Very Handy Handymen.(benriya)

Katsuyoshi Ukon still remembers the day five years ago when he received a call from an elderly Tokyo woman. Then as now, Ukon was a benriya, or handyman, who made his living doing odd jobs for clients. He ran errands, watched pets and made minor household repairs. But this call was different: the elegant, 70-year-old woman who greeted him at the door simply wanted him to dine with her. For the next hour or so, she did most of the talking, mostly about her regrets in life and why she'd decided to move out of her son's house (she didn't get along with his wife). When it was time for Ukon to leave, the woman insisted on giving him [yen]1 million (about $8,400) for listening. He was shocked, and to this day calls the payment "1 million of solitude."

But Ukon, 61, remembers that particular job for more than just the money: it was the first time he realized that the nature of his work-- and Japanese society--was changing. A country that had been consumed with gaining prosperity and maintaining social cohesion in the latter half of the 20th century was starting to fray at the edges--to get needy. Nowadays, more and more Japanese are turning to benriya to fill that need. Like most of Japan's roughly 10,000 benriya, Ukon still performs various physical tasks for his customers. But increasingly, he's become more of an amateur counselor and part-time companion.

Lonely old people depend on such handymen for basic human interaction. Parents are searching out benriya to spend time with children who seem isolated or depressed. Some grown-ups who simply can't clean their rooms ask benriya to do the job. Shame still surrounds psychological problems in Japan, and sufferers can be reluctant to seek professional help. Some call local benriya instead. "What the handymen experience through their jobs clearly shows that people are desperately hungry for close relations with others," says Masachi Ohsawa, an associate professor of sociology at Kyoto University.

The neediest Japanese may be the elderly. Studies show that more than 3 million Japanese over the age of 65 live alone. At the same time, say sociologists, the graying of the Japanese population has coincided with a weakening of traditional Confucian values, which emphasize family obligations. Although 30 years ago an eldest son could be expected to take care of his aging parents and tend to the family graves, in recent years fewer sons seem interested in the obon (ancestors' homecoming day) and the graveyard duties that it involves. So benriya accompany older family members to the ...