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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 03 2017, @06:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the explain-the-sound-of-one-hand dept.

Sabishii, na?

With no families or visitors to speak of, many older tenants spent weeks or months cocooned in their small apartments, offering little hint of their existence to the world outside their doors. And each year, some of them died without anyone knowing, only to be discovered after their neighbors caught the smell.

The first time it happened, or at least the first time it drew national attention, the corpse of a 69-year-old man living near Mrs. Ito had been lying on the floor for three years, without anyone noticing his absence. His monthly rent and utilities had been withdrawn automatically from his bank account. Finally, after his savings were depleted in 2000, the authorities came to the apartment and found his skeleton near the kitchen, its flesh picked clean by maggots and beetles, just a few feet away from his next-door neighbors.

The huge government apartment complex where Mrs. Ito has lived for nearly 60 years — one of the biggest in Japan, a monument to the nation's postwar baby boom and aspirations for a modern, American way of life — suddenly became known for something else entirely: the "lonely deaths" of the world's most rapidly aging society.

To many residents in Mrs. Ito's complex, the deaths were the natural and frightening conclusion of Japan's journey since the 1960s. A single-minded focus on economic growth, followed by painful economic stagnation over the past generation, had frayed families and communities, leaving them trapped in a demographic crucible of increasing age and declining births. The extreme isolation of elderly Japanese is so common that an entire industry has emerged around it, specializing in cleaning out apartments where decomposing remains are found.

Compounding matters, Japan has a declining birthrate and bans immigration.


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  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 04 2017, @02:04AM (4 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday December 04 2017, @02:04AM (#604880) Homepage Journal

    Suck it, mods. Truth precludes Troll. Take your butthurt asses back to your safe spaces.

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    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @04:45PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @04:45PM (#605128)

    Moron alert, just trying yo get dome zingers in about the much loathed Berkeley mixed into Walmart. You have to drive a few cities away to find a Walmart in that area!

    Also, I've seen some little spoiled shits who could use better discipline, but I've seen worse from the more violent rural parents. I recently saw a bunch of kids smashing bottles on an empty lot with their parents talking at the cars just feet away. Turns out the hill is fine, but don't smash them in the street! At least there was some semblance if discipline but that bar was set reeeally low.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 04 2017, @07:35PM (2 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday December 04 2017, @07:35PM (#605232) Homepage Journal

      You're so far gone that you're cheerleading for bottles' rights now? How long before we can expect you to champion the denied rights of clay pigeons?

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @07:44PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @07:44PM (#605237)

        I see now, all of the arguments you have seem to be from shitty reading comprehension. Ugh, just imagine all the time wasted due to your defective brain!

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 04 2017, @08:37PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday December 04 2017, @08:37PM (#605270) Homepage Journal

          Was that really the best you can do for an ad hom? Come on, AC, this ain't some minor league troll academy like Twitter. Take your time and come up with something worth the disk space it uses up next time.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.