Sogen Kato
Encyclopedia
was thought to have been Tokyo
's oldest man
until July 2010, when it was found that he had likely died in November 1978, aged 79, and his family had never announced his death in an attempt to preserve his record. Relatives had rebuffed attempts by ward officials to see Kato in preparations for Respect for the Aged Day
later that year, citing various reasons from him being a "human vegetable" to becoming a Sokushinbutsu
. The cause of death was not determined due to the state of Kato's body.
The discovery of Kato's remains sparked a search for other missing centenarians lost due to poor record keeping by officials. A study following the discovery of Kato's remains found that police did not know if 234,354 people over the age of one hundred were still alive. Poor record keeping was to blame for many of the cases, officials admitted. One of Kato's relatives was found guilty of allegations of fraud; his relatives claimed ¥9,500,000 ($117,939; £72,030) of pension
money meant for Kato.
, Tokyo
, where Kato was reportedly living, attempts by officials to meet him were rebuffed numerous times by the family. Many reasons were given by his relatives, including that he was a "human vegetable" and that he was becoming a Sokushinbutsu
, a process in which Buddhists
ate a special diet consisting only of nuts and seeds for 1,000 days—just under three years—while taking part in a regimen of rigorous physical activity that stripped them of their body fat. They then ate only bark and roots for another thousand days and began drinking a poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree, normally used to lacquer bowls. The process was popular in northern Japan.
Eventually, Kato's body was found by police and ward officials in July 2010, when ward officials intending to honour his achievement of longevity on Respect for the Aged Day
later that year were again rebuffed and police broke into the house. Found in a first floor room, Kato's mummified remains were wearing underwear and pajamas and were covered with a blanket. Newspapers that were found in the room dated back three decades to the Shōwa period
, suggesting that Kato's death may have occurred around November 1978. An official named Yutaka Muroi said, "His family must have known he has been dead all these years and acted as if nothing happened. It's so eerie".
The day after the visit, Kato's granddaughter told an "acquaintance" that "my grandfather shut himself in a room
on the first floor of our home 32 years ago, and we couldn't open the door from the outside. My mother said, 'Leave him in there,' and he was left as he was. I think he's dead." One official had reported concerns about Kato's safety earlier in the year to his ward office. An autopsy failed to determine the cause of Kato's death.
In November 2010, the Tokyo District Court
sentenced Tokimi Kato to a 2½ year sentence for fraud, suspended
for four years. Judge Hajime Shimada said, "The defendant committed a malicious crime with the selfish motive of securing revenue for her family. However, she has paid back the pension benefits and expressed remorse for the crime."
. One register suggested a man was still alive at age 186.
Following the revelations about Kato and Furuya, analysts investigated why record keeping by Japanese authorities was poor. Many seniors have, it has been reported, moved away from their family homes. Statistics show that divorce is becoming increasingly common among the elderly. Dementia
, which afflicts more than two million Japanese, is also a contributing factor. "Many of those gone missing are men who left their hometowns to look for work in Japan’s big cities during the country’s pre-1990s boom years. Many of them worked obsessively long hours and never built a social network in their new homes. Others found less economic success than they’d hoped. Ashamed of that failure, they didn’t feel they could return home," a Canadian
newspaper reported several months after the discovery of Kato's body.
Japan is the most elderly nation in the world; as of October 2010, 23.1 percent of the population were found to be aged 65 and over, and 11.1 percent were 75 and over. The problem has largely been caused by a very low birthrate; as of 2005, the rate was 1.25 babies for every woman—to keep the population steady the number needed to be 2.1. However, the issue of aging in the country has been worsened by the government's unwillingness to let immigrants into the country—foreign nationals accounted for only 1.2 percent of the total population as of 2005. A 2006 report by the government indicates that by 2050, ⅓ of the population may be elderly.
The inquiry also noted that many elderly Japanese citizens were dying in solitude. "Die alone and in two months all that is left is the stench, a rotting corpse and maggots," The Japan Times
said in an editorial, one of many comments from the country's press on the news. An editorial in Asahi Shimbun
said that the findings suggested "deeper problems" in the Japanese register system. "The families who are supposed to be closest to these elderly people don't know where they are and, in many cases, have not even taken the trouble to ask the police to search for them," read the editorial. "The situation shows the existence of lonely people who have no family to turn to and whose ties with those around them have been severed."
One Japanese doctor, however, said he was not surprised at the news. Dr. Aiba Miyoji, of the Tokyo Koto Geriatric Medical Centre, said many Japanese seniors were dying alone, ignored by their families. “Some patients come in with their families, but many are alone or come in just with their social workers,” he said. “It happens especially in Tokyo. There are more and more single-person families.” Dr. Miyoji added that a key reason for the statistics was because people in Japan are living longer than ever before. "That achievement is placing new burdens on a society where a declining number of working-age Japanese have to fund rising health-care and pension costs," The Globe and Mail
reported. Dr. Aiba said that because Tokyo was so crowded, families cannot possibly live together any more. “There’s not enough space for families to live together any more,” he said.
A national census in 2005 found that 3.86 million elderly Japanese citizens were living alone, compared with 2.2 million a decade before. 24.4 per cent of men and 9.3 per cent of women over the age of 60 in Japan have no neighbours, friends or relatives on whom they could rely, a more recent study discovered. In 2008, the Associated Press
reported that the number of elderly people committing suicide had reached a record high of 9 percent because of health and economic worries. "In what appears to be a collective cry for help, more than 30,000 Japanese seniors are arrested every year for shoplifting. Many of those arrested told police they stole out of feelings of boredom and isolation, rather than any economic necessity," The Globe and Mail reported after the discovery of Kato's corpse. Jeff Kingston, the Director of Asian Studies at the Japan Campus of Temple University
, said, "It is a humanising phenomenon—the Japanese are traditionally seen as sober, law-abiding people—when they are in fact scamsters like the rest of us. [The story of the missing centenarians] holds up a mirror to society and reflects realities that many in Japan do not want to accept."
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
's oldest man
Oldest people
This is a list of tables of the verified oldest people in the world in ordinal rank, such as oldest person or oldest man. In these tables, a supercentenarian is considered 'verified' if his or her claim has been validated by an international body that specifically deals in longevity research, such...
until July 2010, when it was found that he had likely died in November 1978, aged 79, and his family had never announced his death in an attempt to preserve his record. Relatives had rebuffed attempts by ward officials to see Kato in preparations for Respect for the Aged Day
Respect for the Aged Day
is a Japanese holiday celebrated annually to honor elderly citizens. A national holiday since 1966, this was previously held on September 15. Beginning in 2003, Respect for the Aged Day is held on the third Monday of September due to the Happy Monday System....
later that year, citing various reasons from him being a "human vegetable" to becoming a Sokushinbutsu
Sokushinbutsu
Sokushinbutsu were Buddhist monks or priests who caused their own deaths in a way that resulted in their mummification. This practice reportedly took place almost exclusively in northern Japan around the Yamagata Prefecture. It is believed that many hundreds of monks tried, but only between 16 and...
. The cause of death was not determined due to the state of Kato's body.
The discovery of Kato's remains sparked a search for other missing centenarians lost due to poor record keeping by officials. A study following the discovery of Kato's remains found that police did not know if 234,354 people over the age of one hundred were still alive. Poor record keeping was to blame for many of the cases, officials admitted. One of Kato's relatives was found guilty of allegations of fraud; his relatives claimed ¥9,500,000 ($117,939; £72,030) of pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
money meant for Kato.
Discovery of the body
After tracking down the residence in AdachiAdachi, Tokyo
is one of the Special wards of Tokyo, Japan. It is located north of the heart of Tokyo. The ward consists of two separate areas: a small strip of land between the Sumida River and Arakawa River and a larger area north of the Arakawa River...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, where Kato was reportedly living, attempts by officials to meet him were rebuffed numerous times by the family. Many reasons were given by his relatives, including that he was a "human vegetable" and that he was becoming a Sokushinbutsu
Sokushinbutsu
Sokushinbutsu were Buddhist monks or priests who caused their own deaths in a way that resulted in their mummification. This practice reportedly took place almost exclusively in northern Japan around the Yamagata Prefecture. It is believed that many hundreds of monks tried, but only between 16 and...
, a process in which Buddhists
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
ate a special diet consisting only of nuts and seeds for 1,000 days—just under three years—while taking part in a regimen of rigorous physical activity that stripped them of their body fat. They then ate only bark and roots for another thousand days and began drinking a poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree, normally used to lacquer bowls. The process was popular in northern Japan.
Eventually, Kato's body was found by police and ward officials in July 2010, when ward officials intending to honour his achievement of longevity on Respect for the Aged Day
Respect for the Aged Day
is a Japanese holiday celebrated annually to honor elderly citizens. A national holiday since 1966, this was previously held on September 15. Beginning in 2003, Respect for the Aged Day is held on the third Monday of September due to the Happy Monday System....
later that year were again rebuffed and police broke into the house. Found in a first floor room, Kato's mummified remains were wearing underwear and pajamas and were covered with a blanket. Newspapers that were found in the room dated back three decades to the Shōwa period
Showa period
The , or Shōwa era, is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of the Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito, from December 25, 1926 through January 7, 1989.The Shōwa period was longer than the reign of any previous Japanese emperor...
, suggesting that Kato's death may have occurred around November 1978. An official named Yutaka Muroi said, "His family must have known he has been dead all these years and acted as if nothing happened. It's so eerie".
The day after the visit, Kato's granddaughter told an "acquaintance" that "my grandfather shut himself in a room
Hikikomori
is a Japanese term to refer to the phenomenon of reclusive people who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement because of various personal and social factors in their lives...
on the first floor of our home 32 years ago, and we couldn't open the door from the outside. My mother said, 'Leave him in there,' and he was left as he was. I think he's dead." One official had reported concerns about Kato's safety earlier in the year to his ward office. An autopsy failed to determine the cause of Kato's death.
Fraud trial
Following the discovery of Kato's body, two of his relatives were arrested in August 2010, and subsequently charged with fraud. Prosecutors alleged that Michiko Kato, 81, Kato's daughter, and Tokimi Kato, 53, his granddaughter, fraudulently received about ¥9,500,000 ($117,939; £72,030) of pension money. In addition, after Kato's wife died in 2004 at the age of 101, ¥9,450,000 ($117,318; £71,651) from a survivor's mutual pension was deposited into Kato's bank account between October 2004 and June 2010. Approximately ¥6,050,000 ($75,108; £45,872) was withdrawn before his body was discovered. Kato was likely paid a senior welfare benefit from the time he turned 70, which the family may also have used to their advantage. Investigators said that the pair defrauded the Japan Mutual Aid Association of Public School Teachers, who transferred the money into Kato's account.In November 2010, the Tokyo District Court
Tokyo District Court
is a district court located at 1-1-4 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. -References:...
sentenced Tokimi Kato to a 2½ year sentence for fraud, suspended
Suspended sentence
A suspended sentence is a legal term for a judge's delaying of a defendant's serving of a sentence after they have been found guilty, in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation...
for four years. Judge Hajime Shimada said, "The defendant committed a malicious crime with the selfish motive of securing revenue for her family. However, she has paid back the pension benefits and expressed remorse for the crime."
Aftermath
After the discovery of Kato's mummified corpse, other checks into elderly centenarians across Japan produced reports of missing centenarians and faulty record keeping. When Tokyo officials attempted to find the oldest woman in the city—113-year-old Fusa Furuya—they found her last known address was vacant. Furuya's granddaughter said she had not seen her grandmother for several years. The revelations about the disappearance of Furuya and the death of Kato prompted a nationwide investigation, which concluded that police did not know if 234,354 people older than 100 were still alive. More than 77,000 of these people, officials said, would have been older than 120 years old if they were still alive. Poor record keeping was blamed for many of the cases, and officials said that many may have died during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. One register suggested a man was still alive at age 186.
Following the revelations about Kato and Furuya, analysts investigated why record keeping by Japanese authorities was poor. Many seniors have, it has been reported, moved away from their family homes. Statistics show that divorce is becoming increasingly common among the elderly. Dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
, which afflicts more than two million Japanese, is also a contributing factor. "Many of those gone missing are men who left their hometowns to look for work in Japan’s big cities during the country’s pre-1990s boom years. Many of them worked obsessively long hours and never built a social network in their new homes. Others found less economic success than they’d hoped. Ashamed of that failure, they didn’t feel they could return home," a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
newspaper reported several months after the discovery of Kato's body.
Japan is the most elderly nation in the world; as of October 2010, 23.1 percent of the population were found to be aged 65 and over, and 11.1 percent were 75 and over. The problem has largely been caused by a very low birthrate; as of 2005, the rate was 1.25 babies for every woman—to keep the population steady the number needed to be 2.1. However, the issue of aging in the country has been worsened by the government's unwillingness to let immigrants into the country—foreign nationals accounted for only 1.2 percent of the total population as of 2005. A 2006 report by the government indicates that by 2050, ⅓ of the population may be elderly.
The inquiry also noted that many elderly Japanese citizens were dying in solitude. "Die alone and in two months all that is left is the stench, a rotting corpse and maggots," The Japan Times
The Japan Times
The Japan Times is an English language newspaper published in Japan. Unlike its competitors, the Daily Yomiuri and the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, it is not affiliated with a Japanese language media organization...
said in an editorial, one of many comments from the country's press on the news. An editorial in Asahi Shimbun
Asahi Shimbun
The is the second most circulated out of the five national newspapers in Japan. Its circulation, which was 7.96 million for its morning edition and 3.1 million for its evening edition as of June 2010, was second behind that of Yomiuri Shimbun...
said that the findings suggested "deeper problems" in the Japanese register system. "The families who are supposed to be closest to these elderly people don't know where they are and, in many cases, have not even taken the trouble to ask the police to search for them," read the editorial. "The situation shows the existence of lonely people who have no family to turn to and whose ties with those around them have been severed."
One Japanese doctor, however, said he was not surprised at the news. Dr. Aiba Miyoji, of the Tokyo Koto Geriatric Medical Centre, said many Japanese seniors were dying alone, ignored by their families. “Some patients come in with their families, but many are alone or come in just with their social workers,” he said. “It happens especially in Tokyo. There are more and more single-person families.” Dr. Miyoji added that a key reason for the statistics was because people in Japan are living longer than ever before. "That achievement is placing new burdens on a society where a declining number of working-age Japanese have to fund rising health-care and pension costs," The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
reported. Dr. Aiba said that because Tokyo was so crowded, families cannot possibly live together any more. “There’s not enough space for families to live together any more,” he said.
A national census in 2005 found that 3.86 million elderly Japanese citizens were living alone, compared with 2.2 million a decade before. 24.4 per cent of men and 9.3 per cent of women over the age of 60 in Japan have no neighbours, friends or relatives on whom they could rely, a more recent study discovered. In 2008, the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported that the number of elderly people committing suicide had reached a record high of 9 percent because of health and economic worries. "In what appears to be a collective cry for help, more than 30,000 Japanese seniors are arrested every year for shoplifting. Many of those arrested told police they stole out of feelings of boredom and isolation, rather than any economic necessity," The Globe and Mail reported after the discovery of Kato's corpse. Jeff Kingston, the Director of Asian Studies at the Japan Campus of Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
, said, "It is a humanising phenomenon—the Japanese are traditionally seen as sober, law-abiding people—when they are in fact scamsters like the rest of us. [The story of the missing centenarians] holds up a mirror to society and reflects realities that many in Japan do not want to accept."
See also
- Aging of JapanAging of JapanThe ageing of Japan outweighs all other nations with the highest proportion of elderly citizens, 21% over the age of 65. In 1989, only 11.6% of the population was 65 years or older, but projections were that 25.6% would be in that age category by 2030...
- Elderly people in JapanElderly people in JapanThis article focuses on the situation of elderly people in Japan and the recent changes in society.Japan's population is aging . During the 1950s, the percentage of the population in the sixty-five-and-over group remained steady at around 5%. Throughout subsequent decades, however, that age group...
- List of Japanese supercentenarians
- Lists of centenarians