Japan's Secret Epidemic (shame/failure leads to social withdrawal)

[Dover]

Japan's secret epidemic
By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

Monday 31 May 2004, 0:33 Makka Time, 21:33 GMT


Japan's high-pressured society is too stressful for many


"Hikikomori" is not a word that crops up too often in polite society in Japan.

It is a problem that someone else has to deal with; a situation that families think - hope - will not affect them.

The bad news is that an affliction that translates as "social withdrawal", which has only really begun to be recognised in the last decade, is now reaching epidemic proportions.

..snip..

The trigger could have been a bout of bullying or failure to get into a good university or land a good job, but the response is to shut the door of the bedroom, cover the windows and retreat into a world that covers a few square metres; because that world is safe.

"This is a major social problem in Japan today that is the result of our education system and social pressures," says Shigemitsu Matsumoto, a coordinator with the New Start organisation in Tokyo.

"Most young people are under huge amounts of pressure from society, their parents, their schools; they have to be independent, they have to be continually improving themselves, they have to be better all the time."

And when they fail to live up to those expectations, in the form of a failed examination or not being good at sport, the response is to become a modern-day hermit....>>

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3E9B1ACD-FD6A-4BBC-BD2B-CCE61C451113.htm

[boobooday]

1. They should watch some American "reality" TV

Then they would understand that it is possible to live without shame! Five minutes watching Bush try to talk ought to make them feel like less of a failure too.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[displacedtexan]

2. Sounds like USA c. 1955 to me.

Everyone was scrambling to get ahead, be the best, and make the neighbors envious.

I sometimes view the republicans as being stuck in 1955, which was no great place for minorities, women, and poor people.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Sounds like depression to me.

*

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Yup, it's depression all right

with a touch of agoraphobia.

It's been discussed in the Japanese press for several years, and I've sometimes wondered whether the hothouse atmosphere in which a lot of Japanese children are raised hasn't contributed to it.

Depression has been described as "learned helplessness" (which is why one of the behavioral remedies against it is to do something, anything that even begins to deal with whatever you're depressed about), and when you've been pampered and sheltered and yet pressed to succeed at all costs, that first failure can be devastating.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. Yeah, it's been discussed for several years on TV, on the radio,

in newspapers, and in magazines, so it's hardly latest breaking news.

Of course, this is not a problem that is endemic solely to Japan, either.

[Just Me]

7. Considering 44+ million Americans are treated for depression,...

,...I'm with you,...this is NOT a problem that is endemic solely to Japan.

Face it, what are the "tags" of success in this country?

[Trillo]

6. Why is this considered "a problem?"

Aren't people free to react to stimulus in any legal way they feel best?

All the medicines in America that are prescribed for depression and certain psychological conditions suggest we have similar problems. Do Americans retreat into a hermit like existence? Perhaps because of cultural differences, maybe Americans en masse experiencing similar discouraging events tend to escape into denial instead of isolation.

I recently had a short email conversation with a friend from High School, we were writing about some of the things that had gone wrong back then. This persons answer was that it happened so long ago, what's the point of thinking about it? Nothing could be changed.

To me, not thinking about a learning experience is denial. If one remembers, isn't that also thinking about it?

[hertopos]

8. Hikikomori is very diffirent from any form of depression here...

Hi,

I am originally from Japan. I know what it is. And this is very different form of depression + regression + social degeneration.

First of all, it almost exclusively spread among teenage boys. Well some are already not very young; however, they typically started about the same time, 14-18.

The below is the link to BBC documentary. I read it and it seems to me the content is reflecting the this very peculier form of mental problem accurately.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/2336883.stm

Some committe suicide; in severe case, they literally starve themselves to death.

This is very Japanese serious problem.

Hertopos

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. I wonder if it has something to do with the way

some upper middle class boys are raised in Japan.

On the one hand, there is great pressure to succeed, to get into one of the major universities. They're supposed to study all the time and go to juku after school and not "waste" time playing.

One of my long-time Japanese friends is a former professor of medicine at the University of Tokyo, the most prestigious university in Japan. He complained that his students in recent years were more book smart than ever but mostly "no good as human beings" (ningen to shite wa dame). They had no social skills and immature emotional reactions. After his retirement, he took a new job at a small health sciences university in the countryside where he now enjoys teaching normal, well-balanced students.

On the other hand, their mothers treat them like little kings, doing things for them that they should be able to do themselves, and taking a lot of verbal and sometimes even physical abuse from them. (That is one of the things that I dislike about Japan, seeing boys be rude to their mothers in public and even hitting them, without being corrected. If my brothers had acted like that, my father would have said, "Show some respect for your mother.")

This isn't all families of course, but I have seen it, and it sometimes lasts a long time. I had a Japanese translation agency contact, a young man in his twenties, who wanted me to finish a job the night before I was scheduled to go to a convention. I told him that I had to pack and do some cleaning before I left, and he said, "Doesn't your mother do that for you?"

I think that being so pampered actually robs the boys of developing a sense of competence outside of studying. They literally cannot do anything for themselves except study. Then when they fail at studying, they feel that they have failed at life.

I also wonder if some of the hikikomori boys have been the victims of ijime.

Then again, some parents who have a hikikomori son may do precisely the wrong thing and indulge his illness by waiting on him in his room.

[hertopos]

10. All your observations are right to the point!!

In fact, this is one of the reason I left Japan. I am a Japanese woman and I am proud of my heritage. But I have one problem. I cannot stand Japanese men.

And yes, the worst type of karma in working...
While fathers are literally absent from home, mothers treat their son like a king.

And yes, ijime triggers hikikomori sometimes. Otaku could have been a hikikomori if they were not becoming otaku ( Japanese super geeks.)

Hertopos