Some 80 year olds still have mothers

In Kobe, last Saturday, where I am visiting with my wife, 4 of the 9 dinner guests, all aged over 60, had mothers still living. Amazingly not one but two of them, one aged 80, have mothers aged over 100. The other two mothers are 94 and 90 next January (this last is my mother ). The only other Brit present lost his mother when she was 98, so we represented at that table the future, not just of Japan but probably of all developed societies.


As I travel around Japan over the next two weeks I shall be looking for examples of how Japanese society, the world leader in the number and percentage of senior citizens, is managing its aged population risks. The Japanese joke that once someone gets to 90 they forget how to die.