A typical and atypical Jap's advice

WORDS TO LIVE BY
Author/Physician Shigeaki Hinohara
(Published in The Japan Times Online January 29, 2009)
By JUDIT KAWAGUCHI

At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world's longest-serving physicians and educators. Hinohara's magic touch is legendary: Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke's College of Nursing. After World War II, he envisioned a world-class hospital and college springing from the ruins of Tokyo; thanks to his pioneering spirit and business savvy, the doctor turned these institutions into the nation's top medical facility and nursing school. Today he serves as chairman of the board of trustees at both organizations. Always willing to try new things, he has published around 150 books since his 75th birthday, including one "Living Long, Living Good" that has sold more than 1.2 million copies. As the founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a long and happy life, a quest in which no role model is better than the doctor himself.

Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too. It's best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.

All people who live long — regardless of nationality, race or gender — share one thing in common: None are overweight. For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work. Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean meat.

Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures and my usual hospital work. In 2016 I'll have some fun, though: I plan to attend the Tokyo Olympics!

There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65. The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100.

Share what you know. I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes, standing, to stay strong.

When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure. Contrary to popular belief, doctors can't cure everyone. So why cause unnecessary pain with surgery? I think music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine.

To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.

My inspiration is Robert Browning's poem "Abt Vogler." My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.

Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: We all want to have fun. At St. Luke's we have music and animal therapies, and art classes.

Don't be crazy about amassing material things. Remember: You don't know when your number is up, and you can't take it with you to the next place.

Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors. We designed St. Luke's so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought I was crazy to prepare for a catastrophe, but on March 20, 1995, I was unfortunately proven right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we lost one person, but we saved 739 lives.

Science alone can't cure or help people. Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.

Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when I was 59 years old, I boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and as Mount Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days handcuffed to my seat in 40-degree heat. As a doctor, I looked at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis.

Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do. My father went to the United States in 1900 to study at Duke University in North Carolina. He was a pioneer and one of my heroes. Later I found a few more life guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would deal with the problem.

It's wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one's family and to achieve one's goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of it.

Judit Kawaguchi loves to listen. She is a volunteer counselor and a TV reporter on NHK's "Out & About." Learn more at: http://juditfan.blog58.fc2.com/

(The article was forwarded to us by Mr. Dan Espiritu, our Ninong who knows how to feel good and have fun himself, and makes others, too.)

P.S.
I say a typical Japanese because a lot of his words to live by are words to live by for most Japanese. I say atypical Japanese because, in my opinion, points 1, 5 and 10--some of my favorites in the essay, are true for some, but not typical to a Japanese. -che

"It's His Kindness that Leads Us to Repentance.."

Improvement of Species

And that's what we call improvement of species (lol)

Khane goes "undokai"

May 14, 2009. Khane participates in the undokai (sports day) at the Akebono daycare center.

other pix at 17mos

Easter Greetings

Dearest all,

It’s been quite a while. I’m just pausing from what’s keeping me to keep in touch, and greet my dearest all a Happy Easter. Indeed, our greatest hope is in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. On my end, it’s really been a struggle to keep my prayer time and devotion up and well. So whenever I get my head straight and am able to do it, I keep asking His forgiveness, and keep thanking God for Christ’s death and resurrection. Otherwise, I’d be possessed with guilt, and be tempted to give up trusting Christ. It’s the essence of Easter that continues to give me hope. Thank you for continually remembering me and my family in your prayers.

Attached is an encouraging Easter devotion I got from the Covenant Theological Seminary’s living Christ resources- http://www.livingchrist360.com/. I hope you will also find it encouraging. By the way, the site’s great, along with their worldwide classroom (http://www.worldwide-classroom.com/).

Another year more, and God willing, we’ll all be back for good. I do miss you all, and although I don’t write often, I know I have a family back there (church, office, relatives, friends, acquaintances--whichever group you think you belong to) I can always go home to.
Happy Easter.

In His Care,
Cheryll

Giving birth in Japan (...while studying)

In summary, I would like to say that although it was not an easy experience, the grace of God--the love of our champion sister and the Japanese Christian brethren, the kindness of the Japanese volunteers for foreign students, and the resilience of a Filipino spirit-- made it a wonderful, tolerable one.

It was not unwelcome but I got pregnant in a not very opportune time. I therefore had mixed feelings of great joy and apprehension upon receiving the news but because I acknowledge that it was God-ordained, I decided that I should face the fact only with joy and great expectations. An avalanche of questions, decision points and scenarios ensued in my simple mind. That I can sacrifice my PhD degree for the human heartbeat was out of the question. The question was can I have both in Japan? In the end, after many prayers and much consideration, and discussion with my husband, my parents, my academic adviser, and my champion sister (a Japanese sister in church cum volunteer), I made the decision to give birth here in Japan. I struggled but it was the best compromise for the interest of my family and studies.

It turned out that the two most formidable problems were first, convincing others that it was the right decision based on my circumstances, and second, communicating to doctors and nurses in Nihongo. I have no control over the former, but solving the latter started the never-ending service of our champion sister who painstakingly accompanied us to the hospital and health center, translated for us, was with me in the delivery room, and watched the development of our little one with genuine care. Her gift of service then and even until now is unmatched. We are comforted and inspired knowing that her motivation of helping us is the sheer joy of serving her God. She helps and expects nothing in return, not even a debt of gratitude.

The love and prayers of our Japanese Christian brethren at the Asakura Joyful Christian Church are also equally much appreciated. Their authentic moral support, prayers and encouragement were helpful. Their steadfast faith was a source of inspiration, not only for my family, but also for my studies. They have become my family in Japan, indeed.

Also, it would have been impossible for me to give birth and raise a baby here in Japan without the kindness and assistance of the Japanese volunteers for foreign students. One Japanese volunteer translated important documents so my husband was able to come and help me out. Another champion volunteer taught us how and where to avail of government services, and assisted us in many ways making sure that we have the basic necessities enough to cope with life in Japan with a baby especially in the winter season. She and another couple volunteer are unsung heroes to many foreign students, especially the new students, and they deserve great commendations.

Finally, I should say it is not easy to raise a baby and study at the same time even in one’s homeland, and more so in a foreign land. It definitely entails difficult trade-offs. Yet true to the resilience of a Filipino spirit and only in the grip of God’s grace, I am now blessed with a boy who is now toddling, and on the academic side, so far one paper published in an international journal. Kami sama, kansha shimasu!

(This is an article they asked me to write for Akebono. The last phrase on publication, i must say, was included there, as a matter of politics . Otherwise, it can be dispensed with. - che)

w/ Douglass C. North

(from left) Douglass C. North, 1993 Prize in Economics; Third Dacanay, professor at UP Baguio; Laarni Escresa, graduate student of University of Bologna (Picture taken during the Beijing Ronald Coase Workshop on Institutional Analysis)

Sino ba sya?

Excerpts from Douglass C. North's autobiography (bold text, mine)...

... Our family life was certainly not intellectual...

... My record at the University of California as an undergraduate was mediocre to say the best. I had only slightly better than a "C" average, although I did have a triple major in political science, philosophy, and economics...

... What the war did was give me the opportunity of three years of continuous reading, and it was in the course of reading that I became convinced that I should become an economist...

... I went back to graduate school with the clear intention that what I wanted to do with my life was to improve societies, and the way to do that was to find out what made economies work the way they did or fail to work. I believed that once we had an understanding of what determined the performance of economies through time, we could then improve their performance. I have never lost sight of that objective.

For his full autobiography, check
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1993/north-autobio.html

For his prize lecture
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1993/north-lecture.html