My Great-Aunt and Alzheimer’ Disease

 

 My grandmother’s sister was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2007. Her husband had already passed away. They didn’t have a child. She lived by herself. When I realized she had Alzheimer’s disease, I started to support her. I called her every morning and helped her take her medicine. I visited her every week to clean her house. I took her to a hospital every month. I did these for three years until she passed away.

 Both my mother and my great-aunt had Alzheimer’s disease. Both of them were smart and intelligent when they were young. My great-aunt had a lot of books in her house and was a master of the traditional tea ceremony, sado. She was also great practitioner of traditional Japanese archery, kyudo. She was chosen as a participant in the annual nationwide archery competition in Kyoto many times.

 I heard it is rare for an Alzheimer’s patient to realize the disease themselves. But apparently, my great-aunt knew she had it. She tried to establish some countermeasures for the disease by herself.

1.    She took a walk every day. It was at risk for getting lost. But in my great-aunt’s case, it worked effectively. She took a walk at the same time and on the same route every day. This decreases the risk of getting lost. She tried to inform neighbors about herself. She actually had many acquaintances in the area.

2.    She quit cooking to prevent fires. She ate breakfast in the same café. She bought lunch in the same market. She ate dinner in the same restaurant. I had the opportunity to meet the shopkeeper of the café, who called me whenever my great-aunt had a problem.

3.    She also destroyed the bath in her house and used a public bath. Many elderly people tend to die when they take a bath. In a public bath, someone could help her if she was having trouble. In her house, I found some items belonging to the public bath that she forgot to give back.

4.    She retained the newspaper and milk delivery. I knew she was not interested in any news and that she didn’t drink milk, so I suggested that she cancel these. But she stubbornly refused. I didn’t know a system for this. If one didn’t take in their newspaper or milk from one’s post for a long time, the delivery office would inform the police station. Policemen would come for a safety check. If the worst happened to my great-aunt, a policeman would find her.

5.    She invited a Buddhist monk every month-anniversary of her late husband’s death to pray. If the worst happened to her, the monk would find her in a month. She didn’t do this when she was young.

These are all I could do and remember. Maybe she did other countermeasures. Basically she tried to establish relationships with many people. An Alzheimer’s patient tends to be reclusive, but my great-aunt dared to keep going out.

 One day, when my great-aunt and I were walking together, an old lady came across us and whispered to me, “She has a mental problem.”

I answered, “I knew it. She is supported by the government, too.”

After the old lady walked away from us, my great-aunt said to me, “I am sure she said I have a mental problem, right?”

I was surprised that my great-aunt knew her disease. I was also surprised that my great aunt knew some neighbors were telling rumors about her.

 Going out as an Alzheimer’s patient results in many acquaintances. Some of them could be supporters, but others could be full of gossip. She knew that, but she bravely kept going to the café, the market restaurant, and the public bath. She courageously confronted the disease by herself.

 What I did was just a little backup.

Picture by teltel-woo

Ninjas and Clergypersons

 

 I recently read an academic book about ninjas: Ninja no Rekishi by Yuji Yamada (Kadokawa-Sensho, 2016). The author had read ancient documents about them and had analyzed them.

  I assumed ninjas were just specialists in some kind of martial arts. Apparently they also had various responsibilities. Setting fire to the enemy territory was one of them. According to this book, some documents written about ninjas mentioned some rules about setting fires. If you are a ninja, you should not set fire to any holy places, such as temples or shrines. If you didn’t have a choice but to set fire to such a place, you should not harm any clergypersons. You have to warn the clergypersons so that they can escape. You have to promise them that your monarch will build a greater temple or shrine after the war and let the monarch keep that promise. If you don’t follow the rules, it would be disadvantageous to your monarch. If you show respect to holy places and clergypersons, people in the enemy territory could welcome the new monarch after the war.

 These ancient documents could be like textbooks for ninjas. We should doubt that ninjas actually followed the rules, but if they strictly did, they could be smarter than many of us who live a lawless modern world.

Picture by Ayutaro Papa

Social Problems Are Sometimes Disguised

When I was a university senior, Japan was experiencing an economic bubble, and employment was plentiful. Companies called me every day inviting me to join their ranks, to the point where it became tiresome.

Then, when I was a graduate student, the bubble burst. It became increasingly difficult for senior students to find jobs, with many of them telling me terrible stories about their job searches. The media misunderstood conditions, with some blaming young people, calling them lazy and saying that they are parasites feeding on their parents. However, most people in mass media jobs were elites who found their jobs under better economic conditions, and they had no understanding of the challenges faced by new entrants to the job market. Lately, a common description in the media of this period has been “an ice age for job seekers.”

I made a similar mistake. A few years ago, I read an article that stated that some delivery service staff would simply place notifications in clients’ mailboxes instead of ringing their doorbells because they didn’t want to deliver heavy packages during their shifts. I was shocked and angry, and I called these delivery people lazy because I lacked understanding of the conditions they faced. Because of the rapid spread of Internet shopping, delivery companies were understaffed. Most delivery service staff worked very hard under terrible conditions, which was revealed by the media a few years later.

When social problems occur, we cannot immediately fully understand them. Problems tend to be disguised as rumors and gossip about specific people. Therefore, if we hear these types of rumors and gossip, we should calmly assess the information, as it could be hiding the real problem.

Picture by Jimsy

 

My “Unemployed” Father

 

My late-father worked as a proofreader for a local newspaper, with his workday starting once the writers had finished their articles and ending when the rotary press started to roll. He would go to the office at 3:00 pm, work till midnight, come home early in the morning, and then go to sleep. When he woke, he would spend time on his hobbies—gardening and pottery.

But our neighbors misunderstood my father. One neighbor once whispered to me, “I am so sorry your father is like that…” She assumed my father was unemployed because he would take care of our garden during normal working hours, clearly having just woken up. In contrast, my mother was obviously employed: she ran a supplemental school from home and delivered lectures throughout Japan.

Although our family actually had a double income, our neighbors never saw my father going to and from work and simply assumed that my mother was working because my father was unemployed.

We can enjoy reading the morning newspaper because people like my father worked overnight to produce the paper, but most people with these types of jobs are probably misunderstood by their neighbors and viewed as unemployed. So kudos to all the midnight workers! Kudos again!

Picture by BNP

You Killed an Electrician in Your Previous Life?

In 2014, we moved, and we had to equip our new home with household appliances. Soon most of these appliances started to break down. In the beginning, I joked with my wife, “This happened because you killed an electrician in your previous life.” We laughed, but the appliances kept breaking down one after another. Eventually, we found the situation creepy, and my wife started to get mad when I repeated my joke.

When an electrician come to our house to fix our appliances, I said, “We’re sorry—we killed an electrician in a previous life, so all our appliances broke down.”

The electrician replied, “That’s not true. These days appliances are poorly made. Most Japanese companies make their appliances in foreign countries, and maintaining quality standards in foreign countries is difficult.”

During the 2008 financial crisis, many electricians lost their jobs because Japanese appliance companies looked for cheap labor abroad. I don’t believe foreign electricians are responsible for the poor quality of appliances. To develop good electricians, companies must invest time and resources, as many Japanese companies previously did.

Our appliance problems were not the result of killing an electrician in a previous life. Instead, it is the result of the curse of companies firing well-trained Japanese electricians and then being too stingy to train foreign electricians.

Picture by Hanaboo

A Great Doctor in the Countryside

 

 There is a Japanese folk tale known as “The Doctor in the Countryside.” It is the story of a doctor who lived deep in a forest. One day, there was an emergency in the village: a patient needed the doctor. He was called. He tried to take a short cut to the village but encountered a giant snake, which swallowed him whole. Inside the snake, he used a laxative, which enabled him to get out safely and to finally reach the patient.

 I live in a countryside of sorts too. And, one day, I came across a great doctor.

 When my late father was alive, he had cataracts. The result of his visual acuity test was less than 20/100. So, he had an operation at the nearest general hospital. Apparently, the doctor who operated on him did a great job. My father’s visual acuity test result became 20/10.

I was highly impressed and said to the doctor, “You must be a great doctor.”

He answered, “I only did what I had to.”

That’s what a great doctor would say.

I have had eye problems from my birth, so I wanted him to become my family doctor. When I made this request, he said, “Sorry. I have to move to a different hospital in the downtown area next month.”

 He was probably headhunted.

 In the folk tale, a great doctor came back from a giant snake; in the modern world, a great doctor could never come back from a city.

Picture by saki

“Water” in the Musician’s World

 

 In the 2000s, I had the opportunity to sing a song for an audience to the accompaniment of a big band of about thirty musicians.

 I had some experience as an actor, but as a singer, I was relatively inexperienced. I was very nervous on the day of the performance.

 In the green room, I knew no one. I was almost trembling with tension. There was a musician with a plastic bottle. He was drinking a clear liquid from it. The bottle’s label had been taken off. Instead, the word “water” had been written on it by hand. I found that interesting and asked him about it.

 “You wrote ‘water’ on your bottle. In the musician’s world, there must be a clear liquid that is easy to mistake for water? Am I right?”

 He smiled and said, “Sure! You want to drink some?”

 I was very thirsty because I was nervous. And I trusted him. So, assuming that it was water, I took a long swig.

It turned out to be sake, Japanese alcohol.

 Apparently, the musician was drinking sake but wanted to hide it from the others because he wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol before the performance. So he put sake in a plastic bottle and wrote “water” on it. Then he pretended it was drinking water.

 Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t drink alcohol at all. My face turned red, and I staggered. On this occasion, I ultimately sang the song to the audience. I actually can’t remember the details. Apparently, our performance was good. All I can say is at least the alcohol eliminated my tension.

 Tonight, please enjoy “water” in the musician’s world. As for me, I will never drink that “water” again.

Picture by studiostoks