First time in the big city…

Only in America… God-bless diversity.

Conversations with Sakai-san, a 78-year pensioner, house-squatting in rural Toyama. The youngest member of a six-sibling family, living alone with dementia, and barely subsisting off a government pension, Sakai-san is an example of Japan’s aging population and the problems they face.

Toyama prefecture, Japan, September 2006 – May 2007.

Never married, and with no children to help, Sakai-san subsists on a government pension, living in an abandoned house in rural Toyama to avoid paying rent.

With dementia already in play, Sakai-san has a difficult time with short-term memory. Old notes and newspapers scatter the floor, figures from the past imagined from the present.

Left: Oranges and laundry, armchair and rice cooker. Everything has it’s place; remembered, forgotten, then found anew.
Right: Two 40-watt bulbs light a narrow front room Sakai-san has turned into his primary living space.

Kitchen and bathroom all rolled into one.

Left: Seventeen when WWII ended, Sakai-san worked a variety of jobs to put food on the plate; the first was as a traveling medicine salesman, a job with historical precedence in Toyama dating back to the Edo era.
Right: Neko-chan, one of two cats that keeps loneliness at bay.

Left: With no gas connection and only one extension cord, Sakai-san is ingenious with utilities. The rice maker functions as a cooking device with which weathered hands prepare everything from tea to boiled fish.
Right: After a chance encounter with the art world in Tokyo, Sakai-san decided to sell pictures to various businesses and government offices in the Hokuriku area.

“I couldn’t draw worth a damn when I was young, but I’ve always been interested in the arts. People don’t buy much in the way of that out here, so it’s hard to convince them to spend money on a print –- have to go to the man at the top, you know, the number one in charge -– number two won’t do.” Sakai-san on selling art in the countryside.

“This one. Yeah, this one. It’s interesting isn’t it? Problem is, I can’t just cart it around with me everywhere – too heavy you see. Besides, can’t walk in and see them [business/government executives] with the real thing. So I take photographs instead, that’s what I show them, copies.” Sakai-san on his approach to potential clients.

“Might be able to sell this. It’s good but the background is unfinished, see. If it were mine I’d fill in those patchy areas with some solid color – something flat, make it smooth.”

“Have you ever thought about doing it yourself?”

Chuckling, “Oh – no, no, I’m not a painter.”

Old age and lack of mobility have made selling paintings a practical impossiblity now, but old art history books help keep the dream alive.

Sakai-san’s dilapidated, yet homely kitchen.

Left: A lone bottle of spirits sits on a run-down kitchen counter.
Right: Cold water flows constantly through the kitchen tap, conveniently rigged to the offshoot of a water treatment plant nearby.

Sakai Shouta.

“Can I take your portrait?”

“Yup…”

An evening glimpse into the front room of Sakai-san’s home.

Although he often tries to go to the city, it takes more than 1.5 hours for Sakai-san to walk from his home to nearest major road. From there he hitchhikes or takes the bus. The journey has become increasingly difficult, leaving Sakai-san more and more alone in his old age.

Check out the book for the whole story.