OpinionRugby World Cup 2019: Japan’s moment in the sun begins now as country enters crucial phase as modern nation

The land of the rising sun is set to have its moment in the sun, but an ageing population and dwindling workforce have the country’s leaders on edge

With the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Summer Olympics, Japan has a chance to showcase the best of its culture to the world

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Japan is about to have the international spotlight shone on its itself, for better or worse. Photo: EPA

Published: 12:56pm, 19 Sep 2019Updated: 10:02pm, 21 Sep 2019

The last time Japan hosted an Olympics was back in 1998 when Nagano held the winter edition. To put that into perspective, Hong Kong’s handover from Britain was less than a year old.

Now the Asian nation is about to open its doors to the modern world. It all starts on Friday as Japan will host the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Call it a dress rehearsal for the big dance: the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. Tokyo, which many consider the largest metropolitan area in the world (the Greater Bay Area is closing in on 40 million people) is at times a perplexing city much like the nation itself.

The country’s doors are open to tourists and travellers alike, but its insular culture has given Japan and Japanese society a sense of mundane mystique. Japan’s lost decades, a period of economic stagnation which stretched from the early 1990s all the way to 2010, coupled with an aversion towards immigration, something now biting its rapidly ageing population, has saddled the country with the oddest of stigmas. To put it bluntly, many people know about Japan, but not a lot of people actually know what it is like in Japan.

This is all going to change. Close to half a million people have now descended upon Tokyo to watch their favourite nation vie for rugby supremacy, and they will be bringing their wallets and preconceived notions along with them. Next summer, close to a million people will flood the city for the world’s most prestigious and long-standing sporting event. Japanese people, whether they like it or not, are going to become hosts to all walks of life.

The 2019 Rugby World Cup will kick off a year of intense media attention and scrutiny for Japan. Photo: AP

The country has a serious problem right now. It’s birth rate is in free fall, as for the third year in a row less than a million people were born in Japan. On top of this, Japan is getting old and has the world’s highest life expectancy (84 years). More than 28 per cent of its population is over 65 and more than half of the babies born in Japan this year can expect to live to at least 100.

Japan’s labour shortage is also well documented. There are currently 1.6 vacancies for every job application as people are spending more time drawing on government funds such as pensions, medical care and social security. The solution is simple: draw more people into the workforce, both at home and from abroad. But in Japan, tricky cultural traditions have created oddities. Women are joining the workforce, but then they are forgoing marriage and kids to focus on their gruelling careers. Japan is notorious for its lack of work-life balance.