Japanese Elderly Women Activities

It has been know that Japanese people have longer life expectancy than most people in the world. One of the secret that they have longer span is that they keep active throughout their life. Japanese people believe that they should as long as they can; some even still work in their 90s ("Elderly People in Japan"). Japanese elders try to make most of their daily life with enriching activities.

It appears that Japanese elderly group does not like not having something to with their  hand in their old days. Many of them prefer to do activities, preferably together in a community where many Japanese in same age range can enjoy various activities. One group of Japanese elderly women developed new hobbies of knitting after they survived the disaster back in 2011. Teddy Swaka started the program Yarn Alive claimed that she could go crazy if she did not have something to do ("Knitting is Helping Elderly Survivors"). Swaka believed knitting would elevated the survivors mood who had lost their loved ones, business, and home.

Knitting is one activity to keep the Japanese's day busy. Some people like to do activities that involves more body movements, such as the Japan Pom Pom. Japan Pom Pom is a group of cheerleaders performed by older Japanese women with the average age of 66, started by Fumie Takino. Even though she was the oldest, Takino is sure know how to have fun, as she is described as very cheerful and playful. Takino explained that everyone gets old, so might as well have some fun from it. ("Cheering on Aging Japan").

I think these women are very inspiring and admirable. They show that people can never really to be too old to do activities they love. Cheerleaders group run by senior citizen is definitely something that people do not see everyday, and it is very unique and inspiring. many of these elderly women refuse to laze around and insist they do some kind of enjoyable activity, which benefits them a lot, as keeping active increase their life span.

References

http://seniors.lovetoknow.com/elderly-people-japan

http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2010/05/31/cheering-on-an-aging-japan/

http://underthegables.blogspot.com/2012/03/knitting-is-helping-elderly-survivors.html