The lifestyle of Japan's long-lived elderly
日本长寿老人的生活方式
You have probably heard that Japan consistently has among the highest life expectancy in the world and that the island of Okinawa has the greatest concentration of centenarians (people who live to at least 100).
你可能听说过，日本一直是世界上预期寿命最高的国家之一，冲绳岛的百岁老人(活到至少100岁的人)最多。
I have long been fascinated by centenarians and the life lessons they have to share. But the truth is, I have never been sure I would want to live that long unless I could somehow be certain I would have a strong mind and body.
长久以来，我一直被百岁老人及其分享的人生经验所吸引。但事实是，我从来没有确定我想活那么久，除非我能以某种方式确定我将有一个强大的精神和身体。
That is why this next statistic really caught my attention: Nearly two-thirds of the residents of Okinawa are still functioning independently at age 97. That meant they were in their own homes, cooking their own meals and living their lives fully -- at nearly 100 years old!
这就是为什么下一个统计数据真正引起了我的注意:冲绳近三分之二的居民在97岁时仍然独立生活。这意味着他们在自己的家里，自己做饭，过着充实的生活——将近100岁了!
For too long, we have too strongly identified age as a number. And yet, most doctors don't focus that much on age. They really want to know more about the physiological age of their patients than the chronological one. They want to know more about their patients' lives, rather than the length of time they have been alive. After all, there are plenty of 50-year-olds whose health is more like that of a 70-year-old. But the opposite is also often true, and that is what I wanted to find when I decided to travel to Okinawa last summer.
长久以来，我们一直把年龄当作一个数字。然而，大多数医生并不太关注年龄。他们真的想知道更多关于病人生理年龄的信息，而不是按时间顺序排列的年龄。他们想更多地了解病人的生活，而不是他们活了多久。毕竟，有很多50多岁的人，他们的健康状况更像是70多岁的人。但事实往往恰恰相反，这正是我去年夏天决定去冲绳旅行时想要寻找的东西。
Okinawa is a chain of islands about 400 miles southwest of mainland Japan. The name means "rope in the open sea" because Okinawa is plopped in the middle of the oceans, with the Pacific to the east and the East China Sea to the west. The water is emerald blue, the beaches are sandy white, and the weather is tropical. In many ways it seems the perfect place to house the Land of Immortals, as the island has long been called.
冲绳岛位于日本大陆西南约400英里处，由一系列岛屿组成。这个名字的意思是“海上的绳索”，因为冲绳位于海洋的中央，东临太平洋，西临东海。海水是翠绿色的，海滩是沙白色的，天气是热带的。在许多方面，它似乎是一个完美的地方，以容纳长年以来一直被称为神仙之地。
After landing on the main island of Okinawa, I could immediately tell that something was different there. Although I didn't see people running outside or going to gyms, I did see plenty of active elderly people: gardening in their yards, doing tai chi in the park, riding bikes and playing a croquet-like game called gateball with their friends.
在冲绳岛上着陆后，我立刻感觉到那里有些不同。虽然我没有看到人们在外面跑步或去健身房，但我确实看到了很多活跃的老年人:在他们的院子里种花，在公园里打太极，骑自行车，和他们的朋友玩一种叫做门球的类似槌球的游戏。
The elders there are less likely than their counterparts in the United States to have heart disease, dementia or certain cancers. Their bones are even stronger than those of similarly aged people around the world. Many of these residents, I learned, are the subjects of one of the largest studies of centenarians ever conducted. Since 1976, nearly a thousand centenarians have been studied, and their wonderful secrets are revealed in the first episode of my docuseries "Chasing Life."
那里的老年人比美国的同龄人患心脏病、痴呆症或某些癌症的可能性要小。他们的骨头甚至比世界上年龄相仿的人的骨头还要结实。我了解到，这些居民中的许多人都是有史以来对百岁老人进行的最大规模研究的对象之一。自1976年以来，已有近千名百岁老人被研究，他们的奇妙秘密在我的纪录片“追逐生命”的第一集中被揭示出来。
If you ask anyone in Okinawa why they live so long, you will doubtlessly hear two words: ikigai and moai.
如果你问冲绳的任何人为什么他们活得这么久，你无疑会听到两个词：ikigai和moai。
Ikigai, loosely translated, means sense of purpose in life. And in Okinawa, a person's ikigai often grows as they get older. It is their reason for living, that thing that propels them out of bed in the morning. In the United States, people often retire in their mid-60s, but there isn't a similar word in Japanese because the concept of retirement doesn't even exist.
ikigai，粗略翻译，意思是·人生的使命感。在冲绳，一个人的使命感经常随着年龄的增长而增长。这是他们活着的理由，这件事推动他们在早上起床。在美国，人们通常在60多岁的时候退休，但在日语中没有类似的词，因为退休的概念甚至不存在。
Moai is an informal social group of people who have common interests and look out for each other. Your moai is your "tribe" and another reason Okinawans believe they live so long.
Moai是一个非正式的社会群体，人们有共同的兴趣，互相照顾。你的Moai是你的“部落”，也是冲绳人认为自己长寿的另一个原因。
