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  • It's 7am in the mountain village of Nanmoku, announced with typical Japanese eccentricity

  • by the town alarm clock.

  • 7-year-old Yosuke Iwai and his brother and sister are off to school.

  • Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  • Nanmoku Elementry School dwarfs the houses around it. There used to be over 1200 students

  • here. Now, there are only 37.

  • Now, sit down. Let's move on.

  • Yosuke Iwai is in first grade. He has been top of his class all year. But there's a simple

  • reason for that - he is the only pupil.

  • If I write the wrong answer, I'll be in trouble.

  • I enjoy being the best, sometimes I feel sad, I feel lonely. My teacher is kind. It is lonely

  • being the only one but I enjoy school.

  • The good side is that we can teach thoroughly as there is only one pupil.

  • Headmaster, Masuda Mitsunobu, concedes that Yosuke Iwai's

  • isolated lessons aren't without challenges.

  • The bad side is that, because teaching is done one-to-one, there can be over-teaching

  • and a group program is not possible. It is difficult to arrange group learning or sport

  • for him.

  • It's only at recess and lunch that Yosuke Iwai gets to play with his friends, for how

  • much longer is unclear. With the entire population of the town slipping away, the future of the

  • school is hanging in the balance.

  • What is the reason for that big decrease?

  • One reason, as far as Nanmoku is concerned,

  • is a lack of employment. Because they can't find a job here, parents leave Nanmoku and

  • settle elsewhere. As a result we have less and less children.

  • As long as there is at least one child, Nanmoku village has a school.

  • But if there is no child in the village and there is no need for a school,

  • it will close temporarily.

  • Every year, fewer babies are being born and more and more young people are leaving.

  • Hundreds of homes and businesses are boarded up or abandoned.

  • Left behind, are the elderly. More than half of

  • the population is over the age of 65.

  • That we have few schoolchildren is a problem for this village, but Nanmoku is a small example

  • of the whole of Japan and I think what is happening here will happen

  • in other areas of Japan.

  • For almost 40 years, Tomio Ichikawa worked in Nanmoku's once thriving timber industry.

  • My orders these days are small renovations, small changes in parts of the house. You know,

  • improvements... they are very small jobs - there are no more orders for new houses in this

  • village, so small builders working alone like me can't get work anymore.

  • If the population keeps diminishing the way it is, are you worried that the village is

  • simply going to die out?

  • we know that the population here is definitely shrinking by almost 100 per year. Our population

  • of 2000 will be gone in 20 years. I can only continue my business while there are people,

  • so I have my anxieties.

  • Tomio invites me to meet his family. He only married four years ago and says he and his

  • wife are too old to have children of their own. The couple care for

  • his elderly parents.

  • I used to prepare food for children's lunches at school, school lunches... that was my job,

  • to cook lunches for school children. Just in this village there used to be about 1400

  • children. It's a problem -- it's lonely. It's lonely when the young people are gone...

  • In bustling Tokyo, there's little sense of the impending crisis. But some experts warn,

  • that within a millennium the Japanese people themselves could be extinct.

  • Why aren't Japanese having more babies?

  • It's about money, the supporting social systems are weak but the money issues are perhaps

  • the most important. Also, you lose your free time once you have a baby.

  • I am worried, without young people, we won't be able to create a future.

  • Today, more than half of Japanese women are still single by the time they're 30. Kaoru

  • Arai is a professional harpist. She epitomises the country's new breed of successful and

  • financially independent women, who are putting career first and postponing marriage and motherhood.

  • Did you always think that marriage and children was a certainty?

  • Yes, I've always thought that I would be a mum, you know, and I would have a family,

  • just like my parents.

  • And now?

  • I don't know. All of a sudden, I'm 32. And just it hasn't happened yet.

  • She says that she worries that a potential husband won't earn as much as she does and

  • won't accept her work schedule that includes evenings and weekends.

  • But you are picky?

  • I'm picky, yes, I want it all. I've waited this long, I want the right person.

  • And you want to be a successful harpist?

  • Yes, yes, I want my cake and eat it too.

  • In a desperate move to pull the birth rate back from the brink, the Japanese government

  • is offering cash incentives to encourage singles like Kaoru to partner up and procreate.

  • Do you worry Japan may not be around in 1,000 years?

  • Yeah, not even in a thousand years, I think I read somewhere that we're going down in

  • around a 100, you know, we'll be extinct.

  • Because nobody is having babies?

  • Exactly, nobody is having babies. And I've heard, I don't know if you've heard the term

  • - but there's a new word called social cookie. The men aren't as hungry for success or for

  • relationships, yeah, as they were before.

  • Japanese men aren't interested in having sex?

  • Nope. At least, that's what I hear.

  • So it's not just down to women - it's men have got to do their bit too?

  • Definitely. They need to be, you know, more confident. They need to stop shaping their

  • eyebrows, you know. They have to start looking more like men.

  • Akihiro and Yuka Arima are having a rare night out together. The couple have been married

  • for two years, but are hesitant to start a family.

  • It's not easy for women to, you know, raise children and working at the same time.

  • Yuka is 27 and working for an electronics company.

  • I don't want to give up my job. I want to keep working at the same place but if I come

  • back it my workplace after I took maternity leave, I may not have the same position, same

  • jobs, so I worry about it.

  • Yuka also fears that in a culture that encourages excessive work hours, her husband's long days

  • as a warehouse manager, will leave her holding the baby.

  • Japanese men work so hard. So my husband comes back home around 11:00pm every day.

  • 11:00pm?

  • Yes. So if I have a child, I have to, you know, take care of my children by myself.

  • So it's not rare.

  • Do you think that the government needs to do more to address this problem?

  • We need more government support. Many Japanese don't think it is a serious situation.

  • Do you think it's serious?

  • Yes, I think it's serious. I think it's serious.

  • At the Eisei Hospital on the outskirts of Tokyo, it's another busy day. This is the

  • flipside of Japan's demographic time bomb - A rapidly ageing population and a lack of

  • staff to look after them.

  • The elderly is increasing and they need more health workers. Actually, that is their problem

  • today.

  • Nurse Excelsis Johnborbon, came here three years ago from the Philippines.

  • To make sure it is yours, tell me your name.

  • Japan has a reluctance to employ foreign health workers and so he is one of the lucky ones.

  • After three years foreign health workers are required to take an exam in Japanese.

  • Yes, and I am very lucky to pass that exam, but I didn't expect to pass that exam, because

  • it was really difficult. It's like a gamble, it's like a gamble in your life.

  • With a failure rate of almost 90%, Excelsis Johnborbon says the exam is designed to make

  • it almost impossible to pass. Such strict barriers to immigration mean some hospitals

  • are so short staffed that they have no option but to close.

  • Hospitals are essential for any local community, so we should not close them.

  • Miyoko Miyazawa has been a nurse for almost 40 years. She's now an adviser to the Eisei

  • Hospital and is a vocal proponent of Japan's need to relax its insular and restrictive

  • immigration laws.

  • It is important to secure workers in the shrinking population, to make sure that we have enough

  • workers. The hospital management needs to consider it as a major issue and take necessary

  • steps. It is becoming an urgent issue.

  • Japan's seemingly xenophobic reluctance to admit foreign workers, means the country is

  • seeking an answer to its man-power shortage elsewhere.

  • Major companies are racing to develop

  • the robot of the future. And it's people like Hitomi Suzuki who could benefit.

  • Hitomi, what do you think of it?

  • It's cute.

  • Hitomi broke her neck in a car crash 28 years ago, she is now helping Toyota design a robot

  • to assist the elderly and disabled with every day activities.

  • I can live at home alone without someone to help me and that is a really wonderful thing.

  • Already a range of specialised robots have been developed, from machines that help people

  • to walk, to others that assist with mobility. Experts say this is just the beginning. But

  • the goal of an affordable autonomous healthcare robot is still many years off.

  • By the middle of the century, almost half of Japan's population will be over the age

  • of 65, something that the town of Nanmoku is already familiar with. Cafe owner, Hiroko

  • Imai closing up after another quiet day, is worried about what the future will bring.

  • This situation cannot continue, we know this very well, the government or the state knows

  • it as much as we do, but it is still not something that

  • is easily solved.

It's 7am in the mountain village of Nanmoku, announced with typical Japanese eccentricity

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A2 初級

日本人は絶滅の危機に瀕しているのか? (Are the Japanese risking extinction?)

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    阿多賓 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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