The only traffic light in my island

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In our island, there is only one traffic light. It’s near the elementary school. The main purpose is to teach traffic rules to students. You may be wonder to here that, but if it is small island like ours, this is not a rare case. So this is a kind of pride for many islanders, to say that they have only one traffic light in their island. (I think many of us hate the traffic light system in Japan)
Any way here in this article I have no intention to boast about it, but I wish to write something about the small children who are crossing the road near by this traffic light.
Recently we heard shocking news about suicide incidents of children, who faced bullying by there fellow students. Adding to that, one school principal committed suicide to take the responsibility of the bullying incident. I was wondered by these continuing suicide incidents, not because it’s a word I never heard but it’s the children who are committing suicide, that’s something I can not imagine. Why do small children have to kill them selves? Most of them may be didn’t know, what suicide is?
Having living here for five years, I knew that Japanese believe that suicide is a way to take responsibility. Most of you might have seen that Japanese Samurais cut there belly after loosing a battle, so it’s a way to show their pride. May be Japanese society has influenced by this. But in Sri Lanka the story is different; people commit suicide may be because of hunger sometimes because of unemployment or war, but I have never heard of children are committing suicide. I was wondered to here that children are commuting suicide in Japan. These incidents encourage me to search about bullying; I met a Japanese friend of mine who was bullied by the classmate. By hearing to his sad story what I felt was, not the children who are facing it or the children who are doing it, are wrong. The adults who made this society are responsible for the situation. After listing to my friend’s bullying incident, I greatly felt that homogeneousness of Japanese society is one of the main reasons for the bullying. Japanese do not tolerate the individualism. They always gathered in groups, most of the cases they didn’t put individual forward, instead of they put the institution or the organization first.
So the same thing is happening in the school too. Student who are different from others or students who do not want to do the same thing as others can be the targets for bullying. May be the student who is really good at studies or the student who is really bad at studies can be the targets of bullying. They have taught to be the average. So when they see some one who is different from them, they start bullying on that student.
From many of the notes left by those students who committed suicide, we can understand this situation in school.
At the beginning of this article I mentioned about the traffic light in my island. Traffic light is for protect people. In big cities, you will find many traffic lights and there are high-tech products to protect the life of the people, having these entire things still small children are committing suicide, because any modern machine can not defeat the heart of the people. If the adults do not have hearts, they are raising the children without hearts. Even they make sophisticated products to save the life of children, I do not thing that they can achieve it.
Comparing with these circumstances, children are the most precious thing for the people in my Island, because average of 10 babies is born for one year in our island. Many of the islanders know each others kids. So kids also have the feeling that there are not only their parents are looking after them, but many of the others are keep eye on them. I think this protection can not be provided by any sophisticated device. So even though there is only one traffic light in my island, I believe the children are hundred times safer than the city.

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