Music
SIMKIN: The Uchihara brothers have been fishing these waters for nearly half a century. Okinawa was once called the “Land of the Immortals”. Now, it is known as the “Islands of the Aged”, the place where people live longer and healthier than anywhere else.
FISHERMAN: I want to work hard without falling behind the youngsters. (laughing).
SIMKIN: For as long as humans have lived, many have wanted to live for longer. The Okinawans can show the rest of us how it’s done. This 88-year-old farmer still works an eleven hour day – every day of the week.
FARMER: I hardly ever get angry. I enjoy life because I’m happy at work and I think that is the medicine for a long life.
SIMKIN: The typical Okinawan lives for more than eighty years, women for eighty-six and that’s just an average. As a proportion of population, there are four times as many people over one hundred than anywhere on the planet.
Bullfighting – Okinawan style. It’s similar to sumo, urged on by their stable masters, two heavyweights throw themselves at each other until one submits.
The sport is ancient, and so are many of the spectators. Here, old age is celebrated, not feared.
Minoru Gushiken is 93 and a bullfighting fanatic.
GUSHIKEN: There’s twenty more years left in me (laughs). How long will I live? I would like to stay around until I’m at least 120 years old so that I can see what kind of culture we have become.
SIMKIN: You’ve heard of the karate kid, well meet the karate great grandad. Ryuko Tomoyose is 75 years old. He’s obtained Karate’s highest ranking which is hardly surprising, given that he’s been practicing for more than six decades. His sparing partner is also in his mid-70s as are several other members of the class.
Okinawans invented karate and it’s considered an important form of exercise, a martial art that extends life rather than shortening it.
KARATE MAN: Karate is not to kill but to keep your health. Sweep away all stress. I have never been in hospital in my life.
SIMKIN: You’ve never been in hospital?
KARATE MAN: Never been in hospital.
SIMKIN: What is the secret of your health in that case?
KARATE MAN: Don’t drink too much and always relax. Never hassle, never haste. Just relax. Always think it will be done some day – that’s the Okinawa life.
SIMKIN: Okinawa is the healthiest place on the planet. Despite the number of old people, dementia is rare. The other ravages of aging virtually unheard of.
CRAIG WILCOX: Compared to other parts of the world we see around on quarter of the incidence of heart disease in Okinawa, very low rates of stroke compared to mainland Japan in particular, low rates of particular kinds of cancers particularly hormone dependent cancers such as breast cancer, prostrate cancer, ovarian cancer.
SIMKIN: Craig Wilcox is what’s known as a medical anthropologist. Along with Professor Makoto Suzuki, he’s part of a team that’s spent the last quarter of a century researching Okinawa’s health and habits, trying to uncover its secrets. Today they’re visiting one of the regions few nursing homes.
It’s more like a country club than a place where people come to die. And it’s not just genetics. Studies have shown that when Okinawans migrate, they become like the rest of us. Lifestyle is what’s important. So what is Okinawa’s secret? To find the answer I travelled north to a remarkable village full of remarkable people.
Ogimi is nestled between the mountains and the sea. The village is one of Okinawa’s poorest but it has the longest life expectancy. Twelve of the locals are centenarians. On the outskirts of town stands a stone tablet. “At 80 you are still a child” it reads “and if at 90 heaven calls, say go away and come back when I am 100”.
Nearby lives Ogimi’s most famous resident. I decided to pay a house call.
SIMKIN: Good morning, grandma. Nice to meet you. How are you?
SIMKIN: Ushi Okushima is 103. When she was born, the Wright brothers had still not made their historic flight.
OKUSHIMA: I want to stay healthy and live longer than anyone else. I’d like to live for at least another four to five years because I enjoy talking to my grandchildren at night.
SIMKIN: I wasn’t the only visitor. Each morning some of the Ogimi elders meet to drink tea. Their ages add up to nearly five hundred. The professors believe the strong sense of community ensures no one gets lonely or depressed and is a key contributor to a long life.
TEA DRINKER: We work hard and eat a lot (laughs). Everybody is healthy because we have a lot of fish in this village and the air is nice.
SIMKIN: Here, women are the spiritual leaders, revered and respected. Okushima-san has thirteen grandchildren, twenty-two great grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. She’s lived in Ogimi her entire life and says her most profound memory is losing her husband in the war.
OKUSHIMA: I was worried about how I would raise all the children and wondered if I would be able to live very long. I had no choice but to raise them myself.
SIMKIN: Okushima-san doesn’t use glasses or a hearing aid and doesn’t need a cane. Most days the 103 year old works in the fields or works out at home.
And that’s another reason why Okinawans live so long. They keep incredibly active. The fields around Ogimi are full of ninety year olds harvesting their dinners. There’s no word for “retirement” in the local dialect.
WILCOX: Most of these centenarians, these people who have lived these very long lives, have not led stress free lives. They’ve experienced the horrors of war. Most all of them were poor and had to work very hard throughout their lives, but they’ve developed this kind of psychological resilience. So we think that this is one factor that has helped them throughout their lives.
SIMKIN: The other key ingredient is a traditional diet. The doctors took me to a local restaurant where they served up a recipe for long life.
SIMKIN: Okinawans tend to eat lean meat, fish, tofu and vegetables. Low in calories, high in carbohydrates. Their intake is the opposite of the low carb, high fat Atkins diet proving so popular in the west.
WILCOX: Well it’s what we think of as a passport towards a heart attack.
SIMKIN: In the kitchen the chef is preparing “goya” a nobly melon that some think is the reason people live so long. The doctors believe dark coloured vegetables are much better for you than light ones. Sweet potato, an Okinawan staple, is far more nutritious than a garden variety potato.
WILCOX: One sweet potato, one medium sized baked sweet potato, contains over 20,000 international units of beta carotene vitamin A, that’s four times your daily minium requirements. Also, over half your daily needs of vitamin C. They’re loaded with fibre.
SIMKIN: What one sweet potato?
WILCOX: One sweet potato. You can imagine if people were eating this as their staple.
Music
SIMKIN: On one of Okinawa’s massive American bases, a fighter pilot is preparing to patrol the skies. One quarter of the local population was killed during World War II when the United States invaded. Today the occupation continues. U.S. bases cover 20 percent of the islands land and cast a long shadow over the rest.
Many older Okinawans are appalled that many of the young are enthralled by the foreign culture. Young people are flocking from the countryside to the cities where they’re seduced by the American influence.
On the streets of the capital, baseball caps and US military dog tags are the unofficial uniform. Shops do a roaring trade dishing out American culture and cuisine. Hot dogs, hamburgers and fries are cool.
YOUNG FEMALE OKINAWAN: I like hamburgers more.
SIMKIN: Why?
YOUNG FEMALE OKINAWAN: I like thick, greasy food.
YOUNG MALE OKINAWAN: Goya is bitter, so I don’t like it much. Hamburgers are good.
SIMKIN: Modern life with its medical advances and miracle cures is meant to extend life but in Okinawa, it’s shortening it, a development with implications for people everywhere. Obesity rates are booming and lung cancer is growing faster here than anywhere else in Japan. These young people will not live nearly as long as their grandparents. Average life expectancy is already starting to slide.
WILCOX: What we’ve seen in Okinawa over the past thirty years or so is a population that’s gone from having some of the leanest people in Japan to having the highest body mass index among the Japanese.
music
SIMKIN: The Okinawan elders have changed little but the world around them has been transformed. Every country has a generation gap, but here it’s becoming a yawning chasm.
FARMER: Everything has been turned on its head and so I think the future will be at risk if the young people don’t change their feelings.
SIMKIN: The “Land of the Immortals” is losing its identity, caught between cultures. For these men and women the irony is as bitter as goya. Just as some in western countries are seeking to follow the Okinawan path, the island’s young are leaving it.
Reporter: Mark Simkin
Camera: Jun Matsuzono
Editor: Kate Prevost
Research: Yumi Asada
SIMKIN: The Uchihara brothers have been fishing these waters for nearly half a century. Okinawa was once called the “Land of the Immortals”. Now, it is known as the “Islands of the Aged”, the place where people live longer and healthier than anywhere else.
FISHERMAN: I want to work hard without falling behind the youngsters. (laughing).
SIMKIN: For as long as humans have lived, many have wanted to live for longer. The Okinawans can show the rest of us how it’s done. This 88-year-old farmer still works an eleven hour day – every day of the week.
FARMER: I hardly ever get angry. I enjoy life because I’m happy at work and I think that is the medicine for a long life.
SIMKIN: The typical Okinawan lives for more than eighty years, women for eighty-six and that’s just an average. As a proportion of population, there are four times as many people over one hundred than anywhere on the planet.
Bullfighting – Okinawan style. It’s similar to sumo, urged on by their stable masters, two heavyweights throw themselves at each other until one submits.
The sport is ancient, and so are many of the spectators. Here, old age is celebrated, not feared.
Minoru Gushiken is 93 and a bullfighting fanatic.
GUSHIKEN: There’s twenty more years left in me (laughs). How long will I live? I would like to stay around until I’m at least 120 years old so that I can see what kind of culture we have become.
SIMKIN: You’ve heard of the karate kid, well meet the karate great grandad. Ryuko Tomoyose is 75 years old. He’s obtained Karate’s highest ranking which is hardly surprising, given that he’s been practicing for more than six decades. His sparing partner is also in his mid-70s as are several other members of the class.
Okinawans invented karate and it’s considered an important form of exercise, a martial art that extends life rather than shortening it.
KARATE MAN: Karate is not to kill but to keep your health. Sweep away all stress. I have never been in hospital in my life.
SIMKIN: You’ve never been in hospital?
KARATE MAN: Never been in hospital.
SIMKIN: What is the secret of your health in that case?
KARATE MAN: Don’t drink too much and always relax. Never hassle, never haste. Just relax. Always think it will be done some day – that’s the Okinawa life.
SIMKIN: Okinawa is the healthiest place on the planet. Despite the number of old people, dementia is rare. The other ravages of aging virtually unheard of.
CRAIG WILCOX: Compared to other parts of the world we see around on quarter of the incidence of heart disease in Okinawa, very low rates of stroke compared to mainland Japan in particular, low rates of particular kinds of cancers particularly hormone dependent cancers such as breast cancer, prostrate cancer, ovarian cancer.
SIMKIN: Craig Wilcox is what’s known as a medical anthropologist. Along with Professor Makoto Suzuki, he’s part of a team that’s spent the last quarter of a century researching Okinawa’s health and habits, trying to uncover its secrets. Today they’re visiting one of the regions few nursing homes.
It’s more like a country club than a place where people come to die. And it’s not just genetics. Studies have shown that when Okinawans migrate, they become like the rest of us. Lifestyle is what’s important. So what is Okinawa’s secret? To find the answer I travelled north to a remarkable village full of remarkable people.
Ogimi is nestled between the mountains and the sea. The village is one of Okinawa’s poorest but it has the longest life expectancy. Twelve of the locals are centenarians. On the outskirts of town stands a stone tablet. “At 80 you are still a child” it reads “and if at 90 heaven calls, say go away and come back when I am 100”.
Nearby lives Ogimi’s most famous resident. I decided to pay a house call.
SIMKIN: Good morning, grandma. Nice to meet you. How are you?
SIMKIN: Ushi Okushima is 103. When she was born, the Wright brothers had still not made their historic flight.
OKUSHIMA: I want to stay healthy and live longer than anyone else. I’d like to live for at least another four to five years because I enjoy talking to my grandchildren at night.
SIMKIN: I wasn’t the only visitor. Each morning some of the Ogimi elders meet to drink tea. Their ages add up to nearly five hundred. The professors believe the strong sense of community ensures no one gets lonely or depressed and is a key contributor to a long life.
TEA DRINKER: We work hard and eat a lot (laughs). Everybody is healthy because we have a lot of fish in this village and the air is nice.
SIMKIN: Here, women are the spiritual leaders, revered and respected. Okushima-san has thirteen grandchildren, twenty-two great grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. She’s lived in Ogimi her entire life and says her most profound memory is losing her husband in the war.
OKUSHIMA: I was worried about how I would raise all the children and wondered if I would be able to live very long. I had no choice but to raise them myself.
SIMKIN: Okushima-san doesn’t use glasses or a hearing aid and doesn’t need a cane. Most days the 103 year old works in the fields or works out at home.
And that’s another reason why Okinawans live so long. They keep incredibly active. The fields around Ogimi are full of ninety year olds harvesting their dinners. There’s no word for “retirement” in the local dialect.
WILCOX: Most of these centenarians, these people who have lived these very long lives, have not led stress free lives. They’ve experienced the horrors of war. Most all of them were poor and had to work very hard throughout their lives, but they’ve developed this kind of psychological resilience. So we think that this is one factor that has helped them throughout their lives.
SIMKIN: The other key ingredient is a traditional diet. The doctors took me to a local restaurant where they served up a recipe for long life.
SIMKIN: Okinawans tend to eat lean meat, fish, tofu and vegetables. Low in calories, high in carbohydrates. Their intake is the opposite of the low carb, high fat Atkins diet proving so popular in the west.
WILCOX: Well it’s what we think of as a passport towards a heart attack.
SIMKIN: In the kitchen the chef is preparing “goya” a nobly melon that some think is the reason people live so long. The doctors believe dark coloured vegetables are much better for you than light ones. Sweet potato, an Okinawan staple, is far more nutritious than a garden variety potato.
WILCOX: One sweet potato, one medium sized baked sweet potato, contains over 20,000 international units of beta carotene vitamin A, that’s four times your daily minium requirements. Also, over half your daily needs of vitamin C. They’re loaded with fibre.
SIMKIN: What one sweet potato?
WILCOX: One sweet potato. You can imagine if people were eating this as their staple.
Music
SIMKIN: On one of Okinawa’s massive American bases, a fighter pilot is preparing to patrol the skies. One quarter of the local population was killed during World War II when the United States invaded. Today the occupation continues. U.S. bases cover 20 percent of the islands land and cast a long shadow over the rest.
Many older Okinawans are appalled that many of the young are enthralled by the foreign culture. Young people are flocking from the countryside to the cities where they’re seduced by the American influence.
On the streets of the capital, baseball caps and US military dog tags are the unofficial uniform. Shops do a roaring trade dishing out American culture and cuisine. Hot dogs, hamburgers and fries are cool.
YOUNG FEMALE OKINAWAN: I like hamburgers more.
SIMKIN: Why?
YOUNG FEMALE OKINAWAN: I like thick, greasy food.
YOUNG MALE OKINAWAN: Goya is bitter, so I don’t like it much. Hamburgers are good.
SIMKIN: Modern life with its medical advances and miracle cures is meant to extend life but in Okinawa, it’s shortening it, a development with implications for people everywhere. Obesity rates are booming and lung cancer is growing faster here than anywhere else in Japan. These young people will not live nearly as long as their grandparents. Average life expectancy is already starting to slide.
WILCOX: What we’ve seen in Okinawa over the past thirty years or so is a population that’s gone from having some of the leanest people in Japan to having the highest body mass index among the Japanese.
music
SIMKIN: The Okinawan elders have changed little but the world around them has been transformed. Every country has a generation gap, but here it’s becoming a yawning chasm.
FARMER: Everything has been turned on its head and so I think the future will be at risk if the young people don’t change their feelings.
SIMKIN: The “Land of the Immortals” is losing its identity, caught between cultures. For these men and women the irony is as bitter as goya. Just as some in western countries are seeking to follow the Okinawan path, the island’s young are leaving it.
Reporter: Mark Simkin
Camera: Jun Matsuzono
Editor: Kate Prevost
Research: Yumi Asada