[teek]

Japan is incredibly stubborn and ignorant when it comes to addressing core social and psychological problems in their society. It isn't even recognized by most of the population so when people begin to complain of their own social issues or depression, people around them will slowly distance themselves from that person. As a result, most people will choose to hide their issues until it is unbearable. At the point they feel they cannot continue is when they do something drastic which includes suicide.

If you bring the problem to light, people will just shy away from the debate (Japanese avoid arguments at all costs) and act ignorant. So to anyone that understands Japanese culture, Koremura's response is understandable. At least in the position he is in, he can do something.

[lani]

How about a startup where one can dial a 1-800 number from Japan and get someone in ,say, Europe, who is also bored, and the two can rant to each other about how bad things are , and then go back to their lives ? International PainBuddy program, Dial-An-Agony . 1800-call-pain !! Best part, we pay a couple of life coaches to analyse some rants and provide anonymous advice

[jackvalentine]

I was going to comment that you'd have language issues but then I realised, most people who want to vent don't actually need to be understood they just need to get it out.

Good idea!

[SomeStupidPoint]

It might actually work better if a European makes soothing noises and a Japanese person makes soothing noises at a European in exchange, without either side knowing what the topic is.

[lani]

there's also google translate to help out

[nostrademons]

https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest

[RaSoJo]

I cannot agree with you enough. I must add that, personally i feel more comfortable discussing problems with total strangers - this avoids the social ramifications part. do hope someone picks this idea up seriously.

[keithpeter]

"Japan is incredibly stubborn and ignorant when it comes to addressing core social and psychological problems in their society."

Not just Japan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-33...

Politicians in the UK talk about community this and community that but in practice we are losing the ties between neighbours/families.

[contergan]

Well, what do you expect? Multiculturalism and a strong sense of community don't really go together very well.

[deckiedan]

I really strongly disagree with the sentiment of this comment. I've been living and working in a very ethnically / culturally diverse non-profit charity organisation for several years now. We're a Christian charity, so there are strong religious ties across the board, but huge cultural differences.

A sense of community is far more developed by the shared experiences together, rather than just the similarity of past culture. I always had a very strong sense of community with the people I did my initial training with, and the people I worked with every day. Much less so with the people from a similar culture.

I'm currently living in Carlisle, in the North of England. Very mono-cultural, very white, working class, etc. There's really not a lot of sense of community at all. After the flooding a few years (shared experiences) there was. But here now? No. Most people just sit at home in the evenings watching TV, and never do things together (much shared past / culture, they often watch the same shows, but no shared experiences, so little sense of community).

My wife and I work quite hard to deliberately develop community, inviting people over for meals, (board-)games evenings, barbecues, etc.

But the thing is now, you have to be deliberate about creating community. It's no longer automatic.

Personally, I blame TV hugely. It's far too easy these days to spend all ones free / down time disconnected from the people around you. The internet just continues the trend.

In our organisation, on board our ship(s) ( http://www.logoshope.org/ ) which doesn't have TV, when people started having their own laptops that were able to watch TV series and movies on, we saw a huge shift in community, from people in free time hanging out together and talking, playing games, exploring, etc, to people sitting on their own in their cabins playing computer games, watching TV / movies, etc. And the sense of community suffered.

[deckiedan]

Expanding a bit on what I mean by shared experience:

There's a huge difference between active and passive experience. Listening to a lecture is a passive experience. Asking questions is an active one. Watching TV is a passive experience. Playing a board game is an active one. The exact definitions can be a bit hazy, but the major concept should be fairly clear.

This is why in longer training courses / workshops run for a bunch of people from different communities, rather than from an already established one, there's often an 'icebreaker' game which is interactive and requires active participation, rather than just watching a funny cat video, or listening to a talk straight away. Even if the game is a little bit boring, or if you don't remember anyone's name, you have now all got at least one shared active experience, and a (slight) sense of community. If there's already a sense of community, then this is less needed, obviously. This sense of community is then useful for getting people to offer assistance to each other, be more likely to ask questions, make team discussions / activities later on much more interactive, and so on.

It's why there is a sense of community on slashdot, here, github, etc. and many many communities on reddit, youtube etc. but bbc, cnn, amazon, netflicks, etc. don't (much). Even if many many people watch BBC, or the same tv series on netflicks, and spend hours watching the same content as other people there, there's very little active participation. Often any active participation is lost amongst all the other noise, rather than becoming a shared active experience with other people. 30 people watch a glove and boots video, make their own responses, and watch each others videos, and maybe make responses to those responses. They will feel like a community. 300000 people watch it and 'like' it, and then go on to watch a video about kittens, and maybe like that too. They may enjoy their time, but won't feel like a community.

[keithpeter]

"Very mono-cultural, very white, working class, etc. There's really not a lot of sense of community at all."

My experience also in multi-ethnic Birmingham. I think shared experience is the key.

[goldfeld]

When bigots run the place and "community" more often than not stands for segregative christian values, they really don't.

[deckiedan]

Trying not to feed the trolls, but:

Segregation and discrimination are far away from any of the teachings of Jesus. He partied and hung out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other social outcasts of the day. He was killed alongside thieves, and spoke to them without disparaging. He, as a Jew, travelled to the Samaritan towns (a people-group treated apartheid style by Israel back-then), stayed with them and treated them as equals. He spoke kindly to a woman caught in adultery that the community wanted to stone to death, and through his response to her, saved her life. He treated all sin (falling short of the intended perfect standard) as proving us all equally fallen.

His teaching boiled down to: All people are broken, and failed. No-one is better than anyone else, and any 'self-righteousness' you may think you have because of your religion, or background, race, whatever, is of no value in the end at all. But God still loves us, come back to him!

The Pharisees (essentially the fundamentalist evangelicals of the time) and other religious leaders slammed him for this, and it was because their power over the people being challenged by him that they ended up conspiring to murder him.

Please don't take the rude, abusive, hurtful, bigotted and unwelcoming attitudes of certain people who call themselves 'Christians' to actually be values originating in the teachings of Christ.

[goldfeld]

Sorry, I'm no troll on most days. I agree with you on Jesus, but mainstream christianity was already so far removed from his teaching just a few centuries after his death. I could be interpreted to have said "those christians with segregative values", of which there are many communities, priests/pastors and churches. You can say they're not christians, and I'd even fancy your definition, but they would beg to differ, splattering Jesus on your face.

[Sharlin]

Often "the community" is just a buzzword used by the political right when trying to weasel out of responsibilities belonging to the state.

[adwf]

Yeah, a lot of the local government stuff in the UK is the equivalent of the US saying: "Oh, we believe this is a states rights issue, therefore we're not gonna do anything about it."

It's another way of saying, fix it yourself. Oddly enough though, when we actually have the government step in, then all sorts of people start complaining about the nanny state.

Politics - Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

[velodrome]

Solution: Meetups. I am not sure if you remember an article from last year about elderly Koreans (in NY) who would do weekly meetups to check on each other...Maybe something like this can work in Japan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/nyregion/fighting-a-mcdona...

[smil]

How has your country (you must be American) distinguished itself by doing these same core social and psychological issues? Or are Americans stubborn and ignorant?

[white-flame]

America is home to thousands if not millions of volunteer groups, social change movements, debates and university studies on these sorts of situations. There isn't any sort of central government ministry dealing with stuff like this, but large independent swathes of society do try to work to establish where these problems come from, and how best to deal with them.

If anything, Americans would suffer more from fatigue by being bombarded with tons of national social issues to genuinely worry about and try to work against, rather than remaining in denial about them.

[protomyth]

In part of the USA, the tradition of churches tending to the flock is still going strong. Also, the local gathering place where folks swap news and talk (the bakery in the small town I'm in) is still a fixture.

[SixSigma]

Britains of a certain age are stoic and stubborn.

I was in hospital with my gran (born in 1922) in ICU (a pulse of 33bpm - and turns out she had kidney failure too), when alone with me she was gripping my hand and saying "this is the worst I have ever felt", when a few minutes later the doctor arrive d and asked "how are you feeling?" she replied "I'm fine thank you".

I think the current crop of younger people will be more vocal, if their sense of entitlement about their current lives is anything to go by.

[mgkimsal]

Not stoic so much, but my uk wife sliced her hand open on a can of cat food (in the US). 3 inch gash right across her palm. Bleeding. A lot. Wrapped it up in towel and said "we're going to the emergency room, get in the car". She replied "oh no, I don't want to bother them, they might be busy."

[keithpeter]

My mum (b 1933) did that as well. Either my sister or I had to be there when the doctors came round. Nurses were observant as well and kept records.

[jonahx]

Serious question: What gave you the impression he was American? I assumed the opposite -- that only a Japanese person, or at least the child of first-generation Japanese immigrants, would have made that post.

[smil]

He obviously knows nothing and so fit the ignorant and arrogant American stereotype to a t.