Japan - People dying alone in a no-relationship-society

[Winston]

There should be articles like this too about Taiwan and Singapore too, as well as Hong Kong too maybe. Why aren't there @onethousandknives? Why is it taboo to say the same about Taiwan but ok to say it about Japan? Is there a reason for that? Why is Taiwan above criticism?

[onethousandknives]

There should be articles like this too about Taiwan and Singapore too, as well as Hong Kong too maybe. Why aren't there @onethousandknives? Why is it taboo to say the same about Taiwan but ok to say it about Japan? Is there a reason for that? Why is Taiwan above criticism?

I dunno, maybe it's because most Westerners don't even know Taiwan exists, and then about half that do know it exists think it's part of China.

I actually do see a lot of the same social issues Japan faces in Taiwan, and I think spiritually Taiwan is still sort of a Japanese colony, or a cousin of Japan, more than it is Chinese.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editor ... 2003739547
This editorial is rather similar and appeared in Taipei Times recently.

People tend to become less adaptable to new environments as they get older. This causes many elderly people to be unwilling to leave their original homes. They will always be so, no matter how many old people’s homes or long-term care facilities are built.

Other factors leading to the growing numbers of elderly people living alone are that more of them are unmarried or divorced, and that people have fewer children than they used to. The prevailing social trend encourages people to work hard to earn money and save it for their retirement, but this might lead them to neglect relationships with relatives, and result in their becoming isolated.

I think Taiwan is so off 99% of most people's radar that if you were to write some scathing indictment and social criticism about Taiwan and publish it in a foreign outlet, most people probably would care about as much as writing about Liberia or Mozambique. Thus most Taiwan criticism is in Taiwanese news outlets or forums about Taiwan. Japan on the other hand, most people can imagine themselves traveling there if they hit the lotto, and many people see Japan and Tokyo like a modern day Paris, but with Taiwan people just don't see it that way. So writing articles about lonely people in Taiwan won't get any revenue.

[Yohan]

There should be articles like this too about Taiwan and Singapore too, as well as Hong Kong too maybe. Why aren't there @onethousandknives? Why is it taboo to say the same about Taiwan but ok to say it about Japan? Is there a reason for that? Why is Taiwan above criticism?

Japan has a much higher population (approx. 125 million people) compared to Taiwan and Singapore and South Korea.
But the number of totally unnoticed, dying alone is not so high.

In Japanese it is called 孤独死 kodokushi or lonely death:

About Japan, as far as I can collect some data from the Japanese internet:
in 2019 there were totally 1.381.098 death recorded.

Out of them approx. 32.000 bodies were not claimed by anybody for funeral services, but they did not die unnoticed. For example in an elderly home, these people had money to pay for their long-stay, but no friends or relatives....Some died in prison... Some were very old, and former known friends died earlier than they did....often with some elderly couples the husband died, the widow died later, no children or even children died already...or suicide etc. - Their death was noticed by neighbors or elderly care staff, home helpers etc. who quickly informed authorities.

Only approx. 3.300 people (out of 1.381.098 recorded deaths) died unnoticed, nobody cared, nobody was missing them and those remains were collected by authorities sometimes after months, even years later.

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However how is this so much different from other countries? USA NYC is known for 'Hart Island' a cemetery for frequently unknown people....who often were found somewhere and nobody even knows who they are...

[Spencer]

There should be articles like this too about Taiwan and Singapore too, as well as Hong Kong too maybe. Why aren't there @onethousandknives? Why is it taboo to say the same about Taiwan but ok to say it about Japan? Is there a reason for that? Why is Taiwan above criticism?

Taiwan tiny tim lo profiling nowherelan for hapy abord only place i ever reading on taiwan forelsewhere same to place like andora or palau or ejibouti for so many people thinking taiwan is tailan hoy hoy so maybe for the most world exceptment china taiwan not even in consus mind

but we see japan the big former glory rival for america back when america great and even japan for time the secondment economy in worldwide

so we see wiseton the invisibilty to world taiwan hapen for be your specialty nemsis for never but ever forget that proet never be apreciate in own land and now you become great still for you cuntrymans and especialment taiwan girl you big zero for that so so oftentimes way it working for greatmen so please not fret for it sign of your place as step platform for aborder world over and we so hope for the one day wiseton make the russia east europe part 3 for the movement you create basis 50% russia easty europe 50% angel city

[onethousandknives]

There should be articles like this too about Taiwan and Singapore too, as well as Hong Kong too maybe. Why aren't there @onethousandknives? Why is it taboo to say the same about Taiwan but ok to say it about Japan? Is there a reason for that? Why is Taiwan above criticism?

Japan has a much higher population (approx. 125 million people) compared to Taiwan and Singapore and South Korea.
But the number of totally unnoticed, dying aloe is not so high.

In Japanese it is called 孤独死 kodokushi or lonely death:

About Japan, as far as I can collect some data from the Japanese internet:
in 2019 there were totally 1.381.098 death recorded.

Out of them approx. 32.000 bodies were not claimed by anybody for funeral services, but they did not die unnoticed. For example in an elderly home, these people had money to pay for their long-stay, but no friends or relatives....Some died in prison... Some were very old, and former known friends died earlier than they did....often with some elderly couples the husband died, the widow died later, no children or even children died already...or suicide etc. - Their death was noticed by neighbors or elderly care staff, home helpers etc. who quickly informed authorities.

Only approx. 3.300 people (out of 1.381.098 recorded deaths) died unnoticed, nobody cared, nobody was missing them and those remains were collected by authorities sometimes after months, even years later.

----

However how is this so much different from other countries? USA NYC is known for 'Hart Island' a cemetery for frequently unknown people....who often were found somewhere and nobody even knows who they are...

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/nyre ... -city.html

Here's a very sad article about this happening in NYC.

[Winston]

Some Americans even think Taiwan is the same country as Thailand, onethousandknives. lol

Why can't elderly Japanese just join clubs and groups of other elderly people to keep them company? Like a retiree center or senior citizens center in the US? Don't they have spouses too? Or siblings? Do their kids abandon them? I thought Asians are very close to their families?

What about the loneliness of single males? Doesn't that exist too? Or does it only apply to losers like us? lol

[onethousandknives]

Some Americans even think Taiwan is the same country as Thailand, onethousandknives. lol

Why can't elderly Japanese just join clubs and groups of other elderly people to keep them company? Like a retiree center or senior citizens center in the US? Don't they have spouses too? Or siblings? Do their kids abandon them? I thought Asians are very close to their families?

What about the loneliness of single males? Doesn't that exist too? Or does it only apply to losers like us? lol

My friend in TW said mail frequently gets lost/delayed by USPS going to Taiwan as they send it to Thailand. I got that more than a few times from Americans.

Japan was obviously my first destination I wanted to go as a child, teen, and young adult. I kind of picked Taiwan as a bootleg version of Japan, and some people describe Taiwan as "Japan without a stick up its ass." I've not visited Japan yet, but I feel like when I was in Taiwan I got everything I wanted from Japan in Taiwan at a cheaper price. I feel too, though everyone hates Taiwan for being ugly, it's shabbiness in some ways makes me feel at ease and less like I need to be perfect, whereas Japan I'd wonder with everything being too clean, too perfectly constructed, not 差不多, I'd feel more pressure? But then again, oddly Japanese I met in Taiwan seemed more outgoing and louder than Taiwanese of the same ages, so I wonder if the stereotypes I created about Japan in my head are true or not. Japanese girls seemed to dress nicer and wear more makeup compared to TW girls, which I didn't like personally. I like the nerdy and somewhat plain look of a lot of Taiwanese girls.

Another issue too is Taiwan, while being a more monocultural society, again with less stick up its own ass, seems more accepting of foreigners, and more willing to actually integrate you as a foreigner. People describe Japanese as "polite" but unwilling to become serious friends with foreigners a lot of times, nor can foreigners ever truly integrate as Japanese. In some ways you get a "gaijin pass" or foreigner pass for loud, rude, etc behavior, but in Taiwan while this happens, I feel foreigners actually have to integrate more than in Japan. Taiwan was also a refugee island of defeated people and 17-19th century colonists, with no history of Samurai/etc like Japan, so due to that background it seems more accepting of foreigners as well. This foreign dude ended up actually becoming a Taiwanese citizen and drifted into the Taiwanese Army like anyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TC_Lin .

For Japan, I guess you're not a Japanophile, but yeah, lots of Japanese men aren't getting married, people in general marry later and the economy's slowed down tremendously since the 80s and 90s booms. Lots of Western values are slowly creeping in, though Japan is more conservative on paper than TW, TW is basically the most liberal country in Asia. If you look at marriage ages, Taiwan's is 30.9 average, Japan is 30.1, USA is 28.2, but by comparison, Vietnam is 24.5, basically like USA in the 1960s. Laos is 21.9, Thailand 22.

Suicide and loneliness, I've heard it said that Tokyo has a lower suicide rate than the rest of Japan. From a brief googling, Taipei has a lower suicide rate than the rest of Taiwan. Why? There's really quite a lot to do to keep your depression away, places to go, people to see, etc. However, in Japan, there's plenty of small towns and suburbs like Japanese Chiayi, or small towns with just elderly people, no young people around, and no good jobs, closed factories, etc. Sort of like living in the Midwest in USA. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/r ... 21119.html If you look here, the highest suicides are in the more rural states with nothing to do and no work, and New York, Massachusetts, etc, have the lowest rates in the nation, because there's lots to do and lots of people to meet, and lots of opportunities to find decent paying work.

So if you look up Japanese social issues, I do admit readily you'll see huge parallels to Taiwan, but that being said, I found people in Vietnam with the supposed traditional values/etc to be totally not on my wave length, though I thought I had "traditional" values in the West. The people in their 20s there remind me of Boomers in USA, with their viewpoint that the world will always get better, that they'll be more successful every year, and wanting to consume, buy new cars, buy new phones, etc. There's not really any thought about hobbies or other goals or lofty plans (what we in the West call self actualization) just have a job, get a house, start a family, and that's it. In Taiwan it's simply easier to relate to people my own age as their experiences mirror yours somewhat more. In Taiwan people have hobbies or some other goals beyond the basic "job, family, buy useless consumer objects like Gucci to show off to gain face" type mentality of the mainland and VN. If life is worse or better is in the eye of the beholder, and indeed a lot of Taiwanese actually are going to Southeast Asia to be factory supervisors and similar and like life a lot better than in TW, so make of that what you will. There was also a metric ton of Japanese in Saigon as well, btw.

[onethousandknives]

Ah, for elderly people in Japan, I'm assuming there is some amount of all that, maybe moreso than USA, but it seems the Western "diseases" happened there. There's lots of Japanese dramas and movies where kids leave their parents alone and their parents have nothing, etc. Of course on the flip side there's some where the main characters live a stereotypical city life for a while, and then end up helping their parents out.


This is the trailer to a Japanese movie called "0.5mm" where the main character is an elderly caregiver who was fired and goes impromptu freelance and helps out a few elderly people, some mentally ill, some just lonely, etc. I saw most of this movie on the plane from Shanghai.


This is the classic movie "Tokyo Story" from 1958 even, that deals with the issue even back then, aging parents visit their son and they ignore them and have a more Western type of lifestyle. I've not seen this movie yet, though.


This drama here is about a poor boy living in a small town with a single mother and mostly absentee Yakuza father who ends up going to college in Tokyo, and his mother has health issues as he's getting established in Tokyo.

I've not been to Japan, but in some ways the situation with elderly people is grim. The Japanese police actually arrest more elderly criminals than youth criminals now. https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47033704

"Ultimately the relationship among people has changed. People have become more isolated. They don't find a place to be in this society. They cannot put up with their loneliness," says Kanichi Yamada, an 85-year-old who as a child was pulled out of the rubble of his home when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

I think a lot of the issues you talk about in Taiwan are possibly a lot more amplified in Japan and actually much worse. I think also, though it seems you never really studied Japan and Japanese culture much, it might actually benefit you to study it to understand Taiwanese culture. I found personally in Taiwan that most people basically acted according to my stereotype of Japanese culture, but it wasn't that way in Vietnam or mainland China. The Japanese were the ones who did build the whole island after all. I think where Taiwan is good is the issues seem less extreme in Taiwan, and Taiwan seems culturally behind Japan in a lot of the negative ways, maybe sort of like Japan in the 1990s still. I think where it's good is Taiwan places a little less emphasis on the image of perfection compared to Japan, so people are pretending less and more free to be themselves. But it's also not the extreme "individualism" you see in America and other Western countries. The island never got mega rich and wealthy like Japan did where Japan was slated to take over the world in the 1980s, so there wasn't the pride with the fall like Japan had, just a more gradual decline economically.

[Yohan]

Why can't elderly Japanese just join clubs and groups of other elderly people to keep them company? Like a retiree center or senior citizens center in the US? Don't they have spouses too? Or siblings? Do their kids abandon them? I thought Asians are very close to their families?

Every Japanese 40+ has to pay for 介護保険 Long-term care insurance to make sure there is elderly care provided getting old starting with 65+. this is important in case there are no relatives around taking care of you anymore.

Unfortunately all Japanese information pages I know are in Japanese, but a Chinese reader will also understand most of the text I guess.
https://kaigo.homes.co.jp/manual/insurance/about/

This insurance is different from the regular health insurance.国民保険. Both insurances are obligatory. Of course if people make use out of them is up to themselves...you cannot force anybody to participate.

There are plenty of other services, like taxi-coupons and free bus-rides, also ambulance services are totally free to bring you to a hospital in case of medical issues.

Further there is also a small pension provided 国民年金　
The Japanese Government is really doing something about the problem related to elderly people.

There are of course also meeting places with programs for elderly, every district I know has a 区民館 kuminkan, there is a senior card, and you can enter public museums, exhibitions, botanic parks, swimming pools etc. for free or very reduced entry fee....

I am now 68, living as a permanent resident in Japan and I also receive all these benefits, I also have to pay for the Japanese insurance system which will also cover most dental care.

I am sure, most governments in this world do not offer such a good social system - the Japanese social system is recognized as one of the best in the world.

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There are further many other private groups, for example Churches and Buddhist organizations, which take care of elderly people up to their funeral if they have no relatives next to them any longer.

State railway gives 30% if you still want to travel within Japan for elderly...

How about in rural areas? In many Japanese villages often the huge majority of people living there are very old.
There is some good information about it available made by foreigners too. (in this case from my own native country, Austria EU)

If interested, you can check out this Youtube movie (in German/English, 35 minutes)


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In general, nobody living in Japan, if willing to be co-operative and willing to communicate, should be lost and totally forgotten.

However as most locals will tell you openly, there are a few outsiders too, without any common sense. Homeless in the large cities who totally unwilling to work anything - rural people who live like hermits who do not want to see any human...

Critical is the situation in some villages, which are near to be abandoned. As long there are some families living there and they know each other, it is OK, but one time I was visiting a small village in Oita province. As an old man told me, there were 37 families living in this former fishing village, but all people, about 120 young and old, left or died and now they are only 4 old men, all four of them 80+, living there, retired. Almost all houses are abandoned, nobody will even consider to buy one of them. - He told me in the near future, this village will not exist anymore.

However even these four men are not forgotten - water und electricity supply is OK, they have mobile phones, the area for mobiles is covered by a huge antenna on the top of a hill - there is a delivery/postal service passing by 3 times a week, they can order when they need something. They have a small pension and banking account/creditcard in the next city about one hour to drive, no problem about money and payments, they have still a small car....

If you see the 35 minutes movie, link above you will understand how the system for elderly works in Japan... really, not so bad as you might think.

Show me any place, worldwide, which is better...

[Yohan]

I've not been to Japan, but in some ways the situation with elderly people is grim. The Japanese police actually arrest more elderly criminals than youth criminals now. https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47033704

To make it clear, this article is ridiculous.

There is not much crime going on among young people. Wherever you are in Japan it is really safe.
I am now in Japan since more than 40 years and I never - not even a single time - had a problem with young people.

The Japanese prison population is really small, Japan has about 126 million people and in 2019 there were only 50.578 prisoners, and 9.308 of them were 65+. Compare that with the prison population in USA (2.3 million).

"I reached pension age and then I ran out of money. So it occurred to me - perhaps I could live for free if I lived in jail," he says.
"So I took a bicycle and rode it to the police station and told the guy there: 'Look, I took this.'"

The plan worked. This was Toshio's first offence, committed when he was 62, but Japanese courts treat petty theft seriously, so it was enough to get him a one-year sentence.
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Small, slender, and with a tendency to giggle, Toshio looks nothing like a habitual criminal, much less someone who'd threaten women with knives. But after he was released from his first sentence, that's exactly what he did.

"I went to a park and just threatened them. I wasn't intending to do any harm. I just showed the knife to them hoping one of them would call the police. One did."

Altogether, Toshio has spent half of the last eight years in jail.

I ask him if he likes being in prison, and he points out an additional financial upside - his pension continues to be paid even while he's inside.

"It's not that I like it but I can stay there for free," he says. "And when I get out I have saved some money. So it is not that painful."
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It's true that Toshio is alone in the world. His parents are dead, and he has lost contact with two older brothers, who don't answer his calls. He has also lost contact with his two ex-wives, both of whom he divorced, and his three children.
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I ask him if he thinks things would have turned out differently if he'd had a wife and family. He says they would.

This man is really blaming others for his own failure, truly an outsider.

There are everywhere people - worldwide - who prefer to be in jail and do nothing especially during winter time than to work something productive and to take care of themselves.

He was 62 when he decided to become a criminal. Many Japanese are working full-time when they are 62 and have a good income.

In Japan rather unique you will receive your pension even if you are in jail. Not many countries will do that, they will stop state pension while you are in jail.

He did nothing to save up for his own retirement and it seems ALL his family members have good reason to avoid him and abandoned him.
Something is clearly wrong with this guy.

Of course his parents died, he is now 69. 2 brothers, 2 ex-wives, 3 children - and nobody of them - they are 7 people - don't want to have anything to do with him - this makes it clear HE is the problem, not the Japanese system...

[Moretorque]

I didn't think Japanese people got old, I was lead to believe Godzilla killed everybody off every 20 or 30 years..

[Yohan]

I didn't think Japanese people got old....

Japan has now the most centenarians in this world : 80,450 (2020) out of a population of 126 million people are older than 100 years.

[Moretorque]

I didn't think Japanese people got old....

Japan has now the most centenarians in this world : 80,450 (2020) out of a population of 126 million people are older than 100 years.

I guess I shouldn't believe everything I see on TV...