Umeno Sumiyama and Koume Kodama were born on Shodoshima Island in western Japan on November 5, 1913.
Photo: Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images
Guinness World Records has certified two Japanese sisters as the longest living identical twins in the world at 107 years old, in an announcement that coincided with the Day of Respect for the Aged, a national holiday in Japan.
Umeno Sumiyama and Koume Kodama They were born the third and fourth of 11 siblings on Shodoshima Island in western Japan on November 5, 1913.
They were separated at the end of primary school, when Kodama was sent to work as a maid in Oita, on the main island of Kyushu, in southern Japan.
He later married there, while Sumiyama remained on the island where they grew up and had his own family.
Later, the sisters recalled their difficult youthful days.
Growing up, they said they were bullied due to prejudice against children of multiple births in Japan.
Busy with their own lives for decades the sisters rarely met until their 70s, when they began making pilgrimages together to some of Shikoku’s 88 temples and they enjoyed the reconnection.
Sumiyama and Kodama were 107 years old and 300 days old as of September 1, breaking the previous record set by famous Japanese sisters Kin Narita and Gin Kanie at 107 years and 175 days, Guinness World Records Ltd. said in a statement.
Their families told Guinness that the sisters often joked about surviving the previous record holders, affectionately known as “Kin-san, Gin-san,” who achieved idol status in the late 1990s as much for their age as for his humor.
About 29% of the 125 million population of Japan, the world’s fastest aging country, is 65 or older, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
About 86,510 of them are centenarians, half of whom turned 100 this year.
Due to anti-coronavirus measures, certificates for their registration were mailed to the separate nursing homes where they now live, and Sumiyama accepted hers with happy tears, according to Guinness.
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Source-laopinion.com