Kane Tanaka turned 118 on 2 January 2021, and is probably the oldest living human whose age has been proven - Guinness World Records verified her age in March 2019. She is currently the third oldest verified person, and oldest Japanese verified person ever!
Kane Tanaka, née Ota, was born in the village of Wajiro on the southern island of Kyushu in 1903. She has twice survived cancer and has lived through two pandemics - Spanish flu in 1918, and Covid-19. She married her cousin Hideo Tanaka when she was 19, had four children, and worked in the family store selling shiruko and udon noodles until she was 103.
She has five grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Her husband died in 1993 aged 90. She lives in a nursing home in Kukuoka in south-western Japan, where she usually wakes up at 6am and enjoys playing the strategic board game Othello, doing calculations and practising calligraphy. She loves Coca-Cola and chocolate.
This year's Olympics in Japan will be the 49th in her lifetime. She is hoping to carry the Olympic torch as it passes through Shime in her home prefecture. While her family will push her in a wheelchair for most of her leg, she is determined to walk the final few steps as she passes the torch to the next runner.
For the first time last year, Japan recorded more than 80,000 centenarians - one in every 1,565 people, more than 88 per cent women. Japanese women have a life expectancy of 87.45 years compared to 81.4 for men.
CNN, 4 March 2021; Evening Standard, 5 March 2021.
Questions:
a) Have you ever had a centenarian in your family?
b) Would you like to live to over 100 years old?
c) Why do you think there are so many centenarians in Japan?