In September 2019, the mayor of Fukuoka, Japan, made a pilgrimage to Kane Tanaka in her nursing home. She was 116 years old at the time and answered questions from a bunch of journalists with the arrogant confidence of a budget fighter.
What, they asked, was the secret to living so long?
“I am myself,” she said.
Happiest moment?
“Utilities!”
Best diet to stay healthy?
“Appreciate everything I eat.” She had developed a taste for chocolate and Coca-Cola on a US military base and regularly consumed fizzy drinks for half a century.
When Ms. Tanaka died last week at age 119 not far from the now closed base in the southern city of Fukuoka, she was the world’s oldest person and had lived seven years longer than the oldest American veteran of World War II.
In Japan, home to the world’s oldest population, Ms. Tanaka has become a symbol of how to age gracefully and ward off cancer and other ailments. Deep into her 12th decade, visitors found her not only alert, but also lively and unstoppably funny.
A silver role model
Demographic trends in Japan have created a range of challenges, including older drivers, an epidemic of dementia and growing piles of adult diaper waste. They have also created a need for role models like Ms. Tanaka, who not only persevere but thrive in their golden years and beyond.
“She had a clear mind, took care of herself, and lived to old age,” said Shinichi Oshima, the president of the Japan Foundation for Aging and Health. “That’s worth celebrating. And she gave hope to others, which made them think, ‘Oh, maybe we can get to that age too.’”
dr. Oshima said that Ms. Tanaka can predict a future where the average Japanese lifespan – 87.7 for women and 81.6 for men – continues to grow, possibly to the point where living up to 100 years is no longer seen as unusual.
Government data suggests Japan may have more centenarians than any other country. In August last year, about 86,000 of the 125 million people were over 100 years old. Japan has more than six centenarians per 10,000 population, the data shows, more than double the number for the United States and France, which are in second place.
“From a societal point of view, it is important to build social systems in which the elderly are fully accepted and can lead a prosperous life,” he says. “How can we build communities for those who value longevity?”
a survivor
Kane Tanaka was born on Jan. 2, 1903, to Kumakichi and Kuma Ota, farmers who lived in a village that is now part of Fukuoka City, her grandson Eiji Tanaka said.
After graduating from elementary school, she went to work helping families with tasks such as babysitting, farming, carpentry and weaving, according to an article in the Nishi Nippon Shimbun newspaper.
At the age of 19, Mrs. Tanaka with a cousin, Hideo Tanaka, and the couple later had two sons and two daughters, both of whom died before they were 2 years old, her grandson said. They also adopted and raised the children of some of their relatives.
For years, the Tanakas had a shop that sold mochi, a sweet rice cake. But during World War II, Mr. Tanaka called up and sent to fight in the Solomon Islands as part of Japan’s Pacific theater campaign, Japan’s President magazine reported earlier this month. Their eldest son, Nobuo, was sent to fight in the Korean Peninsula and Mongolia, where he was captured. (He returned to Japan in 1947.)
Ms. Tanaka was engaged in running the mochi shop and opening an udon noodle restaurant at the Japanese Navy’s base in Fukuoka during the war. At that time, she not only provided for herself, but also her mother-in-law and father-in-law and her sister-in-law’s three children. She continued to work at the base after the US military took it over in 1945.
In 1959, she and her husband opened a kindergarten in a church that they would operate for nearly 40 years. And in 1970, she opened a flower shop that she would run for about ten more years, traveling around town by boat three times a week to buy flowers.
In addition to the deaths of all her children, Mrs. Tanaka faced many medical problems. She contracted paratyphus in 1938 and was operated on for pancreatic cancer in 1948, cataracts in 1993 and colon cancer in 2006.
She lived through two world wars and the 1918 flu outbreak. For months during the coronavirus pandemic, Japan’s Covid-19 rules were prevented her relatives to visit her in person. She was supposed to carry the torch at the Tokyo Olympics last year, but withdrew because she didn’t want to spread the virus in her nursing home.
Ms. Tanaka died on April 19 at a hospital in Fukuoka, Japan’s health ministry said in a statement. Her grandson said she had been feeling sick since late last year. There is a funeral in town on Friday.
“She aimed for 120 but couldn’t make it,” her grandson said. “But she died in peace.”
Stay sharp
Mrs. Tanaka leaves behind at least five grandchildren and at least eight great-grandchildren. Her husband, who had dementia, died of cancer in 1993 at the age of 90. Their eldest son died in 2005 and their youngest, Tsuneo, died five years ago.
The oldest person in Japan is now Fusa Tatsumi, a woman who turned 115 on Monday, the health ministry said. A 118-year-old nun living in France known as Sister André is now the oldest person in the world, said Yvonne Zhang, a spokeswoman for Guinness World Records.
When Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima visited Ms. Tanaka in 2019, he asked how long she wanted to live. She replied that she hadn’t thought about it. “I don’t feel like I’m dying,” she said.
After retiring in her late 70s, Ms. Tanaka occupied herself with household chores and visiting relatives in Japan and the United States. Part of her staying focused was reading newspapers, doing math, and playing Othello and other board games.
“She hated losing,” her grandson said.
She was in and out of the hospital months before her death. Even if she was sick, her grandson said, she would talk about wanting to eat chocolate or drink Coke or… Oronamin C drinka Japanese soft drink.
For her last birthday, in January, nursing home staff gave her a cake decorated in the style of the letters on bottles of Oronamin C. One of her great-grandchildren, Junko Tanaka, 25, posted a photo of the event on a Twitter account. page she set up in honor of Ms. Tanaka.
Ms. Tanaka kept her wits to the end, and she enjoyed entertaining the reporters who would come over to interview her, said Chikako Tanaka, her granddaughter.
During one of those sessions, a reporter boldly asked what kind of man the centenarian preferred. She didn’t miss a beat.
“A young man like you,” she said.
