One of the things that’s easy to forget about Japan is that it only started welcoming foreigners openly 170 years ago. As a result, it could be argued that many of its customs and cultural habits - even the modern ones still seem remarkable to outsiders, from the faux flushing sounds on toilets (added to preserve the user’s modesty) to KFC being a popular place to eat Christmas dinner.
Visitors are delighted and dazzled by the high-tech dynamism of Japan’s neon-lit cities, but can often come away feeling as though they never really found the real pulse of life here. Sure, they spent time in a robot restaurant and replicated the many social media posts of shuffling across Tokyo’s super-busy Shibuya Crossing sandwiched between thousands of locals, but they only end up seeing exactly what they’d expected and experiencing little else.
I’d resolved to seek out the less flashy side tour, which includes a two-night homestay in Hagi, a UNESCO-listed coastal castle town in the far west of Honshu island that is known for its pottery. Some 44.4% of the town’s population is over the age of 65 (compared with Japan’s already high national average of 28.7%). And in an area where work has become scarce, I was eager for a chance to see how its elder population had turned to tourism as an alternative source of income.
