"Old age is  something  that  we all have an investment in,"
          Vince Patchwork had  said  more  than  once, "even if we are
          destined never to get there."

          Getting old was certainly something that he hoped to put off
          till tomorrow, but  it was also true that he found a certain
          fascination for evidence  of  decay  in  his  own  body. The
          bubble economy had  hit  his  hairline and his face had paid
          the price for  avoiding  wrinkles  by  becoming fleshier. He
          could, indeed, run  up  a  flight of a hundred stairs faster
          than when he  was  twenty, but it took him ten times as long
          to recover in order to stagger up the next one hundred.

          His own aging  process aside, Vince, the life traveller, was
          interested in what  happened  to  the  elderly as clearly as
          Vince, the conservationist,  was interested in what happened
          to his rubbish.  The Japanese clearly believed that life was
          for the young.  Middle  aged  and elderly women stood up for
          their children or  grandchildren on the buses or trains. All
          manner of misbehaviour  short  of mass murder was encouraged
          in anybody under six years old, smiled upon in someone under
          14 years old and tolerated in someone under 19 years old.

          Vince firmly believed  that  life  should  get  better  as a
          person got older,  in benefits if not in well-being. His own
          Australian culture hardly  realised  this  belief,  but  the
          Japanese seemed to  be hell bent on reversing it. Life was a
          struggle full of  suffering,  with little place for fun, and
          the older you  got,  the  more  fully  you should understand
          that, thank you very much.

          Of course, there  was  Keiro no hi, Respect for the Aged day
          on 15th. September.  It  was a public holiday, but as far as
          Vince  could  work   out,   children  did  not  visit  their
          grandparents on that  day so much bearing gifts as expecting
          to receive gifts. In one court case, Vince had read about in
          the newspaper, some grandchildren had refused to visit their
          grandma and grandad  on  Keiri  no  hi. It was a sign of the
          times when so many people were so lonely that you could hire
          your own grandchildren.  Indeed,  you  could  hire actors to
          play the parts  of  grandchildren,  children, wife, husband,
          mother, father, Auntie  Betty, Uncle Ted. The elderly couple
          had hired three  grandchildren  and  were  now  on trial for
          assault. They had  evidently used the hired grandchildren as
          surrogates for the originals and beaten the living daylights
          out of them.

          In the traditional  family,  the care of the elderly as well
          as for the  children  was  the role of the yome-san, wife of
          the eldest son.  It  was  not  a  highly revered position in
          society and Vince  knew  enough yome-san to know that it was
          hardly a sought  after  role  nor  one relished by those who
          undertook in the  traditional  sense.  Nozomi  was  one such
          yome-san and Osamu's  parents, particularly his mother, took
          great pleasure in  putting  Nozomi  down whenever she could.
          Nozomi was expected  to cook all the meals, clean the house.
          Her  mother-in-law  had   married   into  the  family  as  a
          farm-worker not a  housewife and could do none of this work.
          Her  own mother-in-law  had  raised  her  children  and  she
          refused to have  anything  to  do with Nozomi's daughter and
          son.


          The first son  had  originally inherited the house, property
          and wealth of  the  parents until General MacArthur had come
          over and meddled  with the constitution. In return, he lived
          with his parents  and  his  wife  took care of the household
          under the strict  eye  of her mother-in-law. Vince had never
          got on well  with  his  own  mother-in-law  and such was the
          trend in Western  culture.  The son-in-law inevitably fought
          with the mother-in-law.  In Japan, if there were troubles to
          be had, they  were  usually  between the daughter-in-law and
          the mother-in-law.

          The yome-san system  made  a number of assumptions about the
          lifestyle of Japanese  women. Firstly, they didn't have jobs
          outside  the  home.   Indeed,  it  was  assumed  that  every
          household must have  a  fulltime worker in it. Secondly, the
          yome-san was, in  fact,  capable of caring for her husband's
          parents when they  did get too old to look after themselves.
          Thirdly, every elderly  person  in  Japan  had  his  or  her
          yome-san. And Vince  naturally  wondered  what  happened  to
          these others, especially  those  like Connie and himself who
          had no children  of  their  own. He had heard that old folks
          homes were very expensive and he was right.

          One  exception  seemed  to  be  Seibo  No  Sonno,  a  former
          Franciscan  mission,  which   he  visited  one  autumn  day.
          Evidently, the Franciscan  Mission  of  the  Holy Mother had
          sixteen such hospitals  all  over Japan. The director of the
          hospital, Mr. Nagano,  whisked  them  through the short stay
          rooms,  the bathing  area,  the  recreation  area,  the  day
          service area. There  were  also rooms for long term patients
          and a live-in  area for older people. Seibo no sonno offered
          a 'meals on wheels' service as well.


          The place was staffed by eight nurses and 26 male employees.
          Two doctors and  one  surgeon  visited  once a week, but the
          service was supplemented  by  4300 volunteer staff. Patients
          were billed according  to  their  income,  so that different
          people from various  walks  of  life could use the facility.
          Vince was impressed  that  several of the patients were over
          100. The oldest was 105 and there was a German woman who had
          just reached her century. He was interested to discover that
          bread was served  at meal times instead of rice. This was by
          popular demand. They  surveyed  all the elderly patients and
          only sixteen had wanted rice.

          Seibo no sonno  was  one  of  38 similar old folks' homes in
          Yokohama, but it  was  one  of the best and it had a waiting
          list  of four  to  five  years.  Nozomi  worked  at  another
          institution called Silver Palace and she continually brought
          home  stories of  undertrained  staff  and  bizarre  medical
          procedures. The sad  truth  was,  Nozomi told Vince, that 25
          percent of Japan's  population  would be over 65 by the year
          2000. Vince didn't  doubt this. Accounts of Japanese men and
          women reaching 100  appeared  in  the  daily newspapers on a
          weekly  basis.  A  pair  of  centarian  twins,  Gin-san  and
          Kin-san, were even  television  celebrities  and appeared on
          talk-shows.

          Vince  had always  enjoyed  walking  through  cemeteries  in
          Australia where he  could  read the gravestones. The ones in
          Japan with their  marble  stones and celebratory wooden slat
          were equally fascinating.  There was a difference in Vince's
          own mind. Australian  graveyards had always seemed so final.
          In Japan, they  appeared less menacing, more like a stopping
          off point, a viable alternative to a lengthy old age.

          Even more fascinating  were  the  Butsudan.  Vince had first
          witnessed these Buddhist home altars in the home of Nozomi's
          mother in Kyoto.  Mrs.  Hiroshima  kept  her Butsudan in her
          main tatami room  to  honour  the memory of her husband. Mr.
          Hiroshima looked very  dour  indeed as he stared at you from
          the framed picture  that  sat  on  one of the shelves of the
          altar, the tablet  with  his  name  in death to one side. He
          should have looked  a  lot  happier,  Vince thought, as Mrs.
          Hiroshima left food  on  the altar, every morning. A bowl of
          rice, a mikan  mandarin  and  some strong coffee, one of his
          personal favourites.

          Mr. Hiroshima, according  to  Nozomi,  had been a very stoic
          man, who might not have died at such a young age had he gone
          to a doctor  earlier.  He had spent five years as a prisoner
          of war in  a  Siberian  camp,  The  ultimate  insult  to the
          Japanese as the  Soviet  Union  hadn't declared war on Japan
          until after the  second  bomb  had been dropped on Nagasaki.
          Mrs. Hiroshima admitted  to Vince that she often sat down in
          front of the  altar  when  she  was lonely and talked to the
          Butsudan.

          "What a great idea?" Connie decided.

          "I thought you weren't religious," Vince replied.

          "But it helps  the living if not the dead. Instead of having
          to travel to  a cemetery, you can sit and talk to your loved
          ones in your home. I might even buy one of the butsudans for
          you if you die."

          "So, you can  sit  and  chat  to me after my ashes have been
          scattered."

          "Why not?"

          As morbid as  the idea might have sounded at first to Vince,
          the thought of Connie sitting in front of his photo chatting
          to him after he was gone carried some appeal. Some sliver of
          immortality. He thought  of  the Seibo No Sonno and the fact
          that he would  never have a yome-san of his own. And then he
          asked himself the  very  real  question,  were  things  much
          better for the  elderly in Australia. There was just as much
          Alzheimers there, people  watching  themselves  lose control
          over their own  bodies.  Maybe,  there were some benefits in
          dying young.