I read the newspaper today and I found interesting story.

 

The things that happen when you can not control your own life.

The topic that we are discussing right now is the Internet,but blame only the internet could be not fair. And I am not blaming Radiohead too

 

Hikikomori:An extreme isolation Made in Japan!

"People who shuts herself up in their rooms in too much time"

 

 

Shutting Themselves In

 

By MAGGIE JONES

Published: January 15, 2006

One morning when he was 15, Takeshi shut the door to his bedroom, and for the next four years he did not come out. He didn't go to school. He didn't have a job. He didn't have friends. Month after month, he spent 23 hours a day in a room no bigger than a king-size mattress, where he ate dumplings, rice and other leftovers that his mother had cooked, watched TV game shows and listened to Radiohead and Nirvana. "Anything," he said, "that was dark and sounded desperate."

 

I met Takeshi outside Tokyo not long ago, shortly after he finally left his parents' house to join a job-training program called New Start. He was wiry, with a delicate face, tousled, dyed auburn hair and the intensity of a hungry college freshman. "Don't laugh, but musicians really helped me, especially Radiohead," he told me through an interpreter, before scribbling some lyrics in English in my notebook. "That's what encouraged me to leave my room."

 

Next to us was Shuichi, who, like Takeshi, asked that I use only his first name to protect his privacy. He was 20, wore low-slung jeans on his lanky body and a 1970's Rod Stewart shag and had dreams of being a guitarist. Three years ago, he dropped out of high school and became a recluse for a miserable year before a counselor persuaded him to join New Start. Behind him a young man sat on the couch wearing small wire-frame glasses and a shy smile. He ducked his head as he spoke, and his voice was so quiet that I had to lean in to hear him. After years of being bullied at school and having no friends, Y.S., who asked to be identified by his initials, retreated to his room at age 14, and proceeded to watch TV, surf the Internet and build model cars - for 13 years. When he finally left his room one April afternoon last year, he had spent half of his life as a shut-in

 

Like Takeshi and Shuichi, Y.S. suffered from a problem known in Japan as hikikomori, which translates as "withdrawal" and refers to a person sequestered in his room for six months or longer with no social life beyond his home. (The word is a noun that describes both the problem and the person suffering from it and is also an adjective, like "alcoholic.") Some hikikomori do occasionally emerge from their rooms for meals with their parents, late-night runs to convenience stores or, in Takeshi's case, once-a-month trips to buy CD's. And though female hikikomori exist and may be undercounted, experts estimate that about 80 percent of the hikikomori are male, some as young as 13 or 14 and some who live in their rooms for 15 years or more.

 

 

 

 

What do you think about it?

Holy crap I couldn't stand that.

This is pretty much madness. Imagine not leaving your room for 13 years.

 

But I can see it happening. If my best friend didnt get himself a job and a girlfriend, he'd probably try to do the same. What I dont understand is how these people's parents can just let this happen?

 

If my son sat in his room all day everyday, I'd wonder why he isnt going to work or at least school.

 

And that isnt explained in the article. It mentions how these kids stayed indoors from 14 and 15 years old, I dont know the law over there but over here its illegal to not go to school if you are under 16.

 

Doesnt make sense like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REILLY BONUS POST

 

late-night runs to convenience stores or, in Takeshi's case, once-a-month trips to buy CD's.

 

Hahaha I read that as 'Takeshi's Castle'.

 

I hope someone out there knows what Im referring to :thinking:

Well this is a phenomenon that is happening in Japan.I guess that the japanese culture do not help at all.

 

This is a another part of the article:

 

South Korea and Taiwan have reported a scattering of hikikomori, and isolated cases may have always existed in Japan. But 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 a culturebound syndrome that thrives in one particular country during a particular moment in its history.

 

As the problem has become more widespread in Japan, an industry has sprung up around it. There are support groups for parents, psychologists who specialize in it (including one who counsels shut-ins via the Internet) and several halfway programs like New Start, offering dorms and job training. For all the attention, though, hikikomori remains confounding. The Japanese public has blamed everything from smothering mothers to absent, overworked fathers, from school bullying to the lackluster economy, from academic pressure to video games. "I sometimes wonder whether or not I understand this issue," confessed Shinako Tsuchiya, a member of Parliament, one afternoon in her Tokyo office. She has led a study group on hikikomori, but most of her colleagues aren't interested, and the government has yet to allocate funds. "They don't understand how serious it is."

 

That may be in part because the scope of the problem is frustratingly elusive. A leading psychiatrist claims that one million Japanese are hikikomori, which, if true, translates into roughly 1 percent of the population. Even other experts' more conservative estimates, ranging between 100,000 and 320,000 sufferers, are alarming, given how dire the consequences may be. As a hikikomori ages, the odds that he'll re-enter the world decline. Indeed, some experts predict that most hikikomori who are withdrawn for a year or more may never fully recover. That means that even if they emerge from their rooms, they either won't get a full-time job or won't be involved in a long-term relationship. And some will never leave home. In many cases, their parents are now approaching retirement, and once they die, the fate of the shut-ins - whose social and work skills, if they ever existed, will have atrophied - is an open question

 

That isn't a problem just for the hikikomori and their families but also for a country that has been struggling with a sagging economy, a plummeting birth rate and what has been called a youth crisis. The rate of "school refusal" (kids who skip school for one month or more a year, which is sometimes a precursor to hikikomori) has doubled since 1990. And along with hikikomori sufferers, hundreds of thousands of other young men and women are neither working nor in school. After 15 years of sluggish growth, the full-time salaryman jobs of the previous generation have withered, and in their places are often part-time jobs or no jobs and a sense of hopelessness among many Japanese about the future.

 

In addition to the economy, Japanese culture and sex roles play a strong part in the hikikomori phenomenon. "Men start to feel the pressure in junior high school, and their success is largely defined in a couple of years," said James Roberson, a cultural anthropologist at Tokyo Jogakkan College and an editor of the book "Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan." "Hikikomori is a resistance to that pressure. Some of them are saying: 'To hell with it. I don't like it and I don't do well."' Also, this is a society where kids can drop out. In Japan, children commonly live with their parents into their 20's, and despite the economic downturn, plenty of parents can afford to support their children indefinitely - and do. As one hikikomori expert put it, "Japanese parents tell their children to fly while holding firmly to their ankles

doesnt surprise me.

 

i take japanese in school, and ive been learning about the culture and such. kids there go to many afterschool programs and go to saturday school to study more. they are graded on a number system, like 1-50 (i dont remember the exact number), and if they are not in the top 20 (out of all the students), people view that as failing. most dads are business men, they come home very late because they usually work 2-3 hours overrtime. and most of the time, they are too tired to come home, so they just go to a bar with coworkers or play pinball (its like the US slot machine for them). they also stay overrnight at hotels because they dont have the time to come home.

 

with the pressure of school and a dad never being home, i can see why this is happening. where did you get this article? im interested... :)

I found this article in the New York Times Magazzine!

 

Check in New York Times website!

REILLY BONUS POST

 

late-night runs to convenience stores or, in Takeshi's case, once-a-month trips to buy CD's.

 

Hahaha I read that as 'Takeshi's Castle'.

 

I hope someone out there knows what Im referring to :thinking:

 

 

I thought the exact same thing. Haha. :lol:

 

 

 

And, more on topic... I think I could quit the internet if I had to. I've had times where I've not been able to go on the net for about a month or two, and I've been fine. I just enjoy this. :P

REILLY BONUS POST

 

late-night runs to convenience stores or, in Takeshi's case, once-a-month trips to buy CD's.

 

Hahaha I read that as 'Takeshi's Castle'.

 

I hope someone out there knows what Im referring to :thinking:

 

 

I thought the exact same thing. Haha. :lol:

 

Wonderful! Hahahaha.

^lol reilly bonus post :lol:

i read a story once of a guy in japan playing online games, and died of dehydration because he played for 4 days straight.

^I heard that, didn't it say that he was in an internet cafe and kept a roll up mattress and slept like 2 hours a day or somethin, or is that just my stingy radio station makin crap up :lol:

WOW

 

 

But hey, if you are gonna be stuck in a room for years and years, you mights as well spend it eating dumplings and jamming to Radiohead :lol:

Yea i heard of that story too,:freak:

that's what the whole thread is about, i hope you read it ! :lol:

What's that supposed to mean crystal....... :P :P :P :P

Oh...you know! :rolleyes:

I've heard of those stories before... but I never really understand how such a life is possible, even though I'm studying psychology at school. it's just... weird. :/

Hahaha I read that as 'Takeshi's Castle'.

 

I hope someone out there knows what Im referring to thinking.gif

 

:lol:

 

Takeshi's castle!I know it............

I thought about this too!°