Very Sprite, Alert and Healthy 97 Year Old Guy Gives Tips for a Long Life

I am reposting (slightly altering) this post from March, 21 2013, because this dear man, Yasuyuki Hashimoto, passed away late last night. Thankfully, he wasn't in pain and passed quietly.

Hashimoto san lived to be 97-years-old. He was very spry and alert just up to about 12 weeks ago. Then his health rapidly began to decline. I was very surprised to see how fast it was. 

It just goes to show us all how fleeting the wonders and joys of life can be.

Please read this story of the wonderful man and remember to enjoy and cherish all the wonderful things this short life gives us. Remember to live each day to its fullest. Tomorrow comes too soon.

And now the article....

I have been written a lot about philosophical things like life & death, purpose, respect and dedication as well as choosing a partner well. Today, I'd like to introduce to you a guy who I have met in these last few days that has really blown my mind. I also want to share some of his philosophies on living a long life. I'm sure you will get a smile and a laugh as I did.

IGGY POP - LUST FOR LIFE

I am so glad to introduce you to this fascinating man. You'll be glad you met him too! His name is Yasuyuki Hashimoto and he is 97-years-old. I suppose being 97-years-old is pretty cool but, in Japan, it's not that unusual. The thing amazing about Yasuyuki Hashimoto is that he is 97 and must the one of the brightest, most energetic, alert and healthy 97-year-old folks you'll ever meet... He's totally coherent and he stays in the conversation and is not hard of hearing. 

Yasuyuki Hashimoto 95-years-old  March 2, 2011

Not only that, but Yasuyuki has never been admitted into a hospital in his entire life!!!


Get that? Of course Yasuyuki has visited doctors before, but he has never stayed overnight in a hospital in his entire life. Can you believe that!? Wow! He must be some sort of miracle of science.  


But I guess he's not a miracle of science. Yasuyuki was a guy who worked hard and played hard too! Yasuyuki told me about the old days when he was a salesman for Ishikawa Heavy Industries (IHI) and he said he smoked about 1.5 packs of cigarettes a day and drank to excess nightly.

As a salesman for IHI in the 1950's

"Mike, as you know, in Japan, salesmen must drink with their clients. I was a good salesman so I was drunk often." Yasuyuki said. His 63-year-old son added, "What!? You were drunk every night!" Looking at me the son added, "Sometimes he would pass out in the street and we'd have to carry him home. ."


Yes. Yes. I can relate to that... (Thank god, I don't do that anymore! - Mike) 

"Excuse me, bartender! I'll have what he's drinking!


Anyway, Yasuyuki says he stopped drinking 5 years ago and stopped smoking about 15 years ago.  

Yasuyuki in army uniform looking a lot like 

Erwin Rommel (circa 1942)

I have met many 70-year-olds that weren't half as spry and alert as Yasuyuki is. This guy is simply amazing! Yesterday we had lunch together and we were talking about old times and he was joking about how much he used to like to drink to excess (something that I can definitely relate to). His conversational abilities are incredible.... And I don't mean incredible for his age, I mean, he's glib and funny and tells jokes! 


Wow! I hope that I can be 1/2 as bright and bushy-tailed as Yasuyuki is when I'm 80! In fact, when Yasuyuki was 80 years old, his son told me of a time that his father met a stewardess at a bus stop and wound up with the young lady accompanying him back home. Imagine that! You have an 80-year-old dad who is very peppy, energetic, red-blooded and robust guy showing up back at home with some pretty 30-some year old airlines stewardess! Wow! You can't make this stuff up.


Yeah. When I grow up I want to be just like Yasuyuki Hashimoto!   

Yasuyuki as a junior high school

student circa 1930 (back row - upper right)

Yasuyuki Hashimoto was born in Tokyo in 1916. He went to school in Tokyo and was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army immediately after university. During the war, in 1942, he was stationed in Indonesia and say he spent his time enjoying the country and fishing.


There were no big battles in the area his unit was stationed in. He did say, though, that American planes would come snooping around everyday and some of the rascals in his unit wanted to shoot at the plane, but cooler heads prevailed. Yasuyuki and the others knew that if they shot at the plane, the Americans would just come back tomorrow with more planes, so they left them alone (kind of like not whacking a hornet's nest).


He said he and his fellows soldiers would stand around and look at the plane as it flew around. The planes were so close that they could see the pilot's face! They'd stare at the pilot and the pilot would stare back and  then fly away.


This theater of the absurd went on for everyday until the end of the war.

Out with the boys on the field in Indonesia 1942

About the war, I asked Yasuyuki if he and his fellow soldiers believed that the emperor was god? Yasuyuki looked incredulously at me and said, "No! Are you kidding? We weren't that stupid!" We both then howled with laughter.


Yasuyuki has many funny and interesting stories. I wish I could share them all with you.

Student conscripts in front of Mt. Fuji (circa 1940)

I did, though, ask Yasuyuki two important questions. The first was, "What is the secret to long life?"


Yasuyuki answered, "Live a boring, peaceful life." 


That makes sense. It reminds me, once again, of the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Yasuyuki's advice fits in well; peace and serenity and quiet and calm; those are the secrets to a long life. 


I think it is good advice. I hope that I can live a boring life someday spending quiet time with my family and fishing and living among nature.

Yasuyuki Hashimoto (back row, third from right)

(circa 1942)

The second question I asked Yasuyuki was, "Do you have any advice for readers as to how to live a happy, peaceful and long life?" 

To this Yasuyuki thought for a moment and said, "No. The best advice I can give anyone is no advice. I don't like it when people are always giving out advice. I have no advice to give."


Think about that, dear readers, isn't that just like Zen Buddhism? In a word, Yasuyuki's advice can be summed up as, "The best advice is no advice!"


Wow! I am taking that to heart. Think about it, folks. It's true!


The best advice is no advice! 


Yasuyuki Hashimoto san! Thank you for everything. May god rest your soul...

And for you reading this, take a moment to be thankful for all you have; give your spouse and kids a hug.

Be happy.

‪Japanese Group Calisthenics? The Japanese Identity! One Time Banned Due to Militarism! ‬

The other day, I received a nice email from a writer named Mary who wanted to know the origin of a photo in a previos blog entitled: Very Sprite, Alert and Healthy 97 Year Old Guy Gives Tips for a Long Life. In that post there were photos of Yasuyuki Hashimoto. Hashimoto san was in the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II and Mary contacted me because she was interested in this photo:

It is a photo of Japanese soldiers doing group calisthenics in the field in Indonesian in 1942. That's Yasuyuki in the very front.

I told Mary that the Japanese have been doing this sort of group exercise for a very long time. They do it beginning in childhood and I think it is also a part and parcel of the Japanese identity... It goes on today at schools, corporations and many organizations. It is so ingrained into the Japanese psyche that there are even nationally broadcast TV and radio shows promoting the entire nation to wake up and exercise at the same time everyday of the week!

The radio show, in fact, started as far back as 1928 and is still going strong today. There's not a Japanese in the country that doesn't know the background music to the exercise program.

Screen capture of "Radio Taiso" still on-air today!... And probably forever! 

See? The guys in Indonesia were doing the exact same thing!

Mary mentioned that she thought this sort of group exercising was fascinating and pondered, "If the Americans did this, maybe they wouldn't be so obese?" Well, I don't know about that, but it is a very interesting contrast to the culture of Japan and the west.

As I mentioned, this sort of group calisthenics has been going on in Japan for a very long time. It does remind me of how the Japanese like to do things in groups and as a team... And, heck, what's wrong with that? It did, though, raise the hair on the back of the occupying powers after World War II who banned this broadcast because they thought it was "too militaristic"?!

Maybe Mary is right? What could possibly be wrong with having a nation of people who enjoy exercising together and, even if it is merely peer pressure, having to get off their duffs to exercise? Americans surely could use that, no?

...And, Mary, the most shocking thing about Radio Taiso, I think, was it originated in the United States! Yep. Visiting Japanese businessmen heard it in America and brought it back to Japan! Students of Japanese history know that the Japanese copied and emulated the west and especially the United States because they didn't want Japan colonized like what they saw going on in China and the rest of Asia.

Here's what Wikipedia writes about Radio Taiso:

Rajio taisō were introduced to Japan in 1928 as a commemoration of the coronation of Emperor Hirohito.[1] The idea for radio broadcast calisthenics came from the US, where during the 1920s the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. sponsored 15-minute radio calisthenics in major cities in the US. 

Visiting employees of the Japanese postal insurance division brought samples of the exercises from the US back to Japan.[1] The exercises were widely used to improve the health of Japanese soldiers both at home and abroad during the 1930s and 1940s. The exercises were introduced to several other pacific nations, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Indonesia during Japan's colonization period.

After Japan's defeat in 1945, the broadcasts were banned by the occupying powers as being too militaristic in nature.

Today's on-air calisthenics include light exercises for the physically handicapped and older folks in an very quickly aging society

After several rewrites to the exercise routine, it was reintroduced by NHK radio in 1951 with the support of the education ministry, health ministry, the Japan Gymnastic Association and the Japan Recreation Association.[1]

Current status

Radio taisō is still used at schools as a warm up for physical education classes, during sports day activities, and by some companies as a way of building morale and a sense of group unity, as well as to raise energy levels and encourage good health.[2]

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This post is dedicated to my friend, 
Mary Cronk Farrell 
Author of books for Children and Young Adults 
www.MaryCronkFarrell.com

Cool & Strange Music - Hell-Racer: James Dean Meets SS Totenkopf, the Eddie Legend Story and the Missing Suitcase and More!

It's time once again for another episode of Cool & Strange Music!

Today, I have a bunch of cool tidbits - a few with a Japanese twist - and some others that just tickle my fancy.

First off an artist named Hell-Racer that I went to a club and saw when we made the Bobby's Bar video of Weirdo Jungle (with the burlesque dancer, Miwa Rock). 

Bobby's Bar

The band really stuck me as interesting as I laughed at their costumes on the CD jacket. They were wearing a sort of pseudo-Nazi sixties Go-Go style. The band's name was "Hell-Racer"! You know me! Anytime I see Japanese musicians dressing like sixties Nazis, I'm amused and intrigued!

Japanese Punks? I love it!

Read and see more about Miwa Rock here in Burlesque Booming in Tokyo!

At all shows the artists have their CDs and merchandise laid out for customers to buy. This show was no different. I saw their CD jacket and smiled. But then, right next to it, I saw another CD of a group called Eddie Legend Story. The style of that artwork impressed me too. I could tell by the jacket art basically what the sound was like of Hell-Racer, and, of course, the same could be said of Eddie Legend Story. It really blew my mind when I found out that the leader of Hell-Racer is the guy on the bike in the Eddie Legend Story and that beautiful girl is his singing wife... Maybe it's kid of like a Sonny & Cher from hell? "Cool!" I thought!

Left: Hell-Racer. James Dean meets SS Totenkopf. Next, Eddie Legend Story, sixties cool!

Of course, whenever I see this sort of thing, the first thing that pops into my mind is, "Can I play this on my radio show?" I liked both styles but worried that Hell-Racer might be a bit too loud for a 6 pm drive time show (perfect for late night though!) I figured that I should check out the band's live performance and I did. Let me say that I was mightily impressed! These guys were hot! I decided to get their CD and was glad I did.

It seems that Eddie Legend (I don't know his real name) has been a cult rock star in Japan for a long time. He was in a famous Japanese Rock band called Mad 3 and now fronts both Hell-Racer and Eddie Legend Story (and who knows what else?)

Here's the totally fab sound of  Eddie Legend Story and Dressing to Kill: (See more Eddie Legend on Myspace here).

Gee, I wish this was a full length video of this GREAT TRACK that I have been playing on the radio a lot. This is excellent! Unfortunately, I can't... And, also unfortunately, I can't find any good quality sounding videos of Hell-Racer. I wish I could! Their original track, "Monster Beach" is a gas! (You can hear Monster Beach and other Hell-Racer tracks here on Myspace though!) But I can find the band that Eddie was in before that made him a cult star, Mad 3!

Here's the totally fab sound of the Mad 3 and Forever Teenage:

Gen X and the Clash have nothing on the Mad 3! These guys are hot! Too bad they broke up. Maybe Ken and I should make a video for Eddie's new band, Hell-Racer or the Eddie Legend Story? Hmmm?

It's not always just the Japanese bands in Japan making cool sounds and videos, sometimes western artists come here and do the same. The Eddie Legend Story video reminded me of a great video made by the London unit, Herbalizer, who is known best for Rap and Jazz music. Here's a video that they made in Japan with the cooperation of some of my friends, Ray Hearn and Hidaka san from Smash Corporation. Most of this video was shot in one day here in Tokyo!

The Herbalizer - Missing Suitcase.

The Herbalizer on Myspace

Wow! Is that cool, or what? But, hey, I'm hungry for some exotic food! How about something from Southeast Asia? Indonesia, perhaps?

Here's something I'd bet a half a donut that you've never heard before. It's the Pattie Sisters and Enteng and His Comets. They were said to be "Indonesia's very first psychedelic rock band." Enteng would really rock out on some songs and my very favorite song is called "Aku Lupa" but I cannot find a video of that track anywhere on Youtube. But here is a short version of another great song that gives you a glimpse of Enteng's guitar (as well as how well this all meshes with an Indonesian Pop sound!)

Pattie Sisters with Enteng and His Comets with Rulieku

What!? What's this? Impossible! Someone, somewhere, has uploaded this entire album on a download site for free? My good friend, Henk Madrotter, writes, "Well, I finally found a good copy of this fantastic album from the Pattie Sisters with Enteng Tanamal and his Comets. Often touted as the first ever Indonesian psych album, Enteng's guitar playing is just phenomenal on this one. Only a few tiny skips on the first song...." Get it while you can! http://www.mediafire.com/?8wyaq6aaewc9gfr

Well, a free album of Indonesia's first psyche band? Trust me, download this now and you'll will thank me. This sh*t is fantastically cool, Cool and Strange Music!

And, that's it. Of course, you want more... But, hey! I got you a free album, right? Christmas is early...

I'll bring you more cool stuff later! See you next time!

See the previous installment of Cool and Strange Music - Just Who is Jack Trombey? here.