"Let Me Scrub Your Back, Grandpa."：Respect-for-the-Aged Day in Japan

September 21 falls on the Respect-for-the-Aged Day. It's a day the elderly are treated to well-wishing services. In Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, a group of elementary and junior high school pupils volunteered to "scrub the backs of elderly people" in public bathhouses.

Public bathhouses in Edogawa traditionally offer their facilities for this volunteer work every year on September 21. A group of 230 pupils "took the field" that day in 38 "Back-Scrubbing Squads".

In the bathhouse "Kojimayu" in Nishi Kasai, 9 pupils from Seishindaiichi Junior High School in T-shirts and pants marched in the washing place with soap and towel and got to work. A 72-year-old man was overjoyed by the way youngsters showed their respect for the elderly; a 14-year-old junior high pupil said he was glad his work was rewarded with big smiles and nods of thanks.

The Respect-for-the-Aged Day is celebrated in a variety of ways in Japan.

The aged and the infant make gorgeous pairs; nurseries planned excursions of their small children to visit homes for the aged. Animals comfort the aged; a certain pet house offered a team of tiny hairy dogs to call on homes of the aged with cognitive impairment.

The baby boomers nearing their retiring age, the age pendulum will soon swing top-heavy and the day will come when too few hands have too many backs to scrub. Japan is fast-shrinking population wise with the clouds of declining birthrate and aging  population hanging low.

Japanese culture is essentially moral-oriented. In the pre-war schooling, moral training was the pivot of elementary education. Respect for the aged was higher valued then than it appears to be today.

The Respect-for-the-Aged Day is, therefore, a touchstone of Japan's ethical integrity today as signs of moral decay are apparent in some segment of society.

More power to those back-scrubbing youngsters.