These videos are an except of the Movie: Tokyo!. This is a futuristic view of how hikikomoris could end up effecting Japan's society and everyone becoming recluses themselves.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
A movie's view
Sadly these videos lost their embeding ability so i encourage you to click the link and watch from youtube itself. There are four parts.
Life with a Hikikomori
This shows a basic life of a hikikomori. Note that this Hikikomori is well organized and sits around. He would be on of the 10% using a computer.
Photos of the Hikimori Rooms
As you can see these Hikikomori have no organization problems. They simply hold trash because they are afraid to go out and simply throw it away.
Works Cited
-Zielenzinger, Micheal. Shutting Out The Sun. New York: Vintage: 2006.
-Smith, Pat. "What's the hikikomori phenomenon?". HikiCulture. 04.17.2010
-Jones, Maggie. “Shutting Themselves In.” New York Times. New York Times, 15 Jan. 2006. Web 04.17.2010
-“Demographics of Japan” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 04.16.2010
-Tomoshige. “Hikikomori: A social withdrawal in Japan.” hikikomori: A social withdrawal in Japan. Blogger.com, 4 Feb, 2009. Web. 04.16.2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Research
Right now there are about 320,000 (Jones 1) people who suffer of a growing social disease in Japan. Now this may not seem like a lot, for there is about 127 million people in Japan (Wiki 1), but with numbers steadily growing within the population this social disease is becoming more and more of a serious problem. “…only in the last decade and only in Japan has hikikomori become a social phenomenon, Like anorexia, which has been largely limited to western cultures, hikikomori is culture bound syndrome that thrives in one particular country during a particular moment in history” (Jones 1). Hikikomori is the name given to these people in Japan with this awkward social disease. A lot of information about the Hikikomori is unknown sudden and surprising. Hikikomori people have an epidemic social disorder that needs to be vanquished because it will lead to the downfall of Japanese society.
Hikikomori: “ a term used to refer to acute social withdrawal prevalent among teenagers and adults… a common equivalent terms in the English-speaking word are shut-in or hermit..” ( Smith Page1 ) Hikikomori are people in the Japanese society who literally shut themselves out from society for a number of years. Very few of these recluses come out of their rooms to buy necessities and entertainment, much rather a shower; sometimes only once every six months to lessen their risk of running into someone seeing them. Even some hikikomori go to the extreme and duck tape black paper to their windows to prevent the sun coming is as well as the risk of someone seeing their “shameful” selves. So what do these hikikomori do? Most of them read books gathered from their outland adventures or even build model cars, planes, etc. In a conversation I had with my Japanese culture professor, she claims that only about 10% are otaku; anime obsessed people, and within that 10% of hikikomori go onto the internet, use their computers or TV‘s. Not all Hikikomori want this life but are forced upon not knowing what to do with their lives they see no opportunity to walk outside their prison. The average age of these hikikomori is 30.3 years (Tomoshige 1). The general amount of these people are male; about 80% (Jones 1).This is easily understood because of the prevalence of males in the workplace while women are still rarely given the chance in the everyday business workplace.
The social pressures can be the cause of this condition which include: social anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), ASDs (Autism Spectrum Disorders) , agoraphobia, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) , and the unknown. Some hikikomori develop these mental issues while they are hikikomori; issues that change their daily lives (more then the condition already does) and even their sleeping schedule to the extent of reversing their sleeping habits. “One hikikomori took showers several hours of the day and wore gloves as thick as an astronauts’ to ward off germs…while another scrubbed the tiles in the family’s shower for hours at a time… It’s as if he was trying to clean the dirt in his mind and his heart” (Jones 2). Some hikikomori look at themselves as failures of society and as useless beings that don’t have any potential to helping society and its flux of people. Some see themselves as incapable of learning because they quit school at a young age and are unable to return. Some even see themselves as unique with their own knowledge and forbid the society to change themselves.
For an American to be put into a situation to drastically and suddenly shut themselves in from all society seems out right impossible, but for the Japanese culture that is so unique and diverse this sort of problem within the people was bound to happen. Chinmoku is a term used to express the idea of silence in Japan. Silence says more than words itself in this culture, giving the hikikomori “reason” to believe that what they are doing is right. Amae is a Japanese cultural term defining as feeling of dependency towards others. With this feeling there are extreme cases of depending on the overall group rather than the individual. There is a close bond between members of a specific group. These groups can be as complex as a business organization and as simple as a group class in a elementary school; that’s where is all begins for some.
“His happiest memories of school, he now confided to me, were of playing third base in schoolyard games, but he had fled to his room for the first time after being ‘frozen out’ in the fifth grade. One day, classmates started giving him the silent treatment. They ignored him in the lunch room, rebuffed him on the playfields looked through him on the streets, and completely stopped acknowledging his presence in the class. He never knew why the hazing started, and never recovered from the problem.” (Zeilenziger 23)
Seeing this kind of brutality and with only young elementary school kids shows how sad this social disease can really be. Being shut out of a group is devastating and can cause a lasting effect of failure within society in an individuals mind. There is a saying in Japan that says “the nail the sticks up must be hammered down”. This saying confirms conformity in Japan that no one can be individual and must stick to the group. These elementary school kids ganged up on the one child and decided he didn’t fit into the group any longer. Shutting him out eventually caused his mental and social problems, ruining his chance at a normal life in Japan’s society.
Not everyone gives up on their life in the Japanese society after the first awkward shut out in their lives.
“After walking out on elementary school, but keeping up with most of his assignments, Kenji attempted to return in the seventh grade, only to learn that he could not start out in a new school with his slate wiped clean. Just a few weeks after classes begun in his new junior high school, a boy sitting behind him asked him if the rumors were true: that Kenji had refused to finish elementary school……When he abandoned junior high school a few months later, no teacher genuinely reached out to him; no counselor visited his home. And since no law demanded that fourteen- year-old Kenji return to school, no one forced him from his hideaway.” (Zeilenziger 23,24)
This group that is supposed to support him, his peers and elders, shut him out of society and didn’t think twice of doing it. They thought nothing of this poor innocent person that got shut out from the one chance of being normal and retrying school after being bullied the first time around. Bullying doesn’t just happen in Japanese schools. Japanese businessmen also have a feeling of being shut out in the workplace.
So where are parents in all of this? The Japanese have an ideal of great pride and anything that would be shameful or seem shameful to others is easily to put out as the flame on a burning candle. The father in Japanese society has full authority in the home. He gives the family orders of what to do and the family follows. The mother is supposed to give her all to the family and make it her life’s work. Since a child being bullied out of school is looked to his or her own fault, it is also very shameful and is quickly hidden as his/her own choices and never spoken about. Hikikomori’s also live at the expense of the family a general amount of the time. The mother leaves food outside the door and promptly after leaving the recluse snags the food into their self made prison. If the hikikomori doesn’t live at home with the family, the father sends money by mail and the hikikomori will order food or stock up on necessities on a late night run. With this shame also causes tension in the family; to avoid that immediate family and even extend family forget about the recluse and don’t bother asking or talking about him/her; reputation is everything. “One hikikomori expert put it, [about hikikomori’s parents] Japanese parents tell their children to fly while [the parent is] holding firmly to their ankles.” ( Jones 2)
Within the few resources out in Japan, there are three influential people that are called “the three Japanese lunatics.” They are called lunatics because of their willingness to go against normal society and back track in their already successful lives to help the hikikomoris. They do not work together but work under the same cause of helping the hikikomori get back into society. These three all have their own perspectives on how they should treat and act towards the hikikomori to get them back into working society.
Nobu Minami is one of these “lunatics”. Minami was a advertising copywriter and designer but gave up his career to help the troubled hikikomori; with no credentials whatsoever. He has been working a short time ,since 2000, building a refugee he calls “free space”. Minami’s concept is very playful as he opens his arms to any troubled youth to create a family of a sort to help them gain confidence and go out on their own. “These kids have been rejected by the school culture which forces everyone to be the same… But each kid is so unique, each one of them is different. I don’t want to do anything to damage that. I don’t want to suppress them at all, so that puts me at odds with traditional Japanese culture” Minami believes (Zeilenziger 77-78). Choice and responsibility are the key things being taught at this refugee in a more playful style. Each kid is free to learn whatever they want; if the kid is more interested in science than math then the kid can choose science. The one principle thing the kid is responsible for is cooking, cleaning, and garden work. This teaches them responsibility as well as showing them choices within the subjects they learn.
Hisako Wantanabe is another “lunatic” that has a special goal of helping the hikikomori. Wantanabe is a child psychiatrist at Keio University Medical Center in Tokyo. Wantanabe blames the hikikomori condition on the mothers. Tension in Japan’s history has swelled into children being “perfect” and with that tension within a group there is bound to be chaos. Wantanabe offers therapy to the hikikomori but more importantly to the mothers of the hikikomori. She offers group activities for the hikikomori giving them the social skills to survive in society and be successful.
Last but not least the last “lunatic” is named Sadatsugu Kudo. He has a harder ideal to helping the hikikomori. “In our society, people have to develop the skills to survive on their own and make a living,” he said. “So I first want the young adult to feel at ease Then I want him to acquire the skills he needs in order to make his way in the world. He has to adjust to the strains and demands the outside world imposes”. (Zeilenziger 88) Kudo supplies dormitory rooms to shelter the hikikomori while they are on training. Kudo has a giving nature in response to his hard exterior . Kudo will go to the hikikomori’s house and recruit for his facility to get the hikikomori to trust him to help put the hikikomori on their own. Kudo teaches them the necessary skills needed to survive in the ever fast, ever growing society of Japan.
Some hikikomori feel that traveling to a country foreign to their own also helps them get back into society and living a “normal” Japanese life. Seeing a “new world” could give confidence to a hikikomori to live by oneself successfully. This new world showed that people didn’t need to be rich or trendy to be happy and successful in life. In Japan being trendy, fashionable and rich is all the more important and supports honor of the family. Hikikomori see themselves as something different and want to keep that without changing it as much as possible; so seeing a culture other than their own, emphasizing independence and idividualism inspires hikikomori to keep their vaules while being successful and finally taking the first step out of the room they enslave themselves to.
Even with the hope given by these lunatics and wise hikikomoris, the rate of healing from this ongoing social disease is low and it is said that the longer the hikikomori are out of society the harder and the unlikeness of them to return back into society is high. It is a sad true fate, but I believe if more help is provided, as well as awareness around the country of Japan and around the world these lost people can be found once again.
Suffering is a small word to describe the life of hikikomori. They suffer through life after being choked out of everyday society and suffer through the area they en prison themselves to. Japan needs to take a stand on these socially awkward people and do something about their suffering. This social disease may be new, but if we put out the flame in the candle while its still early it would end any possibility of a forest fire that could spread of the hikikomori.
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