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Old 06-08-2003, 04:21 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Hikikomori - urban hermit teenagers in Japan

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...nt/2334893.stm

Japan: The Missing Million

By Phil Rees
Reporting from Japan for Correspondent


Teenage boys in Japan's cities are turning into modern hermits - never leaving their rooms. Pressure from schools and an inability to talk to their families are suggested causes. Phil Rees visits the country to see what the "hikikomori" condition is all about.
I knew him only as the boy in the kitchen. His mother, Yoshiko, wouldn't tell me his name, fearful that neighbours in this Tokyo suburb might discover her secret.

Her son is 17 years old. Three years ago he was unhappy in school and began to play truant. Then one day, he walked into the family's kitchen, shut the door and refused to leave.

Families adjust: Since then, he hasn't left the room or allowed anyone in.

Sprawling city suburbs harbour hikikomori sufferers

The family have since built a new kitchen - at first they had to cook on a makeshift stove or eat take away food.

His mother takes meals to his door three times a day. The toilet is adjacent to the kitchen, but he only baths once every six months. Yoshiko showed me pictures of her son before his retreat into isolation; he was a plump, cheerful young teenager, with no symptoms of mental illness.

Bullying tipped the balance

Then a classmate taunted him with anonymous hate letters and scrawled abusive graffiti about him in the schoolyard. The boy in the kitchen suffers from a social disorder known in Japan as hikikomori, which means to withdraw from society. One psychologist has described the condition as an "epidemic", which now claims more than a million sufferers in their late teens and twenties. The trigger is usually an event at school, such as bullying, an exam failure or a broken romance.
Dr Grubb: "I'd knock the door down and walk in"


Unique condition

Dr Henry Grubb, a psychologist from the University of Maryland in the United States, is preparing the first academic study to be published outside Japan. He says that young people the world over fear school or suffer agoraphobia, but hikikomori is a specific condition that doesn't exist elsewhere. "It's really hard to get a handle on this" he told me, "there's nothing like this in the West." Dr Grubb is also surprised by the passive, softly, softly approach followed by parents and counsellors in Japan. "If my child was inside that door and I didn't see him, I'd knock the door down and walk in. Simple. But in Japan, everybody says give it time, it's a phase or he'll grow out of it."


'Crammer' schools wield heavy pressure

If children refuse to attend school, social workers or the courts rarely get involved. Most consider hikikomori a problem within the family, rather than a psychological illness.


Historical origins

Japan's leading hikikomori psychiatrist, Dr Tamaki Saito, believes the cause of the problem lies within Japanese history and society. Traditional poetry and music often celebrate the nobility of solitude. And until the mid-nineteenth century, Japan had cut itself off from the outside world for 200 years. More recently, Dr Saito points to the relationship between mothers and their sons. Most hikikomori sufferers are male, often the eldest son.


Dr Saito is critical of the mother and son relationship

"In Japan, mothers and sons often have a symbiotic, co-dependent relationship. Mothers will care for their sons until they become 30 or 40 years old." After a period of time - usually a matter of years - some re-enter society.


The mystery remains

Increasingly, clinics are opening, offering a half-way house for recovering sufferers. Another sufferer, Tadashi, spent four years without leaving his home.

Two years ago, he sought help and now has a part time job making doughnuts. Tadashi is slowly re-entering society. He still fears meeting strangers and is petrified that neighbours will find out that he once suffered from the disorder.


Hiroshi Sasaki's self imposed exile has shattered family life but what bothers him most is not understanding why he lost four years of his life.

"I want to know the reasons," he told me. "You could say it's related to Japanese traditions. "I just don't know. I suppose people are still trying to find out what hikikomori is all about."

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Think all the consequences this epidemic depression-hermiting could have! Hikikomori was first seen unique to Japan, but the same trend spreads in South Korea now and I know one quite badly antisocial person who has come to one party three years ago on New Year and there he sat on the computer and irced, then went home after midnight. The Internet and web communities make it possible to be in social contact with people without really exiting your house or room if you just get your parents to support you. Do you think the society should intervene if families can't get their teenagers live like others do?
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Old 06-08-2003, 10:57 AM   #2 (permalink)
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If the families are willing to support these hermits, more power to them. As long as there isn't an abusive aspect to it, then the government has no right to intervene.
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Old 06-08-2003, 11:03 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Old 06-09-2003, 08:05 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Sparhawk
If the families are willing to support these hermits, more power to them. As long as there isn't an abusive aspect to it, then the government has no right to intervene.
I agree. We have more important things to deal with than kids who don't want to go outside. Also, since this is a personal choice, interfering would go against what most of us stand for.

However, this kind of choice is really depressing. Ah well...
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Old 06-09-2003, 12:52 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Japan is getting too busy anywho... and the population is decreasing at a frightening rate.

hmmm.
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Old 06-10-2003, 08:57 PM   #6 (permalink)
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This probably has a lot more to do with the extreme measures of bullying in Japan than "personal choice". There was one case where one schoolkid committed suicide after breaking his leg. When he came back from the hospital, there was a shrine on the teacher's desk designated to remembering the dead. It had his name and photo on it, and greetings such as "We're happy you're dead" had been signed by all his class-mates, AND his teachers. He saw it, turned around and went to the bathroom and hung himself. This was after a long time of bullying.

There are a lot of cases like these. Most Japanese people I know don't want to discuss it. Most of them have been on one of the sides of the issue.

The schools does nothing to prevent this, and honour-issues prevents kids from telling their parents about their problems. To treat cases like the kitchen-kid like a problem is wrong; it's just a symptom.
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