Obasute yama

I remember my Japanese teacher sharing a rather disturbing story about how the Japanese deal with their ageing members back in the old days. For some reasons, the Japanese live long–so long that even at present the ageing population is a pressing concern.

Of course, in the early days there were no elderly homes and nursing institutions. Unfortunately, in a society where no longer being useful is almost equivalent to losing honor, dealing with old family members in rural Japan had always been a complicated issue. So where do they send their old?

Apparently, they lead their old family members who have grown senile with age to some faraway mountain and leave them there to die or be eaten by wild beasts. This practice wsa so prevalent especially in the rural areas and even bacame the basis for the legend of the Obasute Yama.  Obasute Yama literally means the mountains where old people are brought. Sute (from the verb suteru) means to throw, so from this word alone you can figure out what it means. The mountain supposedly is where old people–mostly old women because females for some reasons outlive males–are brought to die. 

As quality of life improved with the boom in the economy the practice became less and less popular until completely frowned upon. It does not mean, however, that it has completely ceased.

While I admire the Japanese’ propensity for recycling things, not everyone is free of the despicable habit of discarding unwanted things. Consider pets, for instance. In many urban areas, it is difficult to keep pets not only because of strict pet ownership policies but because of the limited residential spaces available.  This means one can keep, at most, one small dog or any other domestic animal. What do they do with animals they have grown tired of? Many just leave them in the road near mountains, abandon them in parks, or literally throw them away like all other unwanted things.

Interestingly, this propensity to throw unwanted things is also becoming a national policy. Years ago, Japan was heavily criticized by Filipino environmentalists for a clause in the JPEPA which  practically allowed the dumping of biological waste from their hospitals to the Philippines. 

Currently, the Philippines is luring Japanese tourists to settle in the Philippines as a retirement haven. Government hopes to cash in on the country’s strong medical tourism potential, enticing Japanese retirees to spend their last moments in well-maintained but less expensive retirement facilities in pristine locations scattered around the archipelago.

 This is really no different from the obasute yama of old. Only this time, the yama is in the Philippines.