In recent 71 years, Japanese people usually watch the "Red and White Song Festival Gala" with their families on New Year's Eve. But this year, a program that is not in tune with the atmosphere of the New Year-Lonely Gourmet will broadcast a 91-minute special program on New Year's Eve. The protagonist in the program, Kogoro Inoue, will travel alone and taste delicious food alone.
"Lonely Gourmet"
"Lonely Gourmet" tells the story of a middle-aged man eating alone in a plain way. According to Washington post, The Lonely Gourmet, which has been broadcast for six seasons, has caused a unique impact in Japanese society. For many wage earners, it may be a program to escape from reality. The protagonist, Kogoro Inoue, manages imported groceries. Because of his work, he often goes to various restaurants and enjoys food alone. This program has more or less solved the embarrassment of lonely people eating alone.
In the traditional Japanese concept, men are responsible for bringing home the bacon. They should find jobs in big companies, stay in the office for a long time, or participate in social activities with colleagues after work. Wage earners, known as "overtime culture", live a step-by-step and busy life and have little time to care for their families. This is why Kogoro Inoue has become a spiritual model in Japanese society. This middle-aged man is not bound by rigid life in the program, and he has lived himself.
Although The Lonely Gourmet was broadcast late at night, it was well received by the audience. Even YUTAKA MATSUSHIGE, the actor of Kogoro Inoue, couldn't help wondering why the audience was so interested in the story of a middle-aged man eating alone. The main character of this program should have been food. Ushio Yoshida, a commentator of Tokyo News, believes that the hero is frank and follows his intuition and nature to enjoy the food. He is just an ordinary middle-aged man, but his life is very free. This is a feeling of relief and refreshing. Hiroyoshi Usui, a professor of media culture in sophia university, believes that in a country where young people refuse to get married, Kogoro Inoue's single status has aroused a sensation.
Old people in paper windows
In Japan nowadays, besides men who are busy with their work step by step, there are also some empty nesters who spend their days and nights alone in humble small apartments. Without family members or visitors, there are few signs of their existence in the world outside their homes. This summer, a popular weekly estimated that "4,111 elderly people living alone died every week", which triggered the alarm of national anxiety.
According to a recent report in The New York Times, some Japanese elderly people who live alone die every year without anyone knowing, and they are not discovered until their neighbors smell an abnormal smell. A generation of Japanese people were unconsciously labeled as lonely and dying.
The Japanese government began to build large American-style apartments in Tokyo and other big cities in the 1961s. At that time, there was fierce competition to live in this kind of apartment. This large-scale building also reflects the transformation of the traditional multi-generation family life structure in Japan into a western-style life structure centered on the nuclear family. Thousands of young wage earners live in these apartments, and their task is to rebuild Japan's postwar economy. In the past few decades, Japanese people have paid attention to economic growth or stagnation wholeheartedly, which has affected family life, and Japan has fallen into the predicament of aging population and declining birth rate.
In recent years, in these large apartments with almost the same decoration, elderly people who live alone will die silently every once in a while. 91-year-old Ms. Ito lives alone in a suite of a large apartment. In 2111, a neighbor of Ms. Ito was found dead at home. Since the rent and other expenses were automatically deducted from the bank card, the old man was found dead for three years after his savings were exhausted. This incident shocked the Japanese.
the ITO family moved into the apartment in February, 1961, and their life was very good at first. The couple have a daughter, and the family will take family photos in the New Year, participate in the annual sports meeting, and play in the swimming pool and playground. In the first few years of moving into the apartment, the birth of a large wave of babies was called the second baby boom, until the children's cheerful frolic sound was replaced by the ambulance alarm, and many elderly people fell into an isolated life. Time has passed, and with the death of family and friends, Ms. Ito said: "In the past 25 years, every day was lonely. Now every room in my house is mine. But this is not a good thing. "
In order to avoid isolation, Ms. Ito attends a luncheon organized by the community every month. Every day before going to bed, Ms. Ito would close the paper window and open it again when she woke up the next day. Ms. Ito asked her neighbors to pay attention to the paper window. "If the paper window is not opened one morning, then Ms. Ito may not wake up."
The movie Journey to the Dream Ring, which was shown recently, tells people's cognition of life and death through a child's perspective. "When no one in the world misses you anymore, you really die?" For an empty nester like Ms. Ito, although they are alive, no one cares about them. Will the "lonely gourmet" become the next empty nester?
(column editor: Yang Liqun; Edit mailbox:)