Suicide Phenomenon In Japan

Suicide Phenomenon In Japan
The suicide rise on the land of Rising Sun
The rise of suicide in the land of rising sun, has been a phenomenon in the world since 1998. Japan has already one of the highest suicide rates among rich country and in the world. More than 30.000 people a year have taken their own lives in the last ten years (since 1998). According to the most data available, from the year 2005, 32.552 Japanese people killed themselves out of a population of 127 million. This amounts to 90 suicides per day and almost one every 15 minutes. According to the statistics of Japanese National Police Agency (19/6/2008), 33.093 people (second highest rate) took their own lives in 2007. Japan even recorded as the highest rate of suicide case in the world in 2003 when the amount was 34.427 people over 100 years of statistical records.
Statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that the majority of suicide victims of males from age 40 to the mid-60s. Many of these men committed suicide because of a feeling of dishonoring the family name. Others simply watched their companies let them go after years of devoted work, and could not find gainful employment because of their age.
Japan has been stricken by an epidemic of suicide cutting across all social strata and age groups. On May 2007, Japanese Agriculture Ministry, Toshikasu Matsuoka, who was related with corruption scandal was found with hanging body in a parliament building. After in 1998, The Deputy Major of Kobe has taken his lives, because he failed do the recovery of Kobe after great earthquake in 1995 as his assignment.
Japan first passed the 30.000 mark in 1998, near the height of an economic slump that left many bankrupt, jobless, and desparate. Since 2003, the Aokigahara woods at the base of Mount Fuji have been known as the “suicide forest” because 78 middle-aged men apparently committed suicide by hanging themselves from tree branches. Experts cite unemployment, bankruptcies, and other economic problems as major reasons for the deaths.
“Internet Suicide” Community
“A 14-year old Japanese girl killed herself by mixing laundry detergent with cleanser, releasing fumes that also sickened 90 people in her apartment house, police said Thursday as they grappled with a spate of similar suicides” (CNN.com)
There are many similar cases of this suicide way in Japan now. There are a lot of information of easy suicide method can be found on tne internet. It shows that internet has become a media to invite another people to do suicide together. Now, in Japan can be found internet suicide community. It is growing and morbidly frank underworld of chat rooms and websites with names Suicide Club, where thousands of (mainly young) people meet and talk and plan their deaths.
Andrew Harding a BBC Asia Correspondent, had days of online research, emails, and text massages to bring him - face to face with a member of Japan’s “internet suicide” community in 2004. He talked to a men searching for someone to die with, Naoki Tachiwana (34-year old bank employee who had been off work with stress-related problems for six months. He thought that suicide was the disease of his depression.
Culture of suicide
Japanese is known with the suicide culture. They have some suicide culture, Such as Hara-kiri (Seppuku), Shinjyuu, and Kamikaze. Moreover, Japanese art and literature have long extolled suicide as an honorable means of expiating shame or escaping from an untenable situation, whether it be the seppuku of a Yoshitsune, or the shinju of the lovers in Chikamatsu's "Love Suicides at Sonezaki."
In more modern times, Japan became well-known for the suicidal tendencies of it’s soldiers. The kamikaze pilots are certainly the best-known example, but well before the cataclysm of World War II, dating back at least to the Russo-Japanese War, Japan had a history of extolling the exploits of gunshin ("war gods") and nikudan ("human bullets") who sacrificed their lives for the greater good of Japan.
From the early years of the 20th century, the Japanese military undertook a deliberate policy of inculcating a military ideology in which death was held to be preferable to surrender. Although kamikaze pilots were said to have been "volunteers" and the "human bullets" were praised for their noble self-sacrifice, these decisions were typically taken in a context in which no other choice would have been socially acceptable. When once considers that seppuku was likewise often a coerced act rather than a truly voluntary death, the importance of separating true suicides from state-mandated self-killing becomes clear.
Generally, may be common people argued that this suicide phenomenon is unusual. But, Japanese has a Unique culture of suicide. According to Wataru Tsurumi, author of a Graphic, and best-selling handbook on the subject, there is nothing bad about suicide. Japanese have no religion or laws which prohibit suicidal. It’s always been the part of their culture.