AstroBoy Online Forums

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/04/390687977/born-in-1898-world-s-oldest-living-person-celebrates-birthday?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150304

Anyone surprised that she lives in Japan?

"Tetsuwan Penguin" wrote:Anyone surprised that she lives in Japan?

Not at all. Japanese people tend to live the longest out of any race of people. In fact, if you look at the list of the verified oldest living people, most of them are Japanese:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_living_people

Something interesting about Misao Okawa's birthday this year was something noted in the TIME magazine article about the same subject:

http://time.com/3731407/worlds-oldest-person-117/

The world’s oldest person has lived through two World Wars and the invention of the first airplane, but it doesn’t seem like a long time to Misao Okawa.

“It seemed rather short,” Okawa said on Wednesday, the day before her 117th birthday, the Associated Press reports. When Okawa was asked about the secret to her longevity, she said nonchalantly, “I wonder about that too.”

It just goes to show how fleeting life can be. I've noticed that as I get older, time (no pun intended) seems to get shorter and shorter. I'm sure that a few decades from now I'll wonder where the time went.

Anyway, it's pretty cool to think about someone living as long as 117 years. Happy birthday to Okawa-san!

I thought that should be Okawa-chan for a female.

It seems that the USA is also well represented on that list as well.

"Tetsuwan Penguin" wrote:I thought that should be Okawa-chan for a female.

I'm not familiar with Japanese honorifics, but I'm pretty sure it's -san. I asked my sister, who is fluent in Japanese, and she says that -chan is used mainly for small children (specifically little girls) and also for familial grandparents. Wikipedia backs this up by saying: "In general, chan is used for babies, young children, grandparents and teenagers."

-san should be correct in this instance since it's the Japanese version of saying "Mr.", "Mrs.", and "Miss". I was going for "Mrs." in my last post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics

"Shiyonasan" wrote:[QUOTE=Tetsuwan Penguin;232235]I thought that should be Okawa-chan for a female.

I'm not familiar with Japanese honorifics, but I'm pretty sure it's -san. I asked my sister, who is fluent in Japanese, and she says that -chan is used mainly for small children (specifically little girls) and also for familial grandparents. Wikipedia backs this up by saying: "In general, chan is used for babies, young children, grandparents and teenagers."

-san should be correct in this instance since it's the Japanese version of saying "Mr.", "Mrs.", and "Miss". I was going for "Mrs." in my last post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics[/QUOTE]

OK, that may be correct. I thought there were two different forms that were gender specific, but maybe in this case it's age specific. I know Kun is for young males.

Unfortunately, this is no April Fools joke; Misao Okawa passed away today:

http://news.yahoo.com/worlds-oldest-person-dies-117-041447240.html

Gertrude Weaver, a 116-year-old woman from Arkansas, is now the oldest recorded person on Earth. She is just under 4 months younger than Okawa was.