…and we interrupt the Trump coverage to bring you…something –  anything else!

If you think I am a little tired of the sheer volume of media coverage on Trump, well, you are right.

Of course, the time when I tend to watch tv is between 4 and 7, so news and current affairs (and I don’t mean like the ‘current affairs’ programs in Australia – which are more about bashing people, like tenants etc) are the main viewing fodder. There are, however, some other shows, and quite often they involve food in some way. Whether it is cooking, showing techniques, roving around sampling food from different restaurants, take aways or cafes, or speaking to chefs about their restaurants, there is a big focus on food.

I am a big fan of cooking shows and seeing different foods, so this little oasis of tv viewing is wonderful to me. One thing I really notice here, is that often when talking to chefs they will focus on the produce they use. This then leads them to visit the people who grow or harvest the produce. They spend a lot of time with the farmers and often help them pick their crops, or prepare the produce for market. One show recently also showed a couple harvesting nori seaweed, which was fascinating (see photo below). All of it is hard physical work.

Which brings me to one thing I have really noticed – the vast majority of those who own and are working their farms or who harvest or prepare other produce, such as the seaweed, are not young…and when I say not young, many of them are 70 or over. I know this because they nearly always put a person’s age on the screen when they introduce them – even celebrities! There are a few younger people, in most cases helping on the farms with the older people, but not overly many. I watched the other day as the person who was there interviewing the farmers tried to pull a large daikon out of the ground, and they couldn’t even budge it. Yet, there was this older couple pulling them out relatively easily!

(the picture left above is of an 84 year old farmer helping to train some people from the Philippines in rice farming)

Like just about everywhere else in the world, Japan has an ageing population. They are also grappling with the movement to the big cities of the younger people. First they move to study, then stay to get work, because the truth is there isn’t much work out in the rural areas for them. The government knows there is a big problem – Tokyo is growing very rapidly, with most of these young people heading to Tokyo (and it’s already huge!) – but they don’t know what to do about it, They are throwing money at the local governments for them to use to help stop the drain, but short of building factories or enticing other employers out of the cities, they are struggling to find the answer.

(some 84 year olds having fun!)

Japan’s population was 127,094,745 when the most recent population census was taken on 1 October 2015. This was, in fact, a decrease of 0.8 % from the previous census five years earlier and is the first decrease since the survey began in 1920 (and it looks like continuing). People aged 65 or older made up 26.6% of the population – that’s 33,465,441 people (around 10,000,000 more people than are in Australia). Interestingly, of the total population, the number of non-Japanese residents totalled 1,752,368 (there’ll be at least 2 more next time!!!!)

Looking at the ageing population even closer, last year the number of centenarians rose by 4,124 from the previous year to reach 65,692 in September. Women account for 87.6% of this population. They expect over 30,000 more people to enter this venerated group this year. There were only 153 centenarians in 1963! Japan’s oldest woman is Nabi Tajima, 116, born in August 1900. She is, in fact, currently the oldest person in Japan and the third oldest in the world – all women.

So, where is this all going? The population is decreasing overall, while the number of older people is increasing – significantly. Well, as I sit there and marvel at these amazingly fit and healthy older people, and admire them for their zest for life, I wonder what is going to happen when they are no longer able to tend their farms. Who will continue growing the daikon and rice and climb down to the rocks to harvest the seaweed? Even more problematic, who will help look after this large elderly population as it grows?

What started all this analysis – apart from the fact that I studied statistics and one of my jobs previously was a population and labour economics researcher????? Actually, it was an article in the Yomiuri newspaper about a woman who is 93 and is still running a small restaurant in Tokyo, with the help of her son, who is 67. She and her husband opened it in 1960…As I was reading it, I hoped that Craig and I would be able to continue running our minshuku for many years into the future. One of the things I like about Japan is how they generally respect older people and their abilities. They don’t have the attitude that people are useless and unemployable after a certain age. It also reinforces to me that one of the keys to ageing well, is to keep active – and I mean both mind and body.

Ok, after that serious note (these wintery days, when you can’t do much outside, leaves too much time for retrospection!) this coming week is Barentaindee or Valentine’s Day, which is huge here in Japan. Basically here it is all about chocolate – so for those of you who are chocoholics, now is the time to be here. It is also somewhat different to Australia, in that the givers of the chocolate on Valentine’s are the women, and it is not just to be given to someone you fancy. Many give to co-workers, friends and others on this day. There is a reciprocal day, on 14 March, Howaitodee or White Day, when the men have to give gifts to all the women who gave them gifts. Generally chocolate again. All well and good, but if you are a popular guy…

As you can imagine, there have been many stories about chocolate on tv this last week or two. A lot of coverage is being given to French chocolatiers, and it seems there are many French chocolatiers visiting here at the moment – even here in Kyoto. Last night they showed a hall somewhere near the Kyoto railway station, which had many, many stalls of chocolate and at least three French chocolatiers actually present at this festival of chocolate! The young woman who had the onerous job of going around these stalls and interviewing these people, then had to taste quite a bit of chocolate, it seemed. She also got a box of chocolates from each of them, which they autographed for her! She was very excited by all of this.

Now, for the photos of the week…what else could I do but show you some of the creations for Valentine’s Day.

Cheers and keep eating!