Do you know this Japanese folklore?

I got a message from one of my friends about my last post. In that message, she said to me that she discussed how much Japanese respect the elderly with her parents. Reading the message, I thought “Wait! There should have been another aspect of the Japanese thoughts towards the elderly.” But I didn’t remember what it was. On my way home, I was trying to remember. At last, I remember one of the Japanese old old Japanese folklores!

But I was still not sure, so I asked my parents about the story.
The story is “Ubaste-yama.” “Uba” means old woman, “ste” means to dump (suteru 捨てる), and “yama” means mountain. Yes! It is said that Japanese dumped their grandparents or parents in the mountain.

But it doesn’t mean the people at that time didn’t respect their parents or the elderly. They were too poor to feed all of their families. Then the old people asked the young to dump them to save their families, I heard. It is not quite obvious whether this story is true or not. But there still exist some mountains named Ubaste-yama (kind of informally, though) in Japan.

If you want to know more about this story, read this page→Ubasuteyama
Especially, my dad has praise for the movie, The Ballade of Narayama, and he told me to watch it. (Sorry, I’ve never haven't seen it yet. Oops!)

The story I heard when I was little was like the story that follows.
There was a man in a village. The villagers couldn’t harvest much that year. So his mother asked him to dump her in the mountain. He didn’t want to, but when thinking of the other family members, he had to accept her offer.
Then, he went to the mountain, carrying his mother on his back. At night, he left his mother there.
But, on his way back home, he couldn’t but think it was wrong. So he returned to where his mother was, and went back home with her after all.

Well, I don’t want to suggest, “Let’s go to Ubasteyama,” even though I’m interested in what it’s like. Because I feel alarm that I might be left there.

-Mu t