Japan's Suicide Rate Rising In Economic Slump

Telegraph:

The first indications of a life that has been lost appear within a hundred yards of entering the forest. Scattered across mossy tree roots are a man's shirt, boxer shorts and trousers.

Read the whole story: Telegraph

Comments

[Andrew Grimes]

I think that western media reports on suicide rates in Asian countries should try harder to get away from the tendency to ‘orientalize’ the serious and preventable problem of increased suicide rates here over the last 10 years by reverting to stereotypical ideas of Asian people and cultures in general. In other words Asians are real people too and not lemmings. People here do not wake up one day and say “Hey, let’s commit suicide today because I hear it is all the rage in Shanghai and Tokyo and the word is that even the Changs and Suzukis are doing it!”

Failures and mistakes are forgiven in Japanese culture. I do not see nor experience Japan as a 'culture of they' of but as a real country with a population of over 126,000,000 real individual people with real hopes, ambitions and concerns for their families and friends. No one here, as in any other country in the world, wants to grow up to become depressed and suicidal.'­They' want jobs and hope for the future, just like anyone elsed does.

[harriettubman]

Unfortunately in this culture there's no room for human error. If they believe they have failed at something or will be a burden to their family, they will commit this act. I worked with a Japanese woman who committed suicide after finding out she had breast cancer. We may not understand this but it's very cultural.

Years ago a Japanese woman *k*illed herself after her son wasn't admitted to a top notch nursery school.

[loki]

Now this is something that the Ivy Greed schools like Harvard need to instill in their victims when they brain wash them in the ways of total greed and destruction through selfishness. It sure would have cleared out a lot of the problem people. but instead, the culture of promote the greediest and most destructive to society and the country is the norm here.

[andrewtokyojapan]

I would like to add a perspective from Japan and so will limit my comments to what I know here. I am a psychologist and psychotherapist working in Japan for over 20 years. Mental health professionals in Japan have long known that the reasons for the unnecessarily high suicide rate in Japan are unemployment, bankruptcies, and the increasing levels of stress on businessmen and other salaried workers who have suffered enormous hardship in Japan since the bursting of the stock market bubble here that peaked around 1997. Until then Japan had an annual suicide of rate figures between 22,000 and 24,000 each year. Following the bursting of the stock market and the long term economic downturn that has followed here since the suicide rate in 1998 increased by around 35% and since 1998 the number of people killing themselves each year in Japan has consistently remained well over 30,000 every year to the present day.

During these last ten years of these relentlessly high annual suicide rate numbers the English media seems in the main to have done little more than have someone goes through the files and do a story on the so-called suicide forest or internet suicide clubs and copycat suicides (whether charcoal brickettes or household cleaning chemicals) without focusing on the bigger picture and need for effective action and solutions.

Useful telephone number for residents of Japan are feeling depressed or suicidal:

Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service)：

Japan: 0120-738-556
Tokyo: 3264 4343

[blueskybigstar]

Thanks for doing the responsible thing. One of the worst things about this act are the people, family and friends, who are effected by this. I see that the problem is the corporate system and the lack of support of independence of a country's people, especially of small businesses that for the economy to grow more naturally must be protected. Not only are they superior to all other business models, small businesses bring a sense of community. If there were real community, more communication, more possibilties to begin again for the future, I believe it would certainly lessen tragedy.

[blueskybigstar]

Wall Street, take note. Do what is honorable.

[LatteLibertine]

How very sad. I wish them well in finding hope.

[grasyknol]

I'm unemployed and am finding it hard to find work. I sat on back porch one evening and thought to myself, material things have never defined me. My biggest concerns are real. Being diabetic and hoping my wife doesn't lose her job with the health benefits.

We have several thousand saved and we may have to tap into it at some point. It's not my intent to put a smiley face on unemployment or hard times. Yet, at some point, I realize I can only do my best. This is the first time I've been without work for over two weeks since I was sixteen and it's a very tricky situation to be in. Friends, former co-workers, stopped talking to each other because we are competing for the same jobs. On and on....had to express this...sor­ry.

[yappnmutt]

i don't know your age but i reordered my entire life after spending a week at the labor pool during the 1981 recession. money dropped to 4th on my list and i've never needed it since. i've been self employed , wealthy twice and broke again once but i've never been burdened with money problems.

[RandVictims]

3 in my city last month, just that I know of.

[davidwayneosedach]

How many lives altogether will be lost directly because of this recession?