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Japan
Sake-Soaked Essays

Chapter 1. 
The vanishing country

A senior driver was pulled over by the police at a train station, which, in itself, isn’t that unusual. That he was driving along the railroad tracks and had been doing so for some time, was definitely an eye-opener.

The cliffs in Tottori prefecture on the Sea of Honshu are quite picturesque, but have a rather dark past. In the old days, people would come here to throw their elderly (or perhaps not so-elderly, but just tiresome) parents or grandparents off the cliffs and into the ocean once they had outlived their usefulness. Tottori was pretty isolated back then and the locals generally lived hand-to-mouth as subsistence farmers, or fishermen. A bad harvest, or scarcity of Gish meant they could face starvation. If granny or granddad were at an age where they were just consuming and not producing, frog-marching them to the cliffs reduced the number of mouths that had to be fed and also cut the number of birthday presents needed.

If this were to happen today, there would probably be a lineup of people dragging their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great, great grandparents, great, great, great, etc… because in Japan these days, nobody seems to die.

As of 2024, the population of Japan sat at 123 million, with roughly 30% over the age of 65, and there are 10,000 men and 80,000 women over the age of 100 - which means a male centenarian has an excellent chance of scoring big at a karaoke bar. Compare that to 1963, when there were only 153 Japanese over the age of 100. (although WWII might have had something to do with that). These numbers mean boom times for birthday cake candle manufacturers, elderly care homes and funeral homes. I recently drove one road and in the space of 30 minutes passed 4 funeral homes, 8 care homes and one rather sad and lonely wedding chapel. I was at one gathering where someone announced their father had passed away at the age of 80, which elicited much tut-tutting, shaking of heads and sympathetic “Taken so young” murmurings. Speaking of young… young couples (assuming young Japanese are getting married, of which few are) are putting off having children, or just not bothering at all. Between 2015 and 2020 the population declined by 1,000,000. To boost the population, the Govt. has come up with all sorts of enticements, short of lacing the municipal water supplies with viagra, but none of it seems to be working. Coupled with just a trickle of migration into the country, by 2060, the population is projected to be down to 70 million - with 40% over the age of 65. Japan is basically disappearing.

With the rapidly aging population comes a host of problems, and not just financial.

Octogenarians on bicycles are as ubiquitous as our squirrels and have roughly the same road sense.

Negotiating a vehicle down narrow country streets is tricky at the best of times, especially when those streets were developed at a time when the widest vehicle would have been a man pushing a cart containing his granny, on the way to push her off a cliff. Now mix into that same street, cars, delivery trucks and centenarians wobbling along on bikes travelling in the wrong direction. Tense. Very tense…

Japanese seniors are reluctant to give up their cars, especially in the countryside, where public transportation might be spotty. This has resulted in a rather dramatic rise in the number of traffic accidents involving senior drivers. After a few close calls, one does wonder why the highways department bothers wasting paint on centrelines - or traffic lights, which, to some elderly drivers, are just colourful decorations to be ignored Rather than re-educate elderly drivers, or pull their licenses, the government feels it’s better just to warn other motorists. Similar to the ‘N’ stickers for new drivers here, Japanese drivers over the age of 65 are asked to display a green and orange-coloured leaf-shaped sticker on the rear of their vehicle. Some seniors feel these stickers are an infringement on their right to drive into a tree and refuse to display them, while others use it to their advantage. Like the elderly driver who plowed into the car belonging to an acquaintance, then refuse to accept blame, because, as he said; “he should have seen his senior sticker” – he then drove away. I saw one vehicle plastered with over a dozen of those stickers, either as a protest by the driver, or he was so completely batshit, his family felt it was their civic duty to festoon his car with stickers as a warning to other motorists. A while back, a senior driver was pulled over by the police at a train station, which in itself, isn’t that unusual. That he was driving down the railroad tracks and had been for some time, was definitely an eye-opener. (Presumably train drivers saw the green and orange sticker on his car and switched to another track.) Shortly after this incident, another elderly gent was pulled over after happily tootling over a busy four-lane highway bridge – in the wrong direction.

For seniors that no longer (or never did) drive, the highways are packed with tour buses zooming around the country, shuttling between hotel restaurants and gift shops. These phalanxes of grey move in packs, shepherded by harried young female tour guides who dart among them like border collies herding sheep. With pockets full of retirement money and voracious appetites, they arrive en-masse at hotel restaurants, mowing through buffet tables like locusts, and clean out the hotel gift shop of snacks before getting back on the bus, to sleep it off before the next food stop.

This is welcome business for hotels and tour companies, but economists worry about the cost of keeping this growing army of senior citizens supported, with the burden for doing that falling on the shoulders of fewer working age Japanese. And, as their ranks swell on a daily basis, it’s doubtful if it will be possible to continue providing them with the same level of support they currently enjoy. A recent movie explored the idea of voluntary euthanasia for seniors. A far-fetched idea, but some viewers (especially younger movie-goers) seem to think it was an excellent idea.

So, perhaps chucking everyone over the age of 80 off a cliff makes financial sense.

Besides, they’ll feed the crabs. And there’s nothing sweeter or juicier than Japanese Kani. (crab) A kani meal at a ryokan is a multi-course feast I’ve never been able to finish completely. It starts with the usual plates of sashimi and other small vegetable dishes – usually from the local area, then the Kani sashimi, which is what it sounds like - raw crab. Sucking the raw meat out of the legs has a a delicious decadence about it. Then a gas barbecue on the table is lit and on go more kani legs for barbecued kani. At the same time a ceramic pot on another burner is simmering with vegetables and yes, more kani. And when you’re convinced you couldn’t eat another ounce of crab meat, along come the kani guts. The kani shell containing its guts is placed on the barbecue, with the green goo slowly simmering.

Visually, it is as appealing as elephant snot, but pour a little hot sake into the shell, give it a stir and you’ve made a dish that is pure nectar.

OK, it is possible that the two bottles of sake and three beers you had with the previous courses may have clouded your judgement and numbed your taste buds, but I’ve had kani guts (reasonably) sober and it tasted just as good.

I think I’ve eaten everything in the kani except the shell and perhaps the asshole. And if I had, I didn’t notice and it tasted damn good. A Fugu (blowfish) dinner can cost upward of $400 per person. Every Fugu season someone will demand to eat the toxic liver. And die. Beats being chucked over a cliff, I guess…

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