Unmasking Japan: Myths and Realities About the Emotions of the Japanese - Hardcover

"An outstanding addition to the literature on an increasingly visible and growing segment of the Japanese population that enriches our understanding of the aging process as it is lived by real people, rather than as it is conceptualized by policy makers."-Janet S. Shibamoto-Smith, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis

The indisputable fact of Japan's rapidly aging population has been known for some time. But beyond statistics and implications for the future, we do not know much about the actual aging process. Senior citizens and their varied experiences have, for the most part, been obscured by stereotypes. This fascinating new collection of research on the elderly works to put a human face on aging by considering multiple dimensions of the aging experience in Japan. Faces of Aging foregrounds a spectrum of elder-centered issues-social activity, caregiving, generational bias, suicide, sexuality, and communication with medical professionals, to name a few-from the perspective of those who are living them. The volume's diverse contributors represent the fields of sociology, anthropology, medicine, nursing, gerontology, psychology, film studies, gender studies, communication, and linguistics, offering a diverse selection of qualitative studies of aging to researchers across the social sciences.