The next morning I went shopping in the grocery store. There were a lot of elderly people milling around, which made me feel out of place. And then suddenly a moment came back to me from the travel I had completed. It was when I arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand. Just as I walked out the exit, a very lively hubbub engulfed me. The airport was filled with young people as if I was in a recess in a college. It felt like a start of something new and I felt so right to be here. In the jolly big place were smiles, happiness, and tremendous energy.
I recalled I had been working for elderly people and accommodating their stubbornness that made my energy evaporate―like I felt myself fading away with them. I sensed Japan would have a punishing future, which would relate to us. Imagine that in ten years the baby-boomer generation called Dankai in Japan will be in their eighties. Surely they will be dominating most of Japan except for the downtown.
When I was a child, Dankai generation was in prime of life. I spent hours at my good friend’s house everyday after school, never having seen his father. He was not even on Sunday. I did not ask him about his father because there must be a serious circumstance like divorce. One day we were playing video game―then out of nowhere his father came home like a thunder when it was sunny.
“You should go home,” my friend said. “Why?” I asked. “Maybe he vexes, because he works late every day. Sunday, he plays golf. You know, a man works everyday for a family.” Since that time I had observed adult men going to work. There seemed no choice but to work; they were in no good spirits. Some adults had told me that “you can only hang out till you are in college.” That meant the rest of my life is work and work and work, which scared me.
The adults at that time are now elderly people, who worked for one company until retirement. Rooted in their mind is seniority system: your wage based on how many years you work at one company not the performance appraisal. Inside the grocery store, there was a profound sense of dignity deriving from the conviction that maturity is superior to youth, as if we young people did not have a right to disagree with them.
I studied the selection of Japanese grits for the first time in two years; prices were a lot cheeper than developed countries. Which brought home to me the reality Japan’s economy has been stagnant for more than thirty years after the collapse of the bubble economy. As a child, I was told me that Sony, which invented WALKMAN, is secure for life. The next thing you know we play with iPhone and googling on internet and shopping Amazon. Those American things are prevalent in Japan.
Learning my way inside the store, I saw a portly old man with haughty face throwing instant noodles into his cart like, “Why do I do to deserve this?” Behavior is to the personality what food is to the appearance. At the sight of him, it made sense that he had not taken care of his health. Unlike him, I had admired the old gentleman, who is formed like an aura of confidence, straight and elegant. who goes to a gym and eats a lot of vegetables to stay fit. It is really cool.
Before long I came upon a few old women huddled together, their carts piled with sweets that cause sugar addiction. Like it is natural thing for them to be a couch potato. I knew that the more you like sweets, the older you look; I work out, run, and consume protein and good quality oils every single day. And that was really what it came down to. You should know that if your appearance reach a certain standard level, you will get close to a nice guy or lady who never looked at you before. It is said that it’s what’s inside that counts. That is right, but the first appearance.
AlI at once I heard an old man talking loudly. Turning to his voice, I could see a young clerk saying “I’m truly sorry, they are out of stock,” he bowed. “I apologize for that,” he put his hands on his knee, bowing and bowing. The old man seemed to have nowhere for all his energy to go, continuing to tell the young man off from one rank higher. Most of Japanese can not know that a customer and a clark is in the same position overseas: it is just that stores provide goods and receive payment for them.
I waited in a checkout line. No wonder Japanese stores still offered plastic bags for free, for the Mister of the Environment had eaten steak just before. However, I fretted that I saw the clarks give them to customers, who took it for granted, and that Japan is always behind in something. What was unique about the cashers was that although Japan promotes cashless this store introduced cash machines not self-checkout ones: the clarks read the bar-codes of products and the customers pay with them. I recognized that Japan is a country that invests heavily for elderly people who is money-worshiper. Cash is everything they are.
That is funny, but that worked well enough. “Will you be paying by cash?” “Yes.” “Go. No.1.” “Will you be paying by cash?” “Yes.” “Go. No.2.” “Will you be paying by cash?” “Yes.” “Go. No.3.”
Maybe elderly people would hoard money that was sleeping. I wondered if they spend their hard-earned money satisfactorily. It is easy to say “I should have done this or that when I was young.” Before you say that, get on with it. Money is for challenge, for fun, and for investment in our youth, who have bright futures.
