Japanese reflections

Highblood

By Juanito P. Jarasa
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: December 15, 2008

I AM 71 years old and people say I look Japanese. I cannot help but feel at home in Japan because there are so many aged people like me in that country.

When I was in Tokyo in early September, Japanese government statisticians released the information that the number of Japanese people aged 70 or older exceeded the 20 million mark for the first time, while those aged 65 and over increased to 28.19 million. Japan registered the biggest number of centenarians in the world at 36,276 with the oldest person, a woman, confirmed to be 113 years old. The Japanese people also hold the record for longest life expectancy, 86 for women and 79 for men.

Such longevity has been attributed to a confluence of factors, foremost among them the so-called “healthy Japanese diet”—predominantly vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, soy products in their natural form, fish, rice and noodles. A Japanese female writer calls it a paradox that Japan is the world’s most food-obsessed nation but has the lowest obesity rate in the industrialized world and the longest longevity on earth. The Japanese also do themselves a favor by walking a lot.

My wife and I are converts to the Japanese diet and to walking. Every year since 2003, we spend time with our daughter who is an attaché at the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo. My daughter’s apartment is just a small block away from Shiba Park where the Tokyo Tower is located. Just below the tower is a wooded nook with a few benches. It is an oasis of serenity ideal for recollection, reflection, meditation or even introspection.

I can still vividly recall that in early December 1965, I made a stopover in Tokyo on my way to Honolulu, my first foreign assignment in our diplomatic service. My late good friend, Bonifacio “Bonnie” Arribas, met me at the Haneda Airport. Domingo L. Siazon Jr., the embassy’s translator/interpreter, and Romeo Arguelles, the commercial attaché, happened to be with Bonnie at the airport. Siazon was kind enough to help me clear through immigration and customs. He took and passed the Foreign Affairs Officers (FAO) examination in 1966 and this became his passport to eventually reach the position of foreign secretary, the first from the career corps to do so. Siazon is now on his second stint as ambassador to Japan and my daughter works at his embassy. Arguelles and I passed the FAO exam in 1969. Romy is now on his second tenure as ambassador to the Netherlands where I was assigned prior to his first posting there.

Diplomatic posting must be lovelier the second time around, or so it seems. In any case, the cycle of life in our foreign service is truly amazing.

It was just over a year since Tokyo hosted the Olympic Games in 1964 when I stopped over in that city. That Olympiad was Japan’s rite of passage to the developed world. Tokyo is now bidding to host the Olympic Games in 2016.

That time, I stayed overnight at the Tokyo Prince Hotel in Shiba Park. Since my onward flight to Honolulu was taking off in the late afternoon, I did a little sightseeing at the nearby Tokyo Tower, which was built in 1959 and, at 333 meters, touted to be a few meters taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It never occurred to me that 38 years later my daughter would stay in an apartment near the very same tower. I have a new postcard from one of the souvenir shops of the tower and it shows the remarkable transformation of the area over the years. The $4-billion Roppongi Hills with the 54-story Mori Tower as its centerpiece and the nearby one-year-old Tokyo Midtown complex are the most prominent developments in the area.

This brings me to those luxury, upscale and themed condominium and mixed-used development projects in Metro Manila that are being conspicuously advertised in Philippine newspapers. These projects appear to be approximating, if not equaling, property developments in Tokyo and other cosmopolitan cities.

One cannot help but wonder whether these projects are warranted by or sustainable under the present degree of our country’s economic development. If the intention here is to show that we are on the way to First World status, we should first think hard about how to get there. The signposts indicate that we are not headed in that direction anytime soon. A little introspection would, perhaps, be useful especially since the present financial crisis besetting the United States and the world does not augur well for high-end projects.

How I wish the MMDA, DPWH, PLDT, Maynilad Water and other “diggers” in our country could follow the Japanese way of doing things. Whenever any repair, maintenance or digging work has to be done in Tokyo streets, Japanese workers often do it at night when traffic is light, with properly lighted barricades and directional signs. The next morning, the spot is spick and span, as if nothing had happened.

Tokyo is a sprawling concrete jungle, yet one hardly sees any squalor. Tokyo is a virtual city-state of 28 million people and its annual budget is bigger than the national budget of many developing countries.

Despite its vastness, Tokyo has a reputable quality of life. It is clean, environmentally safe and sound, and pollution is nowhere near the magnitude of Beijing’s. One’s personal safety is assured even if he is out in the wee hours of the morning. It is a delight to experience many things working with clockwork precision. Tokyo’s transportation network is punctual, efficient and probably unmatched by any other city.

Japanese culture recommends itself in many ways so that immersion is irresistible. It is also easy to be fascinated by things Japanese.

But toward the end of each stay in Tokyo, there is always that longing for home. Home, really, is where the heart is. We have our own “little castles” as well as “castles in the air” in our perpetually developing country. Despite the difficulties, misery and indiscipline in our midst, the Philippines is home to a number of Japanese and thousands of Koreans.

Juanito P. Jarasa, 71, served as ambassador to Hungary, India and South Korea before retiring in 2003.