Less Than a Month

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So I've less than a month left in Japan. I'm starting to throw stuff away, pack things up, send last letters to people, and party even harder than usual (which has been catching up to me). We're at the end of the rainy season right about now, I'd say, though Mother Nature sure did dump a lot of water on us. One day we got more than three inches. Three inches! I didn't even try to go outside that day, even though I had classes. I wasn't about to go out in the pouring rain, get drenched on the way to school, be pissed in class, then have to walk home. Oh well, my teachers understood.

We have had our nice days the past month, and I've been to Amakusa, a beach-town a few hours away by car from Kumamoto city, a few times since. I've learned I either a) love swimming or b) love the ocean...or maybe c) love swimming in the ocean. I've never done that before. I guess I went to the Oregonian coast when I was a kid, but I don't specifically remember swimming, just wading around a lot. To be honest, I'm kind of scared of swimming. It's not like regular exercise where you can stop and take a break; you have to tread water to do that, and if you're really tired, it's possible to drown. But maybe that's why I like it - a little risk put into the mixture is interesting. More interesting than lifting weights, anyway.

This is my last full week of class. We're done next Wednesday, the 15th. Our final "test" is to write a short speech, maybe four minutes long, about, as my teachers put it, "Anything."

Anything? Kind of daunting. I certainly didn't want to talk about how Japan is awesome, Japan is great, if Japan were a woman, I'd make her my wife, etc., etc., blah blah blah. I also felt that outright pointing out the flaws that Japanese society has - and believe me, there are a few - would be like a slap in the face to my teachers and the people attending the speech. So I've decided to tell a story about a high school girl I met in a Starbucks over Spring Break, maybe in March or so. When you boil the speech down, it's going to talk about one specific problem that I really think Japan needs to look in to - suicide prevention.

Japan has the second highest suicide rate in the world, with South Korea in the winning position (though North Korea has been lying about its suicide numbers for years now). Part of this comes from a history of gaining honor through suicide, where samurai would cut open their bellies to regain face if ashamed in battle, in love, in whatever. And we all know about kamikaze suicide bombers in WWII, of course. Nowadays, and in the nineties as well, a big chunk of the over 30,000 people who kill themselves each year in Japan are middle aged salary men who have lost their jobs, and have no way to make a real living. Better to hang yourself than live in the gutter, I s'pose.

However, another disturbingly large portion of those people who kill themselves in Japan are high schoolers, and even middle schoolers. Most people attribute this to bullying, and it is a rampant problem here. Unlike Western schools, Japanese school kids are all in one classroom all day, and the teachers move from room to room. This means that all day, you're with the same people. Add that to the fact that Japan is a horribly group-oriented country, and, as the Japanese say, "The nail that stands up gets hammered down." Once a kid is chosen by a part of the class to be bullied, it's near impossible for it to stop without serious intervention.

Furthermore, I've talked to many Japanese people about counseling services in public schools, especially middle and high schools. A majority of them say that it depends on the school if it has a counselor on staff or not. Many people I've talked to did not have those services available to them at all during their entire educational career before university. Instead, if a child is having problems, they're given the number of a professional counselor in a hospital or private practice, and have to make an appointment, and even pay for it themselves. And beyond that, because the Japanese educational system is so rigid and pressures students to study all day, and then even go to cram school for four or more hours after regular school hours, finding a time to go to a counselor is rather difficult. And what if a student who is getting bullied does go to a counselor, and their classmates find out? Even more reason for them to bully that person for showing weakness.

As I said earlier, I met a high school girl in a Starbucks over Spring Break, and somehow we started talking, and for some reason, she decided to tell me that she had tried to kill herself twice now, and showed me the scars to prove it. She said that she feels trapped in a world where her peers make fun of her for being "weak," her teachers don't do anything about it, her school does not provide counseling services, and even if she went, she doesn't have the money to pay for it, her parents are never home because they both work long days, so she doesn't have anyone to really talk to, and on, and on, and on.

I saw it in her eyes. She's not going to live beyond 25, and she's going to take her own life. And so I'm going to tell my teachers this story, and maybe they'll do something with their power as Japanese citizens. But probably not.

Sorry for the bummer of a post. At least you got one, ya? :3

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