In the early 1980s, my wife and I lived in a tiny flat in Soshigaya on the Odakyu Line in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward. The eldest three of our four children were born then, and I have only the fondest memories of pushing a pram up and down the kilometer-long shotengai (shopping street) between the station and our home.

Those were heady times in Japan. The asset-inflation bubble was inflating daily, and you could make a fortune on the stock market or in land speculation if you had the right tips. (Insider traders had a field day in the '80s.) Kokusaika (internationalization) was becoming the decade's byword, and young people, with more money than ever before, were wallowing in their run-run era. Pronounced "roon-roon," the word denotes "carefree living it up."

Back then, Japanese people by the millions were traveling overseas, and a popular commercial touted the message, "Shokugyo sentaku no jiyu ahahaan." Meaning roughly, "You're free now to choose your own job, oh yeah," this little phrase encouraged the young to seek employment they felt suitable for themselves and not merely accept society's or their parents' judgment.