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At 6:30 a.m., Japanese radio plays ten minutes of ‘Radio Taiso’ and it’s getting people moving

“Radio Taiso was inspired a century ago by a similar radio program in the United States.”

By

Cecily Knobler

Japan, exercise, Radio Exercise, Radio Taiso
Photo credit: Canva – Two people exercise in a park.

It’s early morning and you’re snuggled tightly under the warm covers. Your alarm buzz isn’t quite enough to entice you to get up and en route to begin your day. But what if there was a public radio announcement with a trusty reminder that it’s good for the body, if possible, to get up and move? Well, in Japan, there is.

The Associated Press posted a clip on YouTube of people lightly stretching in various locations across Japan. They explain that this is a common practice. “This is how Japan wakes up,” a voiceover shares. “It’s called Radio Taiso. In English, it’s radio exercise. It’s a very simple idea. At 6:30 in the morning, on the radio, you get music. You get choreography to exercise by. People gather in city parks to do it. People gather in their offices. At schools. You can do it at home.”

Good for all ages

The exercise regimen is nothing too heavy. “The exercises are not very strenuous—just exercise and basic calisthenics,” they explain. “It’s suitable for all ages and everybody can do it. You can exert yourself a lot if you want, but you don’t have to.”

The host of the segment points out that Japan has a “long-lived population.” He shares, “As we all know, Japan is famous for longevity. I wouldn’t say that Radio Taiso is why, but it certainly can’t hurt anything.”

According to the BBC, Japan continues to break records for long, healthy lives: “The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has risen to a record high of nearly 100,000, its government has announced. Setting a new record for the 55th year in a row, the number of centenarians in Japan was 99,763 as of September.”

100-year history

In a recent article, Yahoo!life explains that this tradition has been around for nearly a century. “Radio Taiso has an almost 100-year history,” write article author Stephen Wade, “formally introduced in 1928 and coinciding with the enthronement of Emperor Hirohito. The tradition endures because the exercises are suitable for all ages and capabilities, and easily accessible.”

Even more interestingly, Wade shares the roots of the exercise, writing, “Radio Taiso was inspired a century ago by a similar radio program in the United States sponsored by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. The Japan Radio Taiso Federation says officials of the postal ministry visited the United States in the 1920s and returned to Japan with the concept.”

The Japan Society explains that these routines, of course, are helpful for all ages. On their website they write, “Fun for children and adults alike, Radio Taiso is commonly used for group warm-ups in Japan and the whole school will participate in the exercises at the beginning of school Sports Day.”

They add that it gained popularity because of the positive mental and physical effects it seemed to have on citizens. “The purpose of Radio Taiso is to improve general health and fitness,” they write, “and the routine is therefore designed to be simple and accessible to all. It requires no equipment, can be done in a small space, and can be modified for those with mobility issues.”

Simple movements

The movements, as mentioned, are simple. Similarly to yoga, it begins with arm exercises. Participants lift their arms up and move them in gentle circles. Then, they slightly bend and twist their legs.

This continues for about ten-second intervals, adding bends in each direction, like a ballet routine. Then, there’s more twists, shoulder movements, slight hopping, and squats. Wade shares, “Each movement is repeated four to eight times, with instructions throughout to relax, breathe, and inhale and exhale slowly.”

Kodomokai

I reached out to an old high school friend, Nathan Hillyer, who has been living in Japan for quite some time. He confirmed that while it still exists, it’s mostly practiced by and beneficial to the elderly. “In the park near where I live, old people tend to go there to do it. It is run by NHK Radio 1 at 6:30 in the morning,” he shares.

He adds that his wife, Asuka Hillyer, shared that she would wake up early to do it back in the day. “My wife said when she was a kid, she would do it as a part of the ‘kodomokai’ (community kids club). They would get a stamp or something every morning, and if they had a certain number by the end of the year, they would get a prize. They would show up wearing their community paper kind of tied around their neck.”

Hillyer also recalled that the radio exercises began in the West. “I remember watching old American comedies in black and white, maybe W.C. Fields or something like that. They were in funny situations in which someone is trying to do their radio exercises and hearing the voice, but either they can’t keep up or something happens in the real space which is not matching the radio routine.”

He adds, “In Japan, it is quite the phenomenon because the Japanese tend to be very community-oriented.”

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    Photo credit: Reddit – Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries.
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    Anne Hathaway shares the ‘unintended consequence’ of her iconic ‘Princess Diaries’ makeover

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    An era-defining transformation

    One lasting example of this is the makeover scene in The Princess Diaries, wherein Mia Thermopolis (played by Anne Hathaway) goes from adorkable to refined thanks to a bit of hair straightening, plus some makeup, contacts, and intense eyebrow tweezing. 

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    As a result, however, the message many audiences read was “curly hair is unattractive,” which Hathaway labeled as a “terrible, completely unintended side effect.”

    If the comments section was any indicator, Hathaway was correct in saying the “unintended consequence” of that scene was the profound effect it left with viewers. 

    “I (a curly haired girly) started straightening my hair after I saw the scene at 12.”

    “Yeah, watching this movie when it came out as someone who had curly hair and glasses did something to me lol.”

    “I had curly hair and glasses when this movie came out and was bullied for both. I was in middle school and to this day I can’t watch this movie because it made me feel like the bullies were right. As an adult I know better but the gut feelings are still there.”

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    Straightening out the curl narrative

    Thankfully, we’ve seen a lot of progress in this department. Not only do we see far more characters in media sporting their curls, but, thanks to social media, there’s a much larger wealth of knowledge for how to style and take care of curly hair.

    Truly, there’s an entire language (I’m 2C to 3B type myself…iykyk) dedicated to curls now that simply did not exist at an earlier time. Not knowing that curls require an entirely different routine left many of us to resort to straightening or making peace with feeling like the ”ugly” one. 

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  • Disney re-animates 3 iconic songs to include ASL, and the Deaf community calls it ‘incredible’
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    @drunkcrier

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    ♬ original sound – Jon

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  • Fake towns on real maps: Why ‘phantom settlements’ exist and how one became real…sort of
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    Fake towns on real maps: Why ‘phantom settlements’ exist and how one became real…sort of

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    “This is my main reason why I couldn’t do this HHAHAHAHAHAA,” Cara Mia added.

    “I never thought about those who actually live on a cruise ship. I would be 500 pounds,” Lucky Penny2468 said.

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    A woman eats and drinks while enjoying the view on a cruise ship. Photo credit: Canva

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    This article originally appeared four years ago. It has been updated.

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    Back In My Day 😆🥲 #teachersoftiktok #teacher #teachertok #middleschool #middleschoolteacher

    ♬ Le Freak – Chic

    The responses are not for the faint of heart. Here’s the list the kids came up with:

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    • Go gamble!
    • Spoiling all [their] grandchildren or nieces and nephews
    • Play Pickleball! A sport that doesn’t move as much
    • Count coupons
    • Go on Facebook
    • Go and buy home decor
    • Grill food on Sundays
    • Saying No to everything I ask for
    • Bingo
    • Take their medicine
    • Knitting
    • Play golf
    • Sitting in a chair on the patio yelling, “Get off my lawn!”

    The internet could not handle the accuracy

    Commenters in their 40s wanted to be offended, but had to admit that the kids had them pegged.

    “Home goods is accurate,” one wrote.

    “I needed this laugh right before bed and I see no wrong answers,” a commenter said.

    “40 and I scored fairly high on this,” said another.

    “The accuracy. I feel attacked,” added another user.

    “These are more accurate than I would’ve guessed,” another summed up perfectly.

    Millennials have been called the Peter Pan generation because of their apparent delays in “growing up.”

    They look younger, seem younger, and even feel younger than a lot of their predecessors. It’s a well-documented phenomenon, in fact. Part of it has to do with cultural and societal factors that have delayed major life milestones. Millennials came of age in a time where earning high-pay in their careers, getting married, and buying a house were more difficult than they ever were for their parents. Many people in the “Peter Pan generation” are just beginning to really get on their feet in their 30s.

    Millennials also hold a deep fear of aging, more so than Gen X does. That may drive them to cling to styles, cultural references, and other preferences from their younger days. But it’s not weird, no. This blurring of the lines that define what a generation is has actually been pretty seamless.

    “A millennial parent can post a TikTok dance with their kids, binge Stranger Things, or geek out over a Marvel premiere without feeling like they’re stepping out of their lane,” says Stacy Jones, a pop culture expert and founder and CEO of Hollywood Branded. “Earlier generations were pigeonholed into what their generation was supposed to be. Millennials are defining that instead. That cross-generational cultural participation blurs what ‘age’ looks and feels like. And it doesn’t stop there. Today’s 50-year-old doesn’t look or act like the 50-year-old of yesterday. Wellness, skincare, acceptance of Botox, fitness, and social media have redefined what ‘middle age’ even means, pushing the whole curve of youthfulness upward.”

    Jones definitely has a point about how people look; there must be something in the water. This is what a 40 year old looked like just a few decades ago. No offense to the great Kelsey Grammer, but by today’s standard, the style and hair would have most people peg him to be in his (late) 50s.

    All the more reason that Mr. Frakes’ students’ list is absolutely hysterical. If there’s anyone bound to be playfully offended by being prematurely aged, it’s us millennials. But the fact of the matter is, whether we like it or not, we are getting older and settling down. Many of us truly do enjoy shopping for home decor and playing a round of low-impact pickleball.

    What the kids don’t understand is that we’re still rocking the hottest music of 2001 and wearing our baseball cap backwards while we do it.

    This article originally appeared one year ago. It has been updated.

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  • A Utah waitress filmed how boomers and Gen Z left their tables. The debate never ended.
    Photo credit: Canva – Friends enjoying a dinner party and a plate of dirty dishes.
    ,

    A Utah waitress filmed how boomers and Gen Z left their tables. The debate never ended.

    “They get paid to do that” vs “We know restaurant life is hard, here, let us help you out.” The eternal debate.

    Adam Albright-Hanna

    Upworthy Staff

    In March 2020, an 18-year-old waitress in Utah named Kaitlyn Brande pointed her phone at two tables in her section and said exactly what she was thinking. The video was 20 seconds long. It hit 9.3 million views, got her reprimanded by her employer, and launched a generational argument that apparently has no expiration date.

    The setup is simple. Brande pans to the first table, still scattered with plates, napkins, and leftover food. “This is a table of five boomers that I took some plates out of the way of already,” she says. Then she swings the camera to the table next to it, where every plate has been stacked neatly at one end, cups grouped together, trash consolidated. “This is a table of six Gen Zs. They did that. Just saying.”

    Her caption did the rest: “‘They get paid to do that’ VS ‘We know restaurant life is hard, here, let us help you out.’”

    Brande eventually deleted the video at 9.3 million views because, as she explained in the comments, corporate got mad. She quit shortly after and got a new job. The video lived on anyway, resurfacing every year or two and reliably restarting the same argument.

    The comments split in every direction. Some people praised the Gen Z table for the gesture. Others pushed back on the framing entirely, pointing out that stacking plates isn’t automatically helpful and can actually make a server’s job harder depending on how it’s done. “Half of your server squad would prefer the plates not stacked,” wrote one commenter who works in the industry. “You all need a handbook to get it together.”

    A more measured version of that argument: “I was taught by the main dishwashers to always be cautious about how you stack, and leave it if you don’t know how. There is a difference between cleaning up your area and just leaving it.”

    A stack of dirty dishes. Photo credit: Canva

    Others bypassed the plate-stacking question entirely and went straight to the generational read. “It doesn’t matter even if they do get paid for it,” one commenter wrote. “It helps the staff out, especially if it’s hella busy and they don’t get as much money as you think.” A self-identified Gen Xer chimed in: “I have been cleaning up tables for waitstaff for decades. Not only is it helpful, it’s also the right thing to do.”

    Research on how the two generations actually experience restaurants backs up the idea that something real is going on beyond just table manners. A qualitative study on Gen Z dining behavior found that younger customers are more attuned to the behind-the-scenes reality of service work, more likely to engage with restaurants through a lens of efficiency and mutual respect, and more likely to treat servers as people doing a hard job rather than as part of the restaurant’s background.

    What keeps this video resurfacing every year or two isn’t really about plates. It’s about what those plates represent: who sees service workers as people doing a hard job under pressure, and who doesn’t register them much at all. That’s a question without a clean generational answer, which is probably exactly why nobody can stop arguing about it.

    You can follow Kate (@katebrande) on TikTok for entertainment-related content.

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