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The Japanese are some of the longest-lived people on the planet, with women
living 84 years and men 78 years, on average. A recent feature story in
National Geographic delved into the reasons for the especially long life spans
in places like Okinawa, Japan and Sardonia, Italy, and came up with some
interesting advice for readers: eat more vegetables and foods like beans,
drink red wine, reduce sugar intake, maintain lifelong social relationships,
and always have an ikigai, a Japanese word meaning "reason for living" --
something you do every day that gives you pleasure and a reason to keep doing
it. There are other factors that contribute to Japanese longevity, including
its network of competent hospitals and clinics, it's system of national health
insurance for people who aren't insured through their workplaces, and the
thorough regular check-ups called "ningen dokku," which literally means "human
dock" and implies going into "dry dock" for a top-to-bottom inspection, like a
ship. I recently had my first ningen dokku and boy, they really do check for
everything: five hours of tests including blood screening, hearing/vision
tests, x-rays and ultrasound imaging of internal organs, and more. Everything
went smoothly, although there was a small snag with the machine that took a
picture of my cornea -- Japanese eyes are all brown (although they'll tell you
"black" if you ask them), and apparently, the tint my own blue eyes caused the
machine to keep registering an error. The hardest part was the dreaded
stomach-cam, a snake-like CCD camera they slide down your throat, important in
Japan since stomach cancer is a leading killer here.
It's a sad time to turn on the television in Japan these days, with nothing
but heart-wrenching headlines, it seems. First, a seven year old girl in
Hiroshima was killed, surprisingly by a Peruvian man, a rare violent crime
committed by a foreigner here (most gaijin-related crimes, when they occur,
involve selling drugs). Next, another first grader was kidnapped and murdered
in Tochigi Prefecture, not far from where we are, in what may have been a
copycat crime. While the loss of any human life is a tragedy and Japan's rate
of murders is very low (1/16 that of the U.S.), there seem to be a
disproportionately high number of incredibly cruel and senseless crimes that
should never happen to anyone. Recently, companies have begun offering new
services for parents who want to make sure their kids are safe, such as a
small GPS device you can buy from security company Secom that lets you check
where your child is via a web browser (we've already ordered ours). Part of
the problem is the die-hard Japanese tradition of making kids walk to public
school, no matter how far it is (my daughter walks 2 km to her school).
Walking miles to school every day builds character, the thinking goes, and my
wife and her mother have walked the same exact road to the same school, so
this Japanese tradition isn't likely to change anytime soon.
Capsule toys are called "gashapon," an onomatopoeic word that describes the
turning of the knob and the sound the capsule makes as it falls out of the
machine. In Japan's vending machine-happy culture, these miniature toys sold
in plastic capsules have been popular for decades, and Japan's toy makers have
really worked hard to bring a new level of detail to the toys that are
created. Another word for capsule toy is "gacha gacha," again describing the
sound of the capsules rattling around inside the machine, and we've got a cool
item for you today: Gacha Gacha Doraemon, a large toy featuring Japan's famous
"cat of robot type" that is a fun capsule toy vending machine game.
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