![]() KUHN: Mottainai is a Japanese philosophical concept that says we should waste nothing and get every bit of value out of what we have - whether it's time, space, things or people. OIGAWA: (Through interpreter) This is mottainai. But where others see a dilapidated, declining village, Oigawa sees potential. The number of Japanese over the age of 100 is at a record high. ![]() ![]() The village is on the cutting edge of Japan's rural depopulation, a trend other nations in Asia and Europe are following. At that rate of decline, there could be nobody left in just over a decade. The population here has shrunk from 11,000 in 1955 to about 1,500 today. KUHN: Most Japanese, though, are moving the other way. So from a young age, I really wanted to live in the countryside. I felt like my relations with people in Tokyo were too shallow and broad. SATOMI OIGAWA: (Through interpreter) I wanted to be self-sufficient, and they value interaction with other people. The road brought 24-year-old Satomi Oigawa here from Tokyo a year ago after she graduated from college. A winding road parallels the stream and passes through the village of Nanmoku. He reports on the village's efforts to attract young people to reinvigorate it.ĪNTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: About 70 miles northwest of Tokyo, a river runs through mountains with forests of cedar and bamboo. NPR's Anthony Kuhn visited Japan's most aged village, where most residents are over age 65. Villages across Japan's countryside are facing extinction as the population ages and shrinks.
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