No One Was There

Dear Family and Friends,

My friend Izumi has a way of finding new places and things. So, it is always a delight of discovery when I am with her. Even in the most mundane places, she finds something of interest.

Take our ride home yesterday, for example. She takes my English class, which is a short ride out of Sendai. I go there by train, which toots its way through soothing farmland with paddies and distant mountains. But Izumi drives me home after class. The route by road is entirely different. It is overly built up and an assault of noise and ugliness on all sides. 

I treasure my rare times with Izumi, so go with her, but always miss the beauty the train ride allows.

Yesterday, though, Izumi said she had seen a sign for a shop that she wanted to visit. Would I mind? Everything there was made of soy. That included anything from ice cream to pizzas. 

That in itself was interesting. But what struck me more was that no one was there. It was complete self-service.

Izumi is very skilled with maneuvering the digital kingdom. So, she knew exactly what to do. After we admired everything, 

she selected four pizzas, a few rolls, and a cream cake (all out of soy). She then calculated the price, 

and slid the correct amount into a slot in the wall. 

That was it.

I was completely taken aback. Anyone could have stolen everything there. But Izumi said, “That happens sometime with old people, but there are security cameras, so no problem.”

That incident made me think of a recent “Backstory” I saw on NHK. It was about the labor shortages Japan is facing. As in China and South Korea, Japan has an age-heavy problem with the number of oldsters on pensions far outweighing the young. That means, among other things, a labor shortage.

But people here adapt. In some places, farmers have started using robots to pick fruit. And people who would normally retire are working longer. It is not unusual to see older men working at construction sites or collecting rubbish, and women in their 70s as receptionists or shop keepers.

Also because of this population dilemma, Japan has reluctantly been opening its borders to foreign workers. Most are from Southeast Asia. My Japanese teacher teaches some of them in a very intensive month-long course. Then they head off to jobs, mostly in health care facilities for the aged or factories. They are very needed and appreciated. However, as the NHK program pointed out, with the weak yen and long working hours, many of them realize being in Japan was not what they had expected. Some are returning home and suggesting to others not to come.

Likewise, interestingly, many young Japanese are fleeing this country to find work overseas. I have a former student who worked in Japanese companies for almost fifteen years, but is now in Germany. “I could never work in Japan again,” she told me. “Here everyone goes home at 5 pm and I have my weekends free. In Japan I stayed each day until the job was finished, so was often in the office past midnight.”

The NHK program showed that many young Japanese are now working in Australia. They love the lifestyle there and some have applied for permanent residency. One woman who was a nurse said that in Australia she earned in one week what had taken her a month to earn in Japan.

So, times are definitely changing. As the world seeks ways to adapt, my greatest hope is that we do not lose the importance of actual connections, whether they be between humans or us and our fragile, yet still very beautiful natural world.

Love,

Anne