Tag Archive

What We Learn From 5 Japanese Centenarians

By Shlomo Maital  

   On November 7,  New York Times ran a lovely piece on five Japanese centenarians (aged 100 or over) who continue to work every day.   Here is a brief summary of what we learn.  By the way, Japan has 100,000 centenarians!  More per capita than any other country.  Diet, health care, exercise… all are important. But according to these five, work is key.

    Massafumi Matsuo, 101,  farmer.  “I work to stay healthy,” he says simply.  He grows eggplants, cucumbers and beans.  He has survived esophageal cancer and COVID. 

     Tomeyo Ono, story teller.  She is a teller of minwa, folk tales, a career she took up after 70.  (At 101, she is the oldest member of a story telling collective).  She says she is determined to keep telling stories “until  she joins her friends and family who have passed on”.

      Tomoko Horino, 102, beauty consultant.  She says, “when I first tried on makeup I felt so pretty. I wanted to make others feel the same way”.   “I love making people beautiful”.  She makes her sales over the phone, with occasional visits to her home.  Keeping busy helps her fend off loneliness.

       Fuku Amikawa, 102, ramen chef.  Five or six days a week, Fuku works the lunch shift at her family’s ramen restaurant alongside her son and daughters, using long chopsticks to swirl ramen noodles…    Her restaurant marked its 60^th anniversary.  She says that physically and emotionally, work changes the quality of her life.

     Seichi Ishii, 103, bicycle repairman.   He goes to bed every night excited about the customers who might show up the next day.  If I die here in the workshop, he says, I will be happy.  Working at his shop gives him more joy than even singing karaoke every Sunday at his favorite snack bar.

        I think we need to give our brains a reason to keep us alive.  If we do, then our brains will continue to function well.  Retirement?  Make sure you retire TO something, not just FROM something.