First Experience with Japanese Elder Care

Today, I was invited to go along with my fellow classmates, Chris and Maya, to an elderly home, and observe Chris perform a concert on the traditional Japanese harp, the Koto. Their landlord, Ms. Kobayashi is also the owner of the elderly home. I had my advisor, Aaron, tell her that I was interested in doing a service project at the elderly home, so I was asked to give a demonstration massage after the concert. I was not expecting to perform, but only to be introduced to the members as someone who would offer massage in the future. The whole experience of the visit was certainly an introduction to elderly care in Japan because of the great contrast with any of the homes I had previously visited. Everything from the food, to the employees, to the facilities, and the community was strangely new.
Kobayashi-san was an amazingly sweet woman with beautiful, compassionate, and patient eyes. She took us, Chris, Maya (Chris’s wife), and I, on a tour of the outskirts of Kyoto, which consisted of gorgeous rice fields, gardens, and lakes surrounded by mountains. The rice paddies were glowing fluorescent green with vitality. She spoke with an almost infinite amount of patience; although, I could understand very little. Chris did his best to be the translator between us. I did my best to explain my interest in elder care, but I think that more understanding will have to come out of my commitment to service.
The members of the home greeted us with the utmost warmth and hospitality when we walked in the door. We were ushered over to a table with a spread of food that could not be compared against elderly homes in the states. There was miso soup, fried tofu filled with cheese and topped with sauce and sprouts, orange squash with tender ricotta style cheese, a carrot, asparagus, and raisin salad, and cool oolong tea. It was delicious and delicate, and definitely the best miso soup that I have ever tasted.
After eating our fill, Kobayashi-san offered a room for Chris to tune his Koto, and gave Maya and I a tour of the facility. It was elegantly simplistic, yet more than adequate in amenities. There was even an outdoor fire pit, and garden area, which had okra, tomatoes, blueberries, shiso, mint, eggplant, a persimmon tree, and more. I could not have been more excited about the connection to nature. It was the type of place that any of us would like to end up in when we get old.
When returning to the common room we saw that it had been transformed from a dining space to a concert hall with open floor space, golden folding screens, and a flowering plant. Chris was given the floor, and he performed beautifully to my untrained ears, anyway. His last number was what I thought must have been the national anthem, or something like it because everyone was singing along. They actually had him do four encores with everyone singing!
Next, I was asked to introduce myself, which meant I actually had to use most of my new phrases from survival Japanese. Chris did his best to fill in the parts that was not in my repertoire. I ended by asking how many people had ever received massage, which was answered by about five tentative hands. Then Kobayashi-san asked if I would give a demonstration massage, so they all could see what exactly it was that I did. I accepted, rather shyly, and one of the men was asked if he would like to be the guinea pig. Chris told me later that he said, “That sounds very nice, but I don’t think it is for me.” After a little hesitation, one lady volunteered, which I noticed was one of the people whose hand had been raised in response to my question. I gave her about a ten-minute shoulder, head, and hand massage. She seemed to love it, and said that she was filled with good feeling afterwards (translated by Chris). I also think it was a success because I saw a lady massaging her own arm after I did the demonstration.
The formality of the introductions and concert were given up after the demonstration, and the real fun began. The employees handed out sheets with songs on them, and everyone took part in singing a couple different numbers. One of them was a song about rowing down a river, and it was accompanied by rowing motions with yellow scarves. It was a beautiful sight to see everyone, including a woman of 97 years, singing and rowing along. The other song that they sang was a drinking song traditionally sung by geisha. People seemed to really enjoy that one as you might have guessed.
Before we left they served tea, which consisted of sliced cantaloupe, a sweet bean candy, and a grape that was meticulously opened to the shape of a flower, and quartered. Those snack were accompanied by cool oolong tea. As I said before, the quality of food was outstanding, which was a relief to see in a place of our elders.
Throughout the experience I was continually surprised by the quality of treatment that the clients received. I look forward to continuing this exploration of Japanese Elder Care next Saturday when I return to build relationships with these folks, and offer a service of massage and anything else asked of me.