For anyone who missed this strange tale this week reported on the News, here it is, is my own words:
The Japanese Government decided to visit a man in Tokyo on his 111th birthday with a cake [they actually did bring a cake] to celebrate his record years of longevity. Their suspicions were raised when his granddaughter answered the door and wouldn’t let the Government in: “He doesn’t want to see anybody”, she said.
When the Government insisted (“But we brought this cake!” they paraphrased) and then got the police involved, the granddaughter relented and let them into the house.
Turns out the man was dead. Had been for 30 years, according to specialists. The mummified body was found in pajamas lying on the bed. The family had been collecting his pension (totaling some £70,000) all this time.
“30 years ago he went into his room to meditate and said not to disturb him” the family offered as hopeful bunkum to the Government [who were now regretting the wasted effort of 111 candles they had lit on the cake – I would think], “We believed he had become a sort of Buddha or something.”
How would they think that this was ever a plausible explanation?
Not seen Ethyl from next door for a few days? Maybe off visiting family. OK.
A couple of weeks? Perhaps on Holiday. Right.
4 months? Probably became a spiritual hermit? Hmmm.
30 years? Definately attained true enlightenment of the soul. Definately doesn't want to be disturbed. But how is she surviving? Tinned food. Oh.
Now I can see how that could be plausible for someone to believe - but this bloke was in their house. No, not having that.
Agreeing, the Japanese Government said afterwards through mouthfuls of Victoria sponge: “The family must have known he was dead. It’s so eerie.”
Their only mistake in the perfect pension fraud – allowing the dead body to become Japan’s oldest living man. Classic schoolboy error.
The Government, now paranoid of their long-lived statistics (there are over 40,000 centurions recorded in Japan which, now you mention it, does seem almost artificially high), have began to visit the very elderly. Just to double check. They [this is true] visited the officially longest living woman in Tokyo, a lady who should be of 113 years. “Oh!” the daughter, nodding, exclaimed to a now, I’d say, increasingly bemused Government Official, “I’m sure she is still alive out there. Somewhere. No one has seen or heard from her since she left this house 1986.”
Japan – many wonder at how people there live such long lives: Oriental mysticism and strict discipline of the body in perfect balance or... well... maybe not so much?
No comments:
Post a Comment