Suicide epidemic grips Japan

[Judi Lynn]

Source: USA Today

Suicide epidemic grips Japan
Updated 2m ago

By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY

TOKYO — A suicide fad is sweeping Japan: Hundreds of Japanese have killed themselves this year by mixing ordinary household chemicals into a lethal cloud of poison gas that often injures others and forces the evacuation of entire apartment blocks.

The 517 self-inflicted deaths by hydrogen sulfide poisoning this year are part of a bigger, grimmer story: Nearly 34,000 Japanese killed themselves last year, according to the Japanese national police. That's the second-highest toll ever in a country where the suicide rate is ninth highest in the world and more than double that of the USA, the World Health Organization says.

Japan has long been known as a "nation of suicide," notes sociologist Kayoko Ueno at University of Tokushima. Samurai warriors famously chose seppuku — disemboweling themselves — over surrender. Japanese kamikaze pilots crashed their planes into targets during World War II.

~snip~
• A decade of weak economic growth and the unraveling of Japan's system of lifetime employment have left many middle-age and elderly men unemployed and in financial ruin. Among Japanese suicides, nearly 71% are men, more than 73% are 40 or older, and more than 57% are jobless.





Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-07-20-japan-suicides_N.htm

[OhioChick]

1. Expect the same here, soon. n/t

[LeftyMom]

2. Not the fumes though.

People here tend to stick with the national obsessions- guns and pills. Well, and cars- nobody really knows how many single-car fatal accidents were suicides.

[amitten]

3. Please don't even say that. n/t

[OhioChick]

5. Job loss is so extreme

I hate to say it, but the time is coming here...

[seriousstan]

7. You want to push this..you first.

[OhioChick]

12. "Push" what? n/t

[Donnachaidh]

6. This is WHY we can look forward to that happening here

People refuse to face reality.

If we were really honest and had the courage to actually TALK about problems we'd be able to work on solutions. But, as a nation, we've learned to stick our fingers in our ears and sing lalalalalalalalalal rather than do something to help ourselves or perhaps a neighbor who is in distress.

[Fumesucker]

4. Americans are more likely to kill others than themselves when in that situation..

After all, suicide is a mortal sin.

[aspergris]

22. ridiculous n/t

[LongTomH]

25. It's already begun here!

Suicides are up, especially among middle-aged men.

Nationally, a puzzling new trend is occurring, a recent government report found.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in December that the suicide rate among middle-age Americans had reached its highest point in at least 25 years.

The rate for men between ages 45 and 54 rose by about 20 percent between 1999 and 2004, outpacing much-publicized findings of a small increase in suicides among younger adults during that same period. For women in the same age bracket, the rate of increase was 31 percent.

Experts are at a loss to explain the reason for the increase.

At a loss to explain the trend? I think everyone on this board understands the reasons: Job loss, loss of homes, loss of hope for the future.

Actually, suicide tends to follow in the wake of conservative, free-market ideas. Read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Suicide rates have gone up all over Asia as entire economies have been plundered by the very wealthy and a former middle class is plunged back down into the underclass.

In South Korea, suicide rates went up by 50% in 1998; this was also the period in which their middle class was shrinking from 63.7% in 1996 to 38.4% in 1998. As in Japan, most of the increase in suicide was among older men suddenly left with livelihood and facing old age with nothing to fall back on.

The most tragic stories coming out of South Korea were of entire families taking part in suicide pacts led by a destitute father. As Ms. Klein pointed out: The official figures only list the father's death as suicide; the deaths of the rest of the family are listed as homicides.

[petgoat]

8. While doing some research in Sunday newspapers from the 1930s

I ran across an article that told about a suicide club. Jobless people who
felt they were a burden to their families would join up and it was a support
group. Every month they would draw lots and one person would bump him or
herself off.

I've always thought there was a novel in that situation.

For the record--I'm not going to bump myself off. I'm very skeptical actually
of the proposition that Hunter Thompson did himself in. Seems to me the fight
he'd spent his life training for was just shaping up when he checked out. Bush
makes Nixon look like a Kennedy.

[stark6935]

9. I am agnostic...

I think a lot has to do with the really high atheist numbers in Japan. A lot of people are afraid to kill themselves due to the fact they fear internal damnation. I believe something like 70% of people over there are actually atheist, and don't fear an after life that "doesn't exist".

Funny how the atheists get such a bad rap, but their crime rate is way lower in Japan than the USA. Maybe suppression leads to aggression?

[MrsBrady]

11. personally...

I've known many Japanese in my life, lived with them in college, still keep in touch with one in Tokyo, a longtime ex-boyfriend who had been married to and had a daughter with one, personal reading, classes in college...

I don't know what religion there would play in suicide rates in Japan. I'd have to think about that one.

But just in my personal experience, they have a kind of "honor code" that we just don't have here.
Their way or our way...one is not better than the other. What I mean to say is that they really do have a cultural difference than we do. And I think those that are not familiar with Japanese culture just may not understand that.

Granted, this is a generalization, but bear with me here. Most of the time, I think in the US, suicide can be related to desperation...more in a sense of hopelessness or "no way out" kind of mentality. That nothing will ever get better, or that there is "no point" to going on. And if someone is successful in their attempt they are seen as having had problems related to their character, possibly.

In Japan, while someone may be desperate, their jobs mean more to them and are related to their honor in a much different way here. One might be seen as having dishonored himself or his family to lose a job or money or position. It's a subtle difference, but creates a great divide in practice. They also have a history of ritual suicide, which we do not.

[Coventina]

18. Where did you hear that 70% of Japanese are atheist?

Because everything I have learned about Japan indicates that they are a VERY religious people. Shinto is fundamental to their lives and culture. It's a very different sort of religion from our Western traditions, however (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

[aspergris]

23. crime rate in general

is much lower in japan than USA. I don't think correlation = causation, in re the atheist thang and crime, although I agree that for an atheist, there is not the pesky afterlife worries when it comes to suicide.. Japan is a radically different culture (to put it mildly) as anybody who has ever visited, let alone lived there can attest.

Note that japanese americans also have a MUCH Lower crime rate, violent crime rate, have much higher average income than whites/blacks etc., much lower OOW birthrate, etc.

The one "social pathology" that they trump us in is suicide, and that's as true of japanese americans, as it is of japanese.

Iow, the culture differ, and the stats show that quite clearly.

[Kaleko]

26. Most Japanese are either Shinto or Buddhists.

Both faiths teach that there is an afterlife.

[Lars39]

16. Ellery Queen beat you to it:

Hoch, Edward D.
The Spy and the Suicide Club, #500, January, 1985.

I remember reading a short story featured in EQ about rampant suicides in Japan, too.

[provis99]

10. looks like Roger Waters was right..

"And it can't be much fun for them, beneath the Rising Sun,
With all their kids committing suicide"

-Pink Floyd "The Post-War Dream"

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Yep. And just the other day someone was suggesting we follow a

Japanese philosophy that would have us give in to the Republicans and go Purple. I think we need new role models.

[iamthebandfanman]

14. suicide tends to prevail

when you have people who feel hopeless and ashamed of their situation. add the fact that their old culture is based on honor.. and youve got the making of a bad suicide stew.

[daggahead]

15. Suicide rates also tend to go up ...

... under conservative governments.

[Wednesdays]

24. Exactly. This paragraph is most significant...

For an unemployed, former "salaryman," suicide can be "a rational decision," Yamada says. When a man commits suicide in Japan, his beneficiaries can still collect his life insurance. And insurers pay off Japanese home mortgages when a family's breadwinner dies — even if the death is a suicide. "If he dies, the rest of the family gets money," Yamada says. "If he continues to live without a job, they will lose the house."

[1776Forever]

17. Suicide - How well I know that word - I wish I didn't - Some incites if you care to read on......

In 2006 one of my children found themselves without health care and when they were sent to a mental facility because they couldn't stand the pain any more from what was finally diagnosed as progressive MS tried to end their life. Fortunately they did not succeed and we have a wonderful kind person still walking this earth today because of some dedicated University of South Florida specialists that finally diagnosed them correctly and got them on the medication they needed.

But 2 weeks later my daughter-in-law, who had divorced my husbands son 2 years before, killed herself and her little 5 year-old son. I had turned her in for help to our Florida Adult and Children services but they did not follow up on her and she was deemed schizophrenic after it was too late.

Back in the 1980's when Reagan came into office there were many people like my husband who was totally disabled taken of the Social Security Disability lists and many of them committed suicide because of it.

What this says to me is that there is a truly a break down in our health care in this country, and connection to these suicides are linked! We must try and put some kind of safety net back in our country for those who suffer the most! This not only affects those who commit suicide but the families who are left to deal with it afterwards. You question if you had done everything you could do and in the end you know if you had more resources to help out those who need it they might have survived!

[bdamomma]

19. sad.

[WriteDown]

20. Those who say the time is coming here....

do not understand Japanese culture. These suicide epidemics pop up now and again in Japan. Probably many reasons including cultural acceptance and the amount of importance that is placed on doing well in your job.

Maybe we will see it in the U.S at Toyota plants.

[Leftist Agitator]

21. Jesus Christ, poison gas??!!

WTF?

:wtf:

They've gone from jumping in front of bullet trains to this?


:shrug:

[heliarc]

28. Poison gas isn't a new thing in Japan...

Maybe for Suicide:


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7DC173DF935A25756C0A963958260

[mdmc]

27. I wonder how our troops rate with Japanese society

Our troop suicide rate is pretty high.

[brentspeak]

29. Looks like globalization hasn't worked out well for Japan, either