The late actor Kiyoshi Atsumi, who played Tora-san in all of the movies with that title, was a compassionate man of the old Japanese school.
"When I was a kid, people in my neighborhood would look after each other," he told me back in 1983 when extended families living together were still the norm, and many married eldest sons shared their parents' home. "A neighbor would look after a bed-ridden elderly person while the wife in the family went out to work or shop. It was a nasakebukai (compassionate) society. Now that world is all gone."
I recalled Atsumi's words while watching a very moving program last month on NHK's excellent evening news show, "Close Up Gendai," hosted by bilingual announcer Hiroko Kuniya. The program was about what is called kaigojisatsu (suicide by elderly people in care). But it went further, discussing kaigoshinju (suicide by both cared-for and carer) and kaigosatsujin (murder of an elderly person under care, generally by a relative).
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