The 100th birthday of the British Queen Mother this year led to much speculation about how she had attained her century. Does pink gin have some wondrous preserving quality? Do corgis conduct life-giving properties? Are the beefeaters protecting a secret more precious than the Queen jewels?
For the true answer to longevity we should look to Japan, where this year, the coveted prize went yet again to the Japanese woman. The average Japanese woman now lives over 83 years. By the year 2050, scientists predict the average Japanese life expectancy will reach 90. Last year, it was reported that the total number of Japanese living beyond 100 hit a record 11,346 - the majority of whom (9,373) were women. On hearing this, I celebrated the quality of my genes and toasted their hard work. Apparently, the key to their success is the traditional Japanese diet, which is incredibly low in fat. Although I have eaten a lot of seaweed and fish in my time, it has been counterbalanced by my consumption of lactic fat and beer. A doctor friend of mine even diagnosed me as "Japanese deficient". Apparently, after 25 years of living in Ireland, my body has given in to the call of Irish biology.
For most of my life, Japan seemed very removed from my life here in Ireland. Not one person I knew while I was growing up had ever been there. Consequently, my view of Japan was a mish-mash of hearsay, unfounded rumours and fairy tales - of which my own family were never a part.
When I was very young, a boy gave me a Valentine's card, with a drawing of a Japanese woman in a kimono, fanning herself and smiling shyly. "That's you," he said. Red-faced and roaring mad, I shouted: "That is not me. That is nothing like me". Crying, I tore it up, leaving the poor boy stunned. The image of that Japanese woman had touched something inside me which I didn't understand. In one way, she was distant from my experience, but in another way, I knew that she was also part of me. When I travelled to Japan this year, I found myself entering into a strange compare-and-contrast game with the women I saw around me. It was the lives of the women, rather than their appearance, that drew my fascination. A day trip to Kyoto became a hunt to spot a maiko (the Kyoto name for geisha). I wanted to follow them invisibly and see what they did with their day. Not in any unsavoury way, but just to get a slice of their lives as they lived them.
My mother refused to go into Gion, the home of the Geisha in Kyoto. "Why do you want to see them so much?" she asked. "So I can get to know Japanese women better," I replied. "Would you not be better meeting ordinary Japanese women?"
When my mother said this I realised I was pandering to my preconceptions of an idealised view of women in Japan. They were not exotic birds or walking, talking cliches. They were my mother, my grandmother and me. It was this point that the Japanese Ambassador to Ireland, Kazuko Yokoo, was keen to emphasise when I met her. "I feel that you may be trying to compare Irish women and Japanese women. And in doing that I feel also that you may be coming from your own preconceptions. You must understand the experiences of women in Japan vary greatly between generations and even between regions. With a population of 125 million people, you cannot say there is such a thing as a typical Japanese woman. Putting across a stereotype can cause misunderstanding."
Sumiko Iwao, in The Japanese Woman (Free Press, 1993), argues that the popular view of Japanese women is often a stereotype contrasted with the experiences of western, and especially American, women. This, she feels, has given rise to an inaccurate view of women in Japan - particularly in relation to the western women's movement - because the differing philosophies set the two cultures apart. The pragmatic approach adopted by Japanese women, together with (some would say) the Buddhist ideal of taking things as they come, has made their perspective on their roles different from those of "liberated" Western countries, says Iwao. The post-war constitution in Japan states: "All the people are equal under law". In 1994, an Office for Gender Equality was established, and strenuous efforts have been made to increase the appointment of women within government. Yokoo explains: "The situation for women in Japan is rapidly changing. There have always been women who wanted to be at home and there have been women who wanted to work. The change now is that women can have the choice."
Japan's young women are becoming the driving force in the country's recovering economy. They have made the choice to put babies at the bottom of the priority list. With such long lives to look forward to, the young Japanese women of today have shifted the emphasis from marriage and children to education and a career. Mini skyscrapers dedicated to women's clothing stand testament to the fact that young women are Japan's biggest spenders. Fashion trends are all created by the tastes of the women. Anything kawaii (cute), pink or cuddly , instantly becomes a bestseller. Some commentators feel this movement by women in Japan is inextricably linked to the country's fascination with all things western. My grandmother believed all western men looked like Montgomery Clift and was very disappointed when the first western man she met, a friend of my sister's and a great hulk of a Celt from Kerry, did not possess smouldering eyes or pointy cheekbones and did not swashbuckle in his spare time.
One Irish friend studying in Japan marvelled at my western ways over a steaming bowl of ramen: "You know you are what these young Japanese women want to be" "What, buxom and messy?" I spluttered, spraying two delicate Japanese girls beside me with noodles. "No, you're western," he replied. Rather than trying to emulate the West, Japanese women are moving with the natural progression of a developing society, says Noriko Monzawa, who is studying at UCD. Aged 25, she jokes that she is at the traditional Japanese age limit of marriage for women. "They call it Christmas. After Christmas, no one will want to eat the Christmas cake.
"This attitude is changing," she adds, and although she does not describe herself as a typical Japanese girl (she remembers beating up boys who bullied her friends), she thinks that her experience is that of more and more Japanese women. "My father always taught me to be strong, and my parents encouraged me to study. After a visit to America I knew that I wanted to travel abroad to study." When asked if she would stay in Ireland, she nods her head vigorously. "I like being independent. Here I can be myself." But this is not the first time women have had a strong position in Japanese society. Centuries ago, in the days of sun worship, Japan was a matriarchal society and the deities who ruled everyday life were female, similar to the days of Sile na Gig. On the southern island of Okinawa, some of these traditional religious beliefs still exist, and it is on this island that the Japanese women's movement is strongest.
Okinawa was originally known as the Ryuku Kingdom. Unlike in the rest of Japan, Buddhism and Shinto did not take a strong hold in Okinawa and many of the native islanders still see themselves as separate from '"mainland" Japan - the Ryukuan traditional belief of ancestor worship is still practised. Eiko Asato, a well-known Okinawan writer, and author of The Spiritual World of Ryuku, links the strong position of women in the community to the native religion. "For us, spiritually, the grandmother is the most important person in the family. She is the root of all the family and the link between past and present. Only she can conduct the religious rites and rituals. Even the shape of the tombs in which we bury our family symbolises the womb. It is where we come from and eventually return."
My search to find out more about Japanese women has brought me in contact with energetic, independent women of different generations, all of whom have a great sense of self. Chie Oda, a senior lecturer of Japanese at UCD has been living here for six years: "People say to me that I am more Irish than the Irish themselves. They say that to me, but deep down I know I am very Japanese. I wonder where this comes from. Then I remembered my tea-ceremony lessons.
"At the age of three, I started to learn the art of the Japanese tea ceremony from a lovely women who I realise now taught me a quite lot. She taught me to treat light things as if they were heavy and to treat heavy things as if they were light.
"Now I realise that this philosophy is very important not just in the tea ceremony but in life, because often things that are light and weak can be very precious and should be treated with respect as if they were heavy. While things that are heavy and which could be thought of as clumsy should be treated with a delicate hand, as if they were light. "I remember very clearly lifting a cup by the rim, which is the way we were meant to hold it. But my hands were so small that I only held on to the lid and the leaves dropped on the floor, all over a tatami mat. I was so embarrassed. But my teacher acted so pleased. `How wonderful,' she said. `I needed some leaves for the fire and now I have some.' Even though I was so small and young, she was treating me as if I was heavy."
When I look back, I regret my ignorance about my heritage and my lack of respect for things that were different. If God would grant me a Valentine's card now, I would treat it as if it was the heaviest thing on earth.