Rest homes once rare in this exotic land are becoming common for the growing middle class, and well equipped private hospitals staffed by specialists are for when the elderly with rich relatives become too feeble to cope. Poor peasants are expected to work until they drop, and usually, government support is promised only in campaign speeches.
But in Singapore, ALL of the old people--any citizen over 55-- can receive financial assistance for basic survival needs like housing, meal rations, and medical help. And yet there is shame for having grannie "on the dole", so Singapore families either allow the old lady to live with them [as 86.5 per cent do], or they put them in a government flat [90%].
While oldsters are still able to get around [95.9%], their young relatives don't have to pay strangers to take care of them as long as they can afford some sort of face-saving stipend [75.9%]. [Percentages from a recent government survey.
The survey also predicted Singapore's elderly population will double from 7% growth now to 14% in the next quarter of a century. By 2030, when there will be four million dodderers in Singapore, the total health care budget will be almost US$5 billion [14.4 S$ billion].
Then the social transformation that's uprooting Singapore's senior citizens now will really be a major national issue, says Professor Kua Ee Heok, vice dean of the National University of Singapore. But at least they have a government to turn to. Tens of thousands of elderly Asian Americans who haven't become American citizens can no longer access health and medical facilities under new welfare regulations. They're strangers in a strange land.
In China, "the older generation worries about lost virtues and the decline of a moral infrastructure that takes care of them," comments E.C. Hwa, senior economist for the World Bank there.
Before it became part of China, Hong Kong patted itself on its go-getting back for respecting elders [91.2 per cent, according to a survey of teenagers conducted by the Hong Kong federation of Youth Groups.] Another survey by Readers' Digest found that telling fibs is a popular Hong Kong activity. There has been sudden return to the jobs market of once-retired workers now that the Hong Kong economy is undergoing meltdown.
But there are no jobs for overaged people as younger oriental, taking advantage of their solid educations and bright appearance, salt away most of their earnings rather than live ostentatiously. A Malaysian unit trust for investors 12-29 had 770,000 members who deposited US$560 million, which isn't bad for a country so strapped for cash that the local currency is no longer exchangeable.
In Japan, teenagers have been known to beat up and even kill old folks unwise enough to be at places they shouldn't be. Treatment is usually less violent, though.
Tokyo's retired "salary men" at night don baggy trousers and sports coats to cruise Shibuya, the capital city's Disneyland of delights. If lucky, an OYAJ ["Dad"] might find a girl who agrees to go to the karaoke clubs with him...for 5000 yen [US$50]. She's young enough to be his grand-daughter, but at least for the night the LOLICON [Lolita conquest] can pretend that he's not really old.
And according to actuarial tables, he isn't. Japanese men live to be 80 years old--longer than Americans--so anything younger isn't old, as long as they get that retirement check.
Of course the girl looks down on him, but at least that's less painful than outright hostility. Young oriental would rather regard old kinfolk as senile fools than as somebody to give unrequested euthanasia to. Just how long this attitude will last is worrisome: can the tradition of taking care of old kinfolk survive the continued onslaught of urbanization, industrialism, Western consumerism, and failing economy? ##
By Jerry A. Trix
© Copyright 1998-2008 by Rainer F. Otto |
