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This one could go anywhere but as I've spent some time in Japan, I am always interested in the sadness of those good people. The whole island seemed like an amusement park called "REPRESSION ISLAND." Of course, like the U.S., it doesn't look repressed. It looks totally free - especially as it presents itself in the warped mirror of media. That's the thing with repression - it masquerades as freedom.
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As many as 10 percent of Japanese youths may be living in "epic sulks" as hermits ("hikikomori"), according to a March Taipei Times dispatch from Tokyo, thus representing no improvement in the already alarming problem that was described in a report in 2000. Many of the hikikomori, in fact, still live in their parents' homes and simply never leave their bedrooms. Among the speculation as to cause: school bullying, academic pressure, poor social skills (after obsessively whiling away hours at video games), unaccessible father figures, and an education system that suppresses youths' sense of adventure. [Taipei Times, 3-11-05]
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For some perverse reason, I decided that sad stories also qualify as "curiously entertaining" - there's a twinge of sadness in most of these stories, after all...
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