Getting older, getting better －年をとること、上手になること－

Welcome to another weekly blog entry.  I have been posting every Thursday since I started writing this blog.  This is my 53^rd regular weekly posting, which means that a full year has passed since I started.  Happy birthday to me!  Send me an email and I’ll give you the address to post your presents and cheques to!

Sometimes people feel like celebrating their birthdays, and sometimes they feel like forgetting them.  My wife and I encountered a scene yesterday which might make anyone feel sad about getting a year older, especially if the birthday they were having was their 46th.

We passed a small store which sells onigiri.  For those who don’t know, onigiri is a kind of salted rice ball wrapped in seaweed, usually with a filling in the centre.  This store’s onigiri is very nice and reasonably priced.  I recommend the ikura filling.

But the thing that caught my wife’s notice was a sign they had, advertising a vacancy for a new member of staff.  The sign gave some details about the position – how many hours per day, how many days per week etc. – and it also gave some information about the type of applicant they were looking for.  The sign said that applicants for the job should be no older than 45.

We were both surprised by this requirement.  In the first instance, what is so arduous about making onigiri?  I can understand why a soldier or a miner or fireman might have to be young and at the peak of health.  But do you need such strength to push fish eggs into a ball of rice?

The next surprising thing was that this could be advertised openly.  Isn’t it against the law to discriminate against someone on the basis of age, as we expect it to be for gender, race, sexuality etc.?  A 46 year-old, or a 64 year-old, might not be energetic enough to do the job.  But surely, they at least deserve the chance to go to the interview and to be judged after being seen and not before?

Actually, someone I talked to thought that this is against the law in Japan, and the onigiri store might get into trouble if someone complains.

I like to think that the older you get, the more skilled you become.  If you’ve been making onigiri at home for 30 years, I’ll bet that you get very good at it.  Hopefully, the same is true for blog writers.  Sadly, my posts are still at the infantile stage.  Ga-ga goo-goo.  But by the time I’m celebrating this blog’s 46^th birthday, my posts will be Zen masterpieces.  And maybe intelligent robot slaves will be making all the onigiri.

 

Vocabulary:

a cheque – a slip of paper you fill out and sign in order to pay for something

for something to catch one’s notice – for something to be interesting or stand out in some way, so that it is noticed by someone

an applicant – someone who applies for something; someone who desires to join or be selected for a job, role etc

to be arduous – to be difficult, tough

a miner – a person who digs minerals like coal out of the ground

the peak of something – the highest point of something, like a mountaintop

to discriminate against someone – to treat someone differently, or unfairly, because of something they cannot help

to be infantile – to be like a small child

ga-ga/ goo-goo – These are baby noises.  The Queen song “Radio ga-ga” uses this term