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.

日本约有10万名百岁人瑞，总数居全球之首，人均占比更是冠绝各国。高龄带来的衰弱正给日本带来挑战——创历史新低的出生率意味着退休人口持续增加，而为他们提供供养的适龄劳动人口却不断减少。

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.

但对一些人来说，活到一百岁只是丰盈人生中的又一个里程碑。我们采访了五位非凡的百岁老人，他们把长寿归功于健康饮食、日本普惠的医疗体系、锻炼以及家人支持。但对这五个人来说，还有一个共同特质：持续工作。

The Bicycle Repairman

自行车修理匠

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.

12岁那年，石井清一（音）放学途经东京下町地区时，偶然看见自行车修理铺橱窗上的招聘启示。他一直很喜欢修车师傅穿的深蓝色连体工作服，渴望有朝一日也能穿上它。

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!”

如今90多年过去了，石井先生仍在自己的小店里修车。尽管工装裤的裤腿对他日渐佝偻的身形显得过长，但他每天晚上仍带着对明天可能有顾客上门的期待入睡。“如果我死在这里，在我的工作坊里，我也会感到幸福，”他说，“我是个劳动者，这一点不会因为年龄而改变！”

石井在东京的店铺里，正在修理顾客自行车上的车灯。他喜欢拆解自行车再重新组装。

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.

现年103岁的石井先生依然热爱拆卸螺栓和轮胎，将零件重新组装复原，尽管双手已不再如从前那般听使唤，视力也不复年少时的清晰。

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.

石井经历过战争年代，那时一切都没有保障。修车所得是他每月5万日元（约330美元）养老金之外的一份补充。“你永远不知道会发生什么，”他在店后那间杂乱的厨房里为自己煮味噌汤，一边说道。

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.

修车给他带来的快乐甚至超过唱卡拉OK，每个礼拜天，他都会骑着三轮车去自己最喜欢的小酒吧唱歌。在特别的卡拉OK聚会时，他还会穿上那件旧连体工作服，把裤脚卷起。

The Ramen Chef

拉面师傅

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.

每周有五六天的午市时段，天川福（音）都会在自家的拉面店跟一双儿女一起忙碌。她用长筷子在猪骨汤中搅动鸡蛋面，再往盛着热汤的碗里撒上切碎的葱花。

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

“真没想到能坚持工作这么久还不觉得腻，”她边给餐盘消毒边说。

天川在她的餐厅休息。天川手持鲜花，出席餐厅60周年庆典活动。

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.

102岁的天川女士说她一直都比较倔。她曾将父母安排的婚事一拖再拖，但成家后便与丈夫共同经营起这家餐馆，今年是开业的第60个年头。

“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.

“我还能继续工作，真的很美好。无论是身体上还是心理上，这都改变了我生活的质量，”她说，在她上方挂着一张去年来店里用餐的歌手、演员木村拓哉的签名照片。天川女士的皮肤闪着光泽，她说那是厨房里蒸汽的功劳。

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.

她最害怕的事情之一就是丧失行走能力，而工作让她保持健康。去年，她胸口疼痛，一度慌了神，以为自己心脏出了问题。但医生告诉她不用担心——那不过是她经常拿重锅导致的肌肉酸痛。

The Farmer

农夫

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.

在松尾正文（音）年轻的时候，屋后田野曾经开满了黄灿灿的油菜花——那是他最喜欢的花。他喜爱这种蔬菜略带的苦味，因为煮熟便化作清甜，当年他正是种植并出售这种作物。而今接手家业的儿子却改种了水稻——毕竟稻作省力得多。

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.

现年101岁的松尾仍依时节栽种茄子、黄瓜和豆类。“劳作是为保持健康，”7月某个清晨，他边说边将塑料凳拖到田里，在给稻苗浇水的间隙坐下小憩饮水。

松尾在家中与孙女共处。“劳作是为保持健康，但这也是我唯一会做的事，”松尾说。“我这一辈子都在干这个。”

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.

松尾出生、成长并抚养了三个孩子的这座小镇位于九州西南部沿海的大分县群山之间。四年前，他的妻子去世，这对他打击很大。每天早晨，他都会扶着栏杆爬上二楼，那里有他为妻子设立的小佛龛，他每天都为她奉上一碗新煮的米饭。

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.

战胜过食道癌、又在99岁高龄挺过新冠的松尾，在周末会和一岁大的曾孙时君玩耍。每日耕作结束后，他回到屋内，坐在厚重棉被覆盖的暖桌旁休息。他钻进被炉的温暖中，身后的窗台上有蚱蜢跳跃。

The Beauty Consultant

美容顾问

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.

堀野友子（音）始终坚信，自己的人生不应囿于家庭。受到一位推销员的启发，她萌生了卖化妆品的念头。但那时她是三个孩子的年轻母亲，按照当时的社会观念，女性外出工作被认为是不合适的。

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.

39岁那年，她偶遇一位老朋友，对方的丈夫正在为她多年前就钟爱的那个化妆品品牌招募销售。孩子们已经长大，于是她接下了这份工作。堀野喜欢看到顾客试用她推荐的口红色号或粉底液时容光焕发的脸庞。

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

“我第一次化妆时，觉得自己好漂亮，”她说，“我也希望能让别人有同样的感觉。”

堀野在福岛县邻居家完成一笔销售后离开（她买了防晒霜）。堀野傍晚在家中。她说，让自己忙碌起来能减轻孤独感。

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.

她的丈夫在一家公司上班，对于妻子外出工作颇为不满，但家计困窘使他只得妥协。他唯一的要求是她必须去不会被熟人认出的地方做上门推销。她应允了，每天辗转至少一小时的路程上门销售。没过多久，她的收入就超过了丈夫。

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.

如今102岁的她寡居独处，主要通过电话销售，偶尔上门拜访。让自己忙碌起来有助于驱散孤独。余暇时，她或者打毛衣，或者给在这一带出没的猫喂金枪鱼味的猫粮，或等待街坊来喝乌龙茶。尽管多数老主顾已先她离去，她从未考虑过放弃这份事业。

“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.

“我喜欢让大家感到自己很美，”堀野说。当她看到顾客的自信提升时，“便是这份工作中最重要、最幸福的所在。”

The Storyteller

说书人

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.

小野知世端坐垫上准备开讲时，全场一片寂静。接着，她从那瘦小的身躯深处发出洪亮的声音，开始讲述一则关于公牛和小熊的民间故事，字字圆润。

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

她边说边用手生动地比划，观众屏息倾听。故事结束时，满堂喝彩。

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.”

能说50个故事的小野是位古稀之后为兴趣而执业的民间说书人。“我这辈子没做过什么正经工作，真能胜任吗？”她说当时暗自思忖，“我是在郊区长大的，那时候的女孩根本不知道自己也可以有梦想。”

小野开始新的一天。小野（中）70岁开始说书。她说：“我是在郊区长大的，那时候的女孩根本不知道自己也可以有梦想。”

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.

如今101岁的她，已是说书界最年长又最有活力的人物。2011年海啸摧毁了她在福岛的家后，她便立誓要将灾民经历融入口述艺术。

“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.

“我活着就是为了讲述，”小野任由泪珠滚落面颊。她表示，想到民间故事或海啸的记忆可能被遗忘，让她感到害怕。

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.

每天，她都会写日记，还会用黏糊糊的纳豆——一种发酵大豆制成的食物——夹着两片松软的白面包吃。偶尔，她会在看报纸时打起瞌睡，儿媳则在一旁整理屋子。“倚老卖老嘛，”她笑道。

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.

小野说，最近她“已经不再梦见活着的人”，梦中出现的都是过去的朋友和家人。她说，她决心一直讲故事，直到有一天与他们重逢。

小野与朋友们散步。