Touring Laguna Woods as Tomorrowland

The tour seemed innocuous enough: four Tokyo government officials tooling around the Laguna Woods retirement community with an eye toward eventually creating a seniors-only hamlet of their own.

But Monday’s visit by municipal officials represents a sea change in Japanese culture, where caring for one’s parents has long been a person’s first moral obligation.

With a rapidly aging population of 126 million crammed into an area the size of California, Japanese officials are counting less on families to care for the elderly and trying to do more for the aged themselves.

Monday’s visit to Laguna Woods’ homes, golf courses and recreation rooms is part of the Tokyo officials’ study of senior communities, said Yoko Okuaki, managing director of American Access, which serves as a go-between between Japanese business and government officials and American counterparts.

The concept of building a seniors-only community near Tokyo is “still in the planning stage,” Okuaki said. “There are no definite plans yet. But there are a lot of problems with the elderly in Tokyo.”

Although it may never come to fruition, the delegation’s visit is emblematic of Japan’s struggle to address the housing and health care needs of the exploding elderly population--21 million residents age 65 or older. Japanese bureaucrats devote much time and effort to studying the quandaries posed by the world’s fastest-aging population, but solutions have been scant.

Over the last generation, urbanization, mobility and independence among the young have chipped away at the Japanese ideal of a multigenerational family living under one roof. According to the Japanese ministry of health and welfare, the number of three-generation families (grandparents, parents and children living together) has halved from 36.5% of households in 1955 to 17.8% in 1990. At the same time, the number of people living alone has leaped sixfold to 20%. Four in 10 elderly residents now live alone or in couples.

More than 10 years ago, Japan planned a city for seniors, but the concept failed before it was realized, said Kenzo Toriumi, chief representative from the New York office of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. It failed because public opinion still favors tradition, even if demographics don’t.

“It was the community’s opinion that the elders should live with their children,” Okuaki said. “The elderly want to live with their children.”

Japan does have retirement homes, but it was the group’s aim on Monday to learn how to build a successful and comfortable senior living community. So the group sought the help of the former Leisure World, where about 18,000 senior citizens live and about 900 employees work.

While the Tokyo delegation marveled at Laguna Woods’ shuffleboard courts, sprinkler system and sculpting classes, experts in Japanese culture wondered if Tokyo residents could warm to the idea of a senior-living community.

“People do change with the times,” said Cal State Fullerton professor Craig K. Ihara, who coordinates the university’s Asian-American Studies program. “But I suspect that there may be people at that advanced age who won’t be happy about [a retirement community]. Most people would look at it as a mark of shame--a public announcement that their children don’t care enough about them to keep them at home.”

With the longest life expectancy in the world, Japanese seniors tend toward the robust and active. It’s not uncommon to see octogenarians cruising around Tokyo on bicycles or braving the steep steps of the city’s metro.

Traditionalists may look askance at a senior-living community, but many older Japanese might relish it, said Anne Walthall, a UC Irvine professor of Japanese history.

“The government made a big deal in the 1980s that young people were reneging on their responsibility to care for the aged,” Walthall said. “What the government refused to acknowledge is that very often, the older generation doesn’t want to live with the younger generation. They don’t want to impose or get in the way.”

Just discussing the possibility of a government-sponsored retirement community is a departure for Japan.

Filial piety--the tradition of taking care of your parents come what may--used to be the first moral duty of Japanese society. But it is no longer a given that elderly parents will move in with their grown children and keep their status as head of the household.

Just as younger Japanese groove to Western music and dine on McDonald’s fare, American views toward the elderly are becoming pervasive, said Michihiko Komatsu, head of information and culture at the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles.

“It’s my personal opinion that Japan is changing, becoming more like American society,” he said. “Children don’t want to take care of older people anymore. One of the biggest reasons why is that parents and children don’t live together now. Many young people leave the countryside and go to the big city to seek jobs.”

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Folmar is a Times staff writer; Meier is a Times correspondent. Staff writer Sonni Efron contributed to this report.