous and we're humourless.  That's a bad 
joke.

NARRATOR:
Mr Murumatsu, people of your generation have been 
through a lot.  You've been through the Second 
World War and then your generation worked very 
hard to build up this country, and now the 
majority of people are suffering economic 
hardship.  Is this a reason for the seriousness 
of this society?

MURUMATSU:
That is right, that is why I'm trying to lighten 
it up.  We at the same time have one of the 
highest rates of suicide.  I'm trying to tell 
people you don't have to kill yourself.  If you 
fail in business, so what!  You haven't done 
anything wrong.  I think our whole system is too 
rigid, I think the fear of failing has been the 
biggest obstacle.  We cannot be winners all the 
time.  We were winners for several decades after 
the war, then we became a bit arrogant.  Today 
we're suffering this doldrum but we will come 
through it.  Basically we are flexible people.

NARRATOR:
Masumi Murumatsu, thank you very much.  Just tell 
me before I go, what age do you want to retire 
at?  When are you going to stop?

MURUMATSU:
I am now into my second life.  I'm not re-doing 
my life, I'm enjoying my new life as author and 
humorist.  I like it.

NARRATOR:
Frantic fun frenzied Tokyo, the crowded streets 
are owned by the young and middle-aged, spending 
and working as if there were no tomorrow.  Why 
save, who cares!  Once I thought Japan had modern 
life worked out but today they're ignoring the 
human basics and it's a bit scary.  Ageing is 
their number one social problem but they have few 
answers.  

Britain is ageing fast too and what's happening 
in Japan will soon hit us.  But we have one 
advantage: we can act now.