This is a newspaper clipping today, the first day of 2009. (Actually, it is not a newspaper but an electric-newspaer on the iPhone.) The chart depicts the transition of Japan's population. The red line is the number of new born babies in each year and the blue one is those of died people. Sure, the horizontal axis is the year; the number 22 on the left bottom means Showa 22 in the Japanese era which is equal to 1947 and the 20 on the right bottom means Heisei 20 which is equal to 2008. The number 300 on the top left depicts 3 million people. What can be read from this chart is that Japan's population has been decreasing for these thirty years. While the natural increasing of died people, the decreasing of new born babies is radical. That is said to be a big problem in our country and a special minister has been assigned to solve it but in vain. There are a lot of reasons for that, but everyone of them looks difficult to solve in a short time. In my opinion, it's impossible to increase the population in the next century without mass immigration, but it will be more difficult for us to accept so many foreigners. We had better think about the way to run our country more effectively with a smaller number of young generations and a larger number of aged people. Therefore, the most important thing needed right now is good education and welfare for old people. Unfortunately, both of them are in terrible situations in Japan. Anyway, the remarkable drop of new born children in Showa 41 e.g. 1966 is called "Hinoe Uma" which is the ancient rumor saying "girls born in this year are going to kill their husband." Hinoe Uma comes every 60 years and the next one is 2026.

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