The Old People in Ueno Park

ラジオ体操広場６月２９日

Radio Calisthenics Plaza

Japan has the highest proportion of elderly citizens of any country in the world, we are told, with 25% of the population over 65. Yet the lockdowns of the elderly that have occurred in other countries have not occurred in Japan, not in Tokyo at any rate, certainly not in my corner of Tokyo which is Japan’s most popular city playground, Ueno Park. In the good old pre-plague days it attracted ten million visitors a year. None if these would have noticed a corner of the esplanade set aside for radio calisthenics, though a plaque proclaims it in Japanese. But we are not visitors. We live here.  

Every day at 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. the old folks gather in for twenty-minute of radio calisthenics performed to a special NHK broadcast of music and gruff-friendly instructions. The exercise consists of rhythmical forms of stretching and bending, never anything strenuous. This is done across the country wherever there is enough space and has been going on since the founding of radio gymnastics in the third year of Showa (1928). Public parks are ideal but in most neighborhoods (like my own), where the calisthenics are sponsored by the neighborhood organization (chokai), a street corner is used while someone directs traffic around the block. 

From the outset radio calisthenics has included everyone, not just old people, but the elderly have the time for it, while working men and women and school children don't. The one exception is summer vacations when mothers come with their young children. The kids get a card stamped, and when it's full they receive treats from the local convenience store and credit at school. Though time is set aside for play for play, school kids are expected to study, even when there's no school.

Duly admonished by my wife Nana, I wore a mask as I bicycled to the park. I noticed that as usual ninety percent of the people I met were wearing them, while at the calisthenics area maybe only seventy percent, as removing the mask allows the breath to come more freely. And out here in this ample open space--about fifty by two hundred meters--no one's worried about lack of social distance. The plaza could easily accommodate a thousand people, but today there’s a scattered crowd of only two hundred or so.

No housewives and children today because the K-12 schools are in session. The start of school, which normally would have been in the first week of April, was delayed this year by the virus panic, but in Tokyo the schools were open by early May. Colleges and universities have all gone online.

For twenty minutes the trainer-clad elderly bent and twisted to a strident electric piano. Three leaders dressed in whites, two men and a woman, modeled the exercise from a raised platform. When it was over I spoke to one of the men. He said attendance was down today. Normally they would have about 300. I asked if the virus panic had lowered attendance. No, he said, on the contrary, attendance was up due to increased concern among the elderly about their health and longevity. This was said with a wry smile of humor aimed at the people around us. Someone started talking about Trump's refusal to wear a mask, still incomprehensible behavior to most Japanese. “It’s crazy,” they said. People probably guessed I was an American, so I added my two-bits. "It's a crazy country," I said, "and a dangerous one too." Rueful laughter of agreement. They wouldn’t say it themselves in front of me, but they were glad I said it.

All in all, it was highly civilized half hour. The old people were out of doors and enjoying their “fragile lives,” though they didn’t seem at all fragile. In part what we were celebrating in this cheerful interlude was what I like to call the Japanese religion. It has no text, it’s all behavior. It consists of obedience to the rules of social etiquette, a passion for cleanliness, consideration of others, and lots of hand washing. The last, as is well known, is fundamental to Shintoism and supplies one reason among many why here in Japan we have been able to avoid the worst of the corona plague. We are the last stable society. We have a lapidary endurance. Alpha shall kiss Omega. We will ride up the hill to Glory. Namu amida butsu, all hail. Amen.

We parted to quadrilingual (Japanese, English, Korean, and Chinese) advice over the loudspeakers.  “Keep your dogs on leashes at all times, and be responsible for picking up the droppings.” I had cataract surgery two years ago and use lots of eye drops. My fifteen-year-old daughter Shelley likes to call them eye droppings. 

Admonished and edified, I bicycled home.