Toshinori Sasaki

 Returning on


     Returning on means repaying an obligation, but on is defined as an unpayable thing. There is no such word in English, but actions based on it
surely exist in the U.S. When someone helps you, and you feel grateful to them, at that time you will get on simultaneously. On is a feeling that you will get when you feel grateful toward someone who helped you. I think that life
management for parents includes visiting, checking their parents’ bank account, and Lifealert is one type of returning on.

     What people do for returning on is similar to one in Japan. People get older, know what their parents experienced (it is usually something hard), and they have come to want to do something for them because of your appreciation toward them, for example, sometimes grandparents visit their daughter or son’s home to have fun, or conversely, parents or kids (or both) go visit grandparents’ home to please them. When parents visit them, they clean
their parents’ house up or cook for them. Some grandparents are invited to home for dinner from their big child or have dinner with them at a restaurant. They enjoy it because they can see their child and their grandchild. Some parents check grandparents’ bank account not to spend much money, or Lifealert, which is an emergency response and help the elderly contact emergency services, is other way of returning on.

     The symbol of this activity is actions, such as life managements I mentioned because not only they are just for pleasing or helping them, but also on which is not visible is lying in them. This symbol is only from parents to their parents, and it is a personal symbol for parents. I could not find any myths about this.

     It is telling children how important your parents are and to be proud of them and appreciate them. I believe that it is ritualization because although it has some functions of a ritual and less happens, there is no specific time to do it, roles, and orders in this ritual, and it is flexible. There are many ways of doing this, and it is really depend on your family background.

In the Japanese society, parent-child relationships are very important. As a Japanese matures into an adult he or she usually experiences 恩 or “On” because they realize that their parents had provided/cared for them their entire life and will never pay back this debt. They feel obligated to pay back this unpayable debt by taking care of their parents, as they get older. According to Takeo Doi, “on means that one has incurred a kind of psychological burden as a result of receiving a favor,” (34). 

There are many ways that Japanese people repay On to their elders. It really depends on what the parents want their children to do. If the child came from a poor family, they can return “on” by earning a lot of money and give it to their parents. Or if the mother likes to garden, but becomes unable to because of her old age, her child can help her perform the tasks in gardening that she is unable to do. The reason why the child helps with the gardening is because the mother dedicated most of her life to caring for the child and the child knew that gardening is something that the mother enjoyed, so the child will help to show their appreciation for their mother caring for them.

Another way of returning “on” in Japan that is kind of like American tradition is putting their parents into a ろじん (rojin) home or かいご (kaigo), which is the equivalent to American care homes. The child pays for their parents to receive that level of care because they want to repay what their parents did for them, by helping giving them the medical care that they need in order to live longer and healthier. However, the child will always feel that paying for this medical care/new living situation will never be enough to repay for the things that their parents did for them.

Usually it is the first son who carries out most of the responsibilities for repaying the “on”. The first son of the family takes care of his aged parents by letting them live in his family’s house. The son does this because he feels obligated to repay his parents back for all the things that they had done for him. When the parents live with the son, they are not always responsible for doing daily chores for themselves.

There is one myth that can be associated with “on,” and it is the development cycle of a human. Humans start off childish, then mature into an adult and then they become childish again. Adults feel like they have to take care of the child, so although the person is older in age, they become like a child and begin to lose their motor skills. Losing these motor skills make it hard for the elderly to care for themselves, so the younger adults feel obligated to take care of them.

This rite of passage includes all three stages the: seperation, transitional, and reaggrigation. The seperation stage of this rite of passage is when the child (who’s an adult) realizes that he needs to pay back this unpayable debt to his parents, and he tells his parents that he wants them to live with his family. The transition stage is when the parents are moving into his home and they are selling their old house. The reaggrigation stage is when the parents/son get comfortable in their new environment and spend time with their son.

Some symbols that could be associated with “on” are: the emblem of the care home, or even a gardening shovel. A care home emblem could mean security for some people because they feel safe knowing that their parent(s) are safe in the care home and they will receive the attention that they will not be able to get if they were living on their own or with the child. A gardening shovel could be a personal symbol for someone because if they repay “on” by helping their parent(s) with gardening then it could symbolize the memories that they had together.

Even though the Japanese have a word for this feeling of obligation to pay back an unpayable debt that they have for their parents, this is a ritualization. Though there is at least one myth that can be associated with “on,” this way of thinking might not hold true to every Japanese. There are some symbols that could be associated with “on” but they are not the same for everyone. However, there is a common order to how Japanese attempt to return “on,” which is: the parent(s) takes care of the child, the child grows up to an adult as the parent(s) age, the parents turn change to grandparents and get to a certain stage of their life where they need to have their child (who is now an adult) care for them because he/she has a steady source of income and is physically capable of doing the things that the parents are unable to do. Not every Japanese partakes in this ritualization though because some members of the older generation will not accept this feeling of “on” and want to take care of themselves. But, there are still some people who accept “on” and allow their children to try to repay this unpayable debt back.

Works Cited:"Koreikyo: A Japanese Home Care Co-op Run For and By Seniors." Grassroots Economic Organizing. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.

Doi, Takeo. The Anatomy of Dependence. Tokyo: Kodansha International; [distributed by Harper & Row, New York, 1973. Print.

Sasaki, Toshinori. 10/13/13. Oregon, 2013.