Working Past 100? In Japan, Some People Never Quit. - The New York Times

Working Past 100? In Japan, Some People Never Quit. - The New York Times





Most people can’t imagine living to 100.

For those who do, work has usually been left behind long ago.

We spoke with five centenarians who have never retired.

Their jobs have become a part of their identities.

And the secret to a life fulfilled.


Working Past 100? In Japan, Some People Never Quit.

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Visuals by Chang W. Lee

Text by Hikari Hida


Chang W. Lee and Hikari Hida traveled across Japan to interview the five centenarians.
Nov. 1, 2025
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Japan has about 100,000 people who have lived for a century or more — the most in the world, and more per capita than in any other country. The frailty that comes with age is creating challenges for Japan, where a record-low birthrate means ever more retirees and fewer working-age people to support them.

But for some people, reaching 100 is just another milestone in a full life. We met five remarkable centenarians who credited their longevity to eating well, Japan’s affordable health care, exercise and family support. But for these five, there is also something else: their work.
The Bicycle Repairman
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“If I die here, in my workshop, I will be happy.”

Seiichi Ishii, 103


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As a 12-year-old, Seiichi Ishii was walking home from school one day when he came across a “help wanted” sign in the window of a bicycle repair shop in the Shitamachi district of Tokyo. He had always admired the long navy jumpsuits that bike repairmen wore, and he wanted to step into one himself.

More than 90 years after that start, Mr. Ishii is still fixing bikes at his own shop. Though the legs of the jumpsuit are too long for his shrinking body, he goes to bed every night excited about the customers who might show up the next day. “If I die here, in my workshop, I will be happy,” he said. “I am a working man, and that doesn’t change with age!”

ImageMr. Ishii at his shop in Tokyo, fixing a light on a customer’s bike.

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He relishes taking bicycles apart and putting them back together.

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Karaoke is Mr. Ishii’s favorite hobby.


Mr. Ishii, 103, loves removing bolts and tires and puzzling out how to piece everything back together, though his hands have grown shaky and his vision is blurrier than in his younger days.


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Mr. Ishii remembers living through the war, when nothing was guaranteed. His income from the repairs supplements a monthly pension of 50,000 yen, or about $330. “You never know what will happen,” he said, making miso soup for one in the cluttered kitchen behind his shop.

Working on bikes brings him even more joy than singing karaoke, which he does every Sunday at his favorite snack bar. He rides a tricycle to get there. On special karaoke outings, he wears his old jumpsuit with the hems rolled up.
The Ramen Chef
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“I’ve experienced many hills and valleys throughout my life. Now, I am on top of a hill.”

Fuku Amakawa, 102


Five or six days a week, Fuku Amakawa works the lunch shift at her family’s ramen restaurant alongside her son and daughter, using long chopsticks to swirl egg noodles in pork broth and sprinkling chopped spring onions into bowls filled with hot soup.

“I can’t believe I’ve managed to work this long without getting bored,” she said while disinfecting serving trays.

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Ms. Amakawa taking a break at her restaurant.

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“Physically and emotionally, it changes the quality of my life,” Ms. Amakawa said of her work.

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Ms. Amakawa, holding flowers, during a celebration of the restaurant’s 60th anniversary.


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Ms. Amakawa, 102, says she has always been a bit stubborn. She put off her arranged marriage as long as she could. But after she made the leap, she opened the restaurant with her husband. Its 60th anniversary was this year.

“It is really beautiful that I can still work. Physically and emotionally, it changes the quality of my life,” she said, sitting below an autographed photograph of Takuya Kimura, a singer and actor who visited the restaurant last year. Ms. Amakawa’s skin glistens, which she attributes to all the steam in the kitchen.

One of her biggest fears is losing the ability to walk, and she says the work helps her stay fit. Last year, she felt pain in her chest and panicked, afraid she was having heart problems. But a doctor told her not to worry: It was just muscle pain, from lifting heavy pans.
The Farmer
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“I dreamed of being an actor, but farming is what has kept me alive.”

Masafumi Matsuo, 101


Bright yellow rapeseed flowers, Masafumi Matsuo’s favorite, filled the fields behind his home when he was young. He loved the mild bitterness of the vegetable, which turns sweet when cooked, and which he farmed and sold. But his son, who now runs the family farm, decided to replace the flowers with rice, a less laborious crop to maintain.

Mr. Matsuo, 101, also grows eggplants, cucumbers and beans across different seasons. “I work to stay healthy,” he said on a July morning, dragging a plastic stool out into the field, where he sipped water during breaks from watering his rice seedlings.

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Mr. Matsuo exercised before going to work in the fields.

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Mr. Matsuo at home with one of his granddaughters, Yuka Satake.

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“I do it to stay healthy, but farming is also all I know,” Mr. Matsuo said. “I’ve been doing this my whole life.”

Mr. Matsuo was born, grew up and raised three children in his town, which is nestled in the mountains of Oita, a coastal prefecture on the southwestern island of Kyushu. His wife died four years ago, which devastated him. Every morning, he climbs the stairs, clutching the railing, to the second floor, where he has made a Buddhist shrine to his wife, and brings her freshly cooked rice.

Mr. Matsuo, who survived esophageal cancer and, at 99, a bout of Covid, spends his weekends playing with his year-old great-grandson, Toki. After farming each day, he goes inside to rest at his kotatsu, a heated table that’s covered with heavy blankets. He slides down into their warmth, as grasshoppers bounce around on the windowsill behind him.
The Beauty Consultant
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“I love making people feel beautiful.”

Tomoko Horino, 102


Tomoko Horino always knew there was more in store for her than staying home. Inspired by a saleswoman she had met, she wanted to sell makeup. But she was a young mother of three, and cultural norms meant it would not be considered proper for her to work.

At 39, she ran into an old friend whose husband was recruiting saleswomen for the same makeup brand she’d fallen in love with years before. With her children older, she took the job. Ms. Horino loved seeing her customers’ faces light up as they tried a new lipstick color or foundation that she’d suggested.

“When I first tried on makeup, I felt so pretty,” she said. “I wanted to make others feel the same way.”

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Ms. Horino leaving a neighbor’s home in Fukushima after a sale (she bought sunscreen).

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Ms. Horino at home at dusk. Keeping busy helps her feel less lonely, she said.

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“I have a personality where I get obsessed with things,” Ms. Horino said. “Hitting my monthly sales target has become one of those things, though most of my clients have passed away. I feel happy and triumphant when I reach my goal.”


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Her husband, who worked in an office, wasn’t happy to have a wife who also worked, but the family was in a dire financial situation. All he asked was that she knock on doors where she wouldn’t be recognized. She complied, traveling at least an hour from home to sell her products. Soon she was making more than he was.

Now widowed and living alone at 102, she makes her sales over the phone, with only occasional home visits. Keeping busy helps her fend off loneliness. She spends the rest of her time knitting, feeding tuna-flavored kibble to the neighborhood cat, and waiting for neighbors to drop by for a cup of oolong tea. Though she has outlived most of her clients, she’s never considered quitting her job.

“I love making people feel beautiful,” Ms. Horino said. When she sees a customer’s self-confidence rise, “that is the most important and joyful part of this,” she said.
The Storyteller
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“I’m living to tell my stories.”

Tomeyo Ono, 101

When Tomeyo Ono plopped onto a cushion to begin her performance, there was total silence. Then, from somewhere deep in her petite body, she started to recite the folk tale of a bull and a baby bear, with perfect enunciation.

As she spoke, she gestured wildly with her hands, the audience hanging on every word. At the end, the room filled with applause.

With a repertoire of 50 stories, Ms. Ono is a teller of minwa, or folk tales, a career she took up for fun after turning 70. “I’ve never had a proper job before, can I do this?” she said she thought at the time. “I was raised in the suburbs, and girls didn’t know that we could have dreams back then.”

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Ms. Ono beginning her day.

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She has a repertoire of 50 folk tales.

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Ms. Ono, center, took up storytelling after turning 70. “I was raised in the suburbs, and girls didn’t know that we could have dreams back then,” she said.


Now 101, she is the oldest, and loudest, member of a storytelling collective. After the 2011 tsunami washed away her home in Fukushima, she vowed to incorporate the experiences of its survivors into her work.

“I’m living to tell my stories,” Ms. Ono said, tears rolling down her cheeks. She said she was terrified by the idea of folk tales, or memories of the tsunami, being lost.

Every day, she writes in her journal and eats natto — a sticky dish made from fermented soybeans — folded between two pieces of fluffy white bread. Occasionally, she dozes off while reading the newspaper as her daughter-in-law tidies up around her. “I get special treatment because I’m the oldest,” she chuckled.

Lately, Ms. Ono said, she “no longer dreams of the living,” seeing only friends and family from the past. She is determined to keep telling stories until she joins them, she said.

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Ms. Ono strolling with friends.


Chang W. Lee contributed reporting.


Chang W. Lee has been a photographer for The Times for 30 years, covering events throughout the world. He is currently based in Seoul. Follow him on Instagram @nytchangster.


Hikari Hida reported from the Tokyo bureau of The New York Times from 2020 to 2023.
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 2, 2025, Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Doesn’t That Job Get Old? In Japan, Centenarians Do It To Feel Young.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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