TOKYO, Japan – Every morning at 6:30, as the trains begin shaking Tokyo awake, I slip out of our apartment and walk to a nearby park. What started as a way to clear my head from the mountain of legal work waiting on my desk slowly turned into something else. Around the large man-made pond, a small group of elderly neighbors gathers each morning for Radio Taiso, Japan’s radio exercise routine. They move in sync to the old piano melody playing softly from a mobile phone speaker—some with perfect form, others wobbling slightly, all of them smiling through it.
TAISO. The nearby park where elderly Japanese, including Japan’s former defense minister Gen Nakatani, do their Radio Taiso. Photo by Ricky Sabornay
The group first came together during the pandemic, when people were desperate for routine and human contact. Most are in their seventies now. Our oldest member, Jun, turns 92 this year. Many spent their younger years as teachers, civil servants, company directors, or business owners—the kind of people who quietly helped build postwar Japan. And despite their age, they show up every morning with a steadiness that is difficult not to admire.
At first, I stayed at the back, copying their movements and trying not to stand out. But over time, the routine itself dissolved the distance between us. Nods became smiles. Smiles became short conversations between stretches. I was invited to come forward and join the group. Before long, I no longer felt like an outsider observing the group and felt like part of it.
