Baby Producing Machines ?

Japan has always topped the list of countries with the least of back problems among its inhibitants.This is indeed remarkable considering the robotic amount of time an average Japanese spends at the workplace. The clue to this remarkable mystery lies in the hierarchical structure of the Japanese society.

The Japanese son always bows in front of the Japanese father everytime they meet. The Japanese father in turn always bows in front of the Japanese grand-father everytime they meet. The Japanese grand-father in turn always bows in front of the Japanese great-grandpa's photograph everytime he looks at the wall.

In short, to maintain the hierarchy the Japanese folks require to bow at each other everytime their paths crossed. Since the Japanese are also known to be very courteous, the person bowed at also bows back, except for the great grand-pa from the pictures. For this reason the "The Land of the Rising Sun" also earned the name of "The Land of the Bowing Sans".

It's no medical wonder that the constant exercise of tilting at 45 degrees angle around 20 times a day, keeps the back-pain far-far away. On an average a Japanese male spends a quarter of his life-time in bowing. Another half is spent at workplace inventing and perfecting the Sony TVs, Honda Cars for the benefit of the lazy US population. A half of the remaining quarter is spent in sleeping, eating, excreting and other essential routine jobs of a human life which Sony or Honda is still trying to automate without much success.

So overall there is hardly anytime left for reproducing future "Bowing Sans" who will carry on the traditional pyramidal hierarchy. Not to be daunted by the lack of time among the people the Japanese health minister Mr. Yanagisawa has devised the concept of the "baby producing machines". Despite the brilliant design, his baby churning assembly-line didn't meet the Kaizan standards of quality control and is sadly getting scrapped.

In a speech discussing Japan's falling birthrate, Yanagisawa on Jan. 27 said "the number of machines that produce babies is fixed, so each woman has to have more babies," according to the Asahi newspaper. [source]

Now whether the female population of Japan co-operates with Yanagisawa's grand scheme to work overtime in raising the sagging birthrates needs to be seen. But if they fail to agree with Yanagisawa san plans, I'm sure the scientists toiling days-n-nights across the Japanese labs will come up with the perfect baby producing machines that'll even put the Toyota assembly line to shame. Maybe in the coming years we see more of toddlers bowing at each-other across the length and width of all of the Nippon land.

Time for me to take a bow before signing off.