Japan is semi-legendary for the long-livedness of its inhabitants. While people stateside are dropping dead(1) of coronaries at 32 after essentially main-lining saturated fats and nacho cheese at a Herculean rate, the Japanese regularly live to 284 on a diet of fish, rice, seaweed and cigarettes.
BUT perhaps a look behind the curtain will reveal that the number of centurions living on this fair isle are not as high as once supposed.
The latest scandal to rock the very foundations of Japanese society is the discovery that hundreds of families have simply buried grandma and promptly failed to inform the government allowing them to continue to collect on her pension. Now every town and city is hustling to verify that the woman born back during the Tokugawa shogunate is in fact living at the address where the government checks are being sent each month. Apparently in one actual case, there was a resident who was supposedly 150 on the books, but no one thought to check this out, or call the Guinness Book for that matter. Not surprisingly, no one was able to locate this Oriental Methuselah.
Nevertheless, they are still outliving us western-types so perhaps it is time to unplug the pork rind IV.
(1) I suppose at 342 pounds you are more "tipping over" dead than dropping.
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