There’s a 24-hour supermarket near my house.
Sometimes, when I’m out of ingredients for my lunch before work, I go there in the middle of the night to buy them.
I was surprised the first time I went there.
Most of the people working the night shifts there were over 70 years old.
One of them was a woman in her 80s.
I’m sure they have their own reasons, but I’ve always questioned the society in which such elderly people work night shifts.
When I travel abroad, I’ve never seen so many elderly people working late into the night like in Japan.
It’s true that Japan is a country with a declining birthrate and aging population, and walking around the city, you can see that there are far more elderly people than in other countries.
When walking around the streets of Southeast Asia, I get the impression that elderly people spend their time leisurely during the day.
I’ve really noticed that the way elderly people spend their time in Japan and overseas is quite different.
When I went to Paris, I saw an elderly woman walking her dog in a flashy orange miniskirt, and I couldn’t stop staring at her.
Her good posture and the confident way she walked was something of a culture shock for me as a Japanese person.
In Japanese society, getting older is not considered a good thing, so the elderly are in a very vulnerable position.
There is an unspoken understanding that the elderly should dress in inconspicuous, modest clothes to look old.
If an elderly person in Japan were to walk around wearing a flashy miniskirt like in Paris, many Japanese people would be surprised and might treat them like an eccentric.
