do you blame them?

[ronin juku]

sometimes I dont feel like leaving my room either. Yes, this is a sad state of affairs. At least when this crazy place is giving me the shits I can get the hell away and get my groove back, I know that the whole world is not like Japan. Imagine if you didn`t?

[ronin juku]

Its hard to understand why people would rather hide but living in Tokyo is living in a kinda f*cked up vacume. Its a sad state of affairs when that is the only way for some people to live outside a very unforgiving mainstream.

[Ketou]

Sigh...

Sometimes the interaction on (with) the computer is so much more interesting. That's why we are all on f*cked gaijin!!

[American Oyaji]

It's not really that strange.

I spend most of my time in my room here in the states since I came back from Japan.

[American Oyaji]

I just read the original article.

? ? ? ? ?

Building another bloody kitchen??? I'm sorry f*ck that kid, you've got to go.

Bust the door down and beat his ass for bein a punk.

Thats just me.

[GomiGirl]

I'm sorry f*ck that kid, you've got to go.

Bust the door down and beat his ass for bein a punk.

Thats just me.

hhmm Sure the kid has been over-indulged and a small problem has escalated to the point he is at now.... but hhmmm your solution sounds like the parent who hits their child to try to stop them crying.... a bit counter-productive.

I am not a parent - god knows what sort of neurosis I would give a child...

[American Oyaji]

I AM a parent.

There are some things you should not let children get away with, no matter what the age.

My point is, no child of mine is going to lock me out of any room in my own home. It's disrespectful. If he retreated to his own room, thats one thing. And after a while, I'd go in and drag him out. Some of these "neurosis" are self indulgent behaviours. I know, I've faced quite a few and I've recognized it for an extreme selfcentered behaviour.

[ronin juku]

I am not a parent - god knows what sort of neurosis I would give a child...

Ahhhhh, I just wish that more people would think before having kids. I would love to have kids but dont know if this is a good place for them to grow up. God knows what kind of neurosis they would end up with........

[kurohinge1]

Couldn't resist this oyajigyagu:

Q: What do you call a Japanese bat that won't leave its cave?
(Doukutsu kara zenzen denai koumori wa nan to iimasu ka?)

A: Hikikoumori desu.




Koumori


Hikikoumori

[japslapper]

I know this may sound a bit contoversial but this is my take on the whole missing million thing.....

I am sure most of you have noticed the lack in most J-boys experience of a Male role model. Wheres Dad? - Out at Snack Mama and if your lucky you will get a lot of life experience and direction off the school master - but that is only the kids who are into something acceptable.....

So kids have school - safety. Over powering mum - saftey. However the real world demands an independant and certain courageousness of spirit for survival . I think with these chaps its rather like a rabbit when it sees oncoming headlamps - it freezes. The lost millions have this freezing behaviour rewarded(ie not punished) and "brain lock" ensues - anxiety "obssession" type situation.

The girls on the other hand have less expectation, less hassel (because mothers attention is on the son) etc.

The lost millions are a produced of an F.society. Poor kids.....

I just wish that more people would think before having kids

They do say people care more for the breed of their dogs that that of their kids......

It's true .......just look at the totally f.ed up members of one of our societies.....say death row USA....most if not all had a bad upbringing. If any of you FGs had depression/anxiety/ocd (before you got to Japan that is) then if you think back - a lot of the time there will be something in your childhood that set it off - something your parents did (often out of ignorance or circumstance).........

The F.ed cycle reverberates through many generations.............The "F" in FG will still be here in 100yrs time......

[Caustic Saint]

I AM a parent.

There are some things you should not let children get away with, no matter what the age.

My point is, no child of mine is going to lock me out of any room in my own home. It's disrespectful. If he retreated to his own room, thats one thing. And after a while, I'd go in and drag him out. Some of these "neurosis" are self indulgent behaviours. I know, I've faced quite a few and I've recognized it for an extreme selfcentered behaviour.

I never saw this thread before (didn't read back this far once I joined the forum), but there's an easy way to deal with this one:

Take away the door to his room! Just take it down, hinges and all. That'll put a damper on any hermetic habits.

For the record, I'm not a parent - nor will I ever be. I've heard of parents in the US doing this and I think it's an awesome idea.

[AssKissinger]

His mother takes meals to his door three times a day.

That's the problem right there. I'm with American Oyaji on this one. This boy needs a foot in his backside.

he only baths once every six months.

NASTY NASTY NASTY NASTY

He's gotta be stinking up the whole house.

There's two key issues here.

1)Japanese refuse to address mental illness. This kid needs to be dragged off to a doctor for God's sake. To let him stew in the kitchen like that is just plain neglect. And it's nasty!

2) Many Japanese truely hate their own society. Why else would their parents let them get away with this kind of insane isolation? Even encouraging it (building around the kid, bringing him meals ect). It's because they too hate Japanese society and can secretly understand and even agree with the boys decision to reject the world.

The fact that this problem is unique to Japan shows how uniquely fucked this place really is!

[Big Booger]

yeah, I agree AssKing

He must smell like the dotonbori river..

LOL

One way would be to redesign homes without doors walls or any private space.

[AssKissinger]

yeah, I agree AssKing

One way would be to redesign homes without doors walls or any private space.

My name's not AssKing but I like it! If I had had to go through my teen years with no comfortable place to spank the monkey I definitely would have gone insane. Not that much has changed.

[kamome]

AssKing...love it!

[Alcazar]

That documentary about the Japanese young male recluses showed on Australian TV last night. It was amazing. One of the most disturbing things was a live-in cram school. These little kids lived there and studied all day and were given hours of exams at the end of the day. If they got questions wrong they had to do the exams again and again, and could not go to sleep until they passed.

The last kid was working to finish until 1am. It was insane and a demonstration of the pressure that can lead to the huge number of recluses. I think the recluse thing is a sort of action one step down from suicide for the recluses.

[Taro Toporific]

That documentary about the Japanese young male recluses showed on Australian TV last night...

Of course I have not seen the program and cannot judge it myself, but....

The Cutting Edge: Japan's Missing Teenagers
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 15 Sep 2003
This should have been a great documentary, purely on the basis of its intriguing subject. In Japan, about 1.2 million people are affected by a uniquely Japanese social problem called hikikomori . This is when an individual retreats from the outside world, usually to one room in the house, and refuses to leave.

These hermits are mainly young men, often in their teens, who may spend years in the same room, usually waited on by their mothers.

The program's downfall is not its theme, but how it is presented. Part of the problem with hikikomori is that many families are too ashamed to admit to their child's behaviour, preferring to deal with it in secret. This means that any journalist, particularly from another culture, would need to show a certain amount of sensitivity in dealing with his Japanese interviewees.

Unfortunately English journo Phil Rees is not big on tact. By the end of the program, it's like watching Mike Moore from Frontline blundering around with a camera in tow.

The scene where Rees whispers his commentary in a dorm full of sleeping children is priceless, but not for the reasons he intended.

[GomiGirl]

What does he do for a toilet?

[Big Booger]

I'd say they were given bedpans, or a porta potty installed in their secluded habitat.

That, or they had a window.. but 6 months for a bath.. can't you get diseases that way? Surely fungus would start to grow after a while.. I wonder if you develop a stink film all over your body..

As for the assking thing, , it was an abbreviation.. asskissinger is just too much to write, assking was much easier.


I think this topic would make a good film.. a life and times of a teenage mutant hermit.

[GomiGirl]

This sort of indulgence of a child is completely over the top. Surely intervention at a much earlier time is necessary. Waiting for years without seeking family counselling is just sticking your head in the sand.

[Alcazar]

On the documentary they travelled with a former recluse who became a recluse as a young salaryman and had been previously isolated for three years. He was still young and now worked as an advisor to families on how to approach the problem. He was very busy, there was no shortage of work. He said one of the biggest problems was simply the lack of communication and connection between Japanese family members.

He also had to go to all the houses really discretely because the families were terrified of the neighbours finding out about their family situation with the recluse.

They interviewed one recluse, and another they couldn't approach but they could see his room was absolutely full of rubbish, spilling out in the corridor.

[Taro Toporific]