A chance encounter
My wife has a superpower. Actually, she has two.
One is that wherever we go in Asia, people think she is a local. It’s bizarre. They give her local menus, talk to her in Vietnamese or Thai or Korean, and immediately assume she belongs.
The other is that she can talk to anyone and make friends with them in a minute or two (very different to me).
The stealth president
Today we were at a little seafood market/restaurant down the coast from Ishinomaki, and she decided she wanted charcoal grilled squid. No one else was there, so this older guy in work clothes got everything ready for us and mentioned sadly that it wasn’t oyster season at the moment.
My wife replied that she can’t eat oysters since eating a bad one decades ago, the guy said he’d gotten ill from them half a dozen times but still ate them, then said he got sick in Thailand once, my wife said that Thai hospitals are wonderful, he said he didn’t have insurance so it was expensive, and that turned into a really long conversation.
I am always baffled at how she manages to do this.
Turns out the guy was pretty interesting. He owned the fish market/restaurant, and had a business farming oysters, squid, hoya, and other seafood that he started when he was 59 after running a construction company in Saitama for many years. He still has the construction company, as well as houses on Ishigaki and all over Japan, a huge boat in Okinawa, and another business in Ishigaki.
He’s also a 6th dan in Goju-Ryu karate, teaches kids, and competes regularly.
Sounds incredible, but I get the feeling he was telling the truth. He was clearly in charge of the place we visited, had photos of everything else, sounded genuine about the karate, and seemed to have had plastic surgery.
What purpose work?
The thing that struck me was, why was he standing around in overalls and rubber boots on a Wednesday morning serving us barbecue? He clearly doesn’t need the money.
All I can think of is that he enjoys it. He likes running a company, having people around, having meaning in his life, building something, contributing to society.
My wife was astounded that he would move halfway across the country and start a new business in a completely different sector at age 59.
I would not want to do what he does, but for me RetireJapan is kind of similar. Something to do, something that makes me learn and grow, something that allows me to connect with people and hopefully contribute to society.
How about you? Would you carry on working every day if you didn’t need the money?
Yet he doesn’t know oyster season has already started…
Internet says November to April: https://www.yamauchi-f.com/faq/oyster/518.html
(not something I pay attention to as I don’t eat oysters)
5th October here. Maybe depends where you are?
I’m sure it does. We’re in north Japan 🙂
I fully intend to “retire” sooner rather than later, and I have no shortage of constructive/creative/social things I will be doinh (and am partially doing now albeit constrained by work), and certainly won’t be downing pints at the golf course bar every day.
I’m down to a 15-hour week now and have plans for things to do after I retire fully, but they don’t really involve work, or not anything that will bring in money anyway! But if I had something I simply enjoyed doing enough that happened to bring in money, I would be all for it. What I wouldn’t do is risk money by putting it into a new venture that might not succeed.
Regarding your wife’s superpower (the chatty one) – it’s a great skill. I have a friend who recently retired and is travelling around and everywhere he goes he seems to fall into conversation with people. I’m a friendly enough person (I think!) but I can quite easily travel around and end up speaking to virtually nobody. It’s actually something I want to work on improving!