Japan’s aging population means centenarians aren’t really good news. 

With hands clasped neatly in her lap and iron grey hair combed straight back, Haru Matsumara, 100 last April, explains the secret of her long life. “I do like milk but I could not afford it when I was young,” she says. “I have never eaten a lot of meat. I like traditional foods – fermented soya beans and fried bean curd.” It is not much to account for a century of existence, most of it lived in rude good health. But Mrs Matsumara, the oldest resident of the Sunflower care home in the Japanese city of Kyoto, mentions one other vital ingredient. “I have a happy-go-lucky nature,” she adds. “Even if I am worried, I get a good night’s sleep.”

Her large, soft face with its skin like parchment breaks into a smile. Her voice may be a little hoarse now, and the folds of her neck quiver as she speaks, but her demeanour can be summed up in one word: cheerful. It is a characteristic often found in the extremely old. Jeanne Calment, the oldest person ever recorded, died at Arles in south-western France in 1997, at the age of 122. She attributed her longevity to an ability to “keep smiling”.

Japan, long renowned as a society which venerates the elderly, boasts 25,000 centenarians – more than four times as many as Britain – yet its population, at 127 million, is little more than twice ours. However, it is no longer smiling at its achievement. The current record-holders both live in Japan – Yone Minagwa, the oldest woman at 114, and Tomoji Tanabe, 112, who was confirmed as the world’s oldest man in June and presented with his certificate by Guinness World Records last week. Yet, instead of celebrating, he apologised for his longevity, joking: “I have been around too long. I am sorry.”

Mr Tanabe’s pessimism is understandable. What should have been a moment of rejoicing at a long life well lived has instead become an occasion for alarm. Japan is facing an ageing crisis as its elderly population grows. It is the fastest ageing society in the world and one in five Japanese people is over 65. By 2015, that proportion will have grown to a quarter – 33.8 million people – and it is projected to rise to 40 per cent by 2055. At the same time, the birth rate is falling because of the same social pressures facing western nations – later marriages, more women going to work and the trend for having smaller families.