Am I a bleeding heart or is the culture just that different here? (CW: Suicide)

43 comments

1. Yes bleeding heart. Not everyone needs to make an overt emotional statement and have that judged by others.

2. When it comes to mental health here, it is seen as a weakness and a failing. People could not care less here.

3. They’ve been seeing it their entire lives, you eventually grow kinda numb to it. It’s still sad, but that’s the reality of it.

4. > I know Japan has a really high suicide rate in general

   Compared to other countries Japan ranks 49th in number of suicides as cause of death, whereas the US ranks higher at 31st.

5. Some people might not want to give it a lot of their attention, and deal with it by ignoring it or brushing it off. When it’s happening so often, the shock fact wears off and it’s just “another suicide”. This is not how I see it, just saying how others may.

   Not quite the same but I worked for an animal shelter for 5 years and at first, when I heard about cats getting hit by cars, I was so sad and felt a pang in my heart each time, but quickly, I realized people are stupid and cats get hit by cars all the time, so when a deceased cat would come in, we’d just be like “oh, hit by a car? Yes? Ok, and what’s for lunch?” Because again, it’s so common, you get used to it.

6. I’m guessing the cultural difference here is you come from some small town where things are over publicized or maybe America etc where people are trained to try to insert themselves into every tragedy another person has and make it all about them or their ‘group’. Japan is a big place with a lot of people. Bad stuff happens to an extremely small percentage every day.

7. Feels like it’s a bit of both but your coworkers sound like jerks. Some people lack sympathy and only know how to react coldly to sad situations as though everyone else is a NPC.

   You’re obviously triggered so I hope you can rest up and feel better soon. Being able to empathize makes these situations so much harder.

8. Regarding high suicide rates: people throw around “high suicide rates in Japan” for some reason.

   Last I checked, Japan was out of the top ten, and maybe 25th, a couple spots lower than the US.

   People sometimes erroneously make this statement to somehow contrast violent deaths in America.

   (Not saying the OP is making this statement, just want to call attention to the facts. OP I’m also sorry to hear you personally have been in that dark place).

9. In a country with few weapons and other ways for easy self-harm, and with a dense rail network, jumping in front of a train is a temptingly convenient way to end your life.

   Also, one publicized suicide begets another; copycat suicides is a frighteningly real thing. Look up “The sorrows of young Werther” for an early example.

   When somebody jumps in front of a train, they’re not the only victim. Train drivers – who see it happening literally in front of them, and unable to stop it – become emotionally scarred, to the point where they sometimes are unable to continue working at all. Same with the railway workers that have to face the gruesome aftermath.

   Also, of course, it does cause chaos along the lines in the area, making thousands of people’s lives just a little worse, and increasing the risk of another copycat suicide down the line.

   To stem this, the government and the railway lines embarked on a campaign to vilify the act, along with making the family liable for all expenses. This has been quite effective in dropping the rate of suicide by train, and greatly reduced the copycat effect.

   It may sound callous to you, but this attitude saves lives in the long run.

10. The reactions of others may not be for us, rather, any reaction may be for those reacting

11. In my experience, I’ve found that there’s not a lot of empathy for people who color outside the lines here in Japan. So if someone does something like jumping in front of a train, it’s taken as “they had a role to fulfill and they inconvenienced other people by not doing it”. The opposite can be said of American culture where everyone is seen as a unique individual and personal stories and struggles are celebrated.

12. People who commit suicide in a public manner do it because they want to create a spectacle of it. It’s better to ignore them than to grant their wish.

13. Because it happens pretty much every year, people just “got used” to it, I know it’s sad. Similar to shootings in the US, “another one ?!”, then go back browsing reddit.

14. Of course, it’s terrible, but so many people commit suicide in the US with guns, but so many don’t give a damn about that. Gun sales go through the roof, anytime there are the slightest gains in steam for any type of reasonable gun control, let alone bans

15. I think there is a statistical link between news coverage of suicides and subsequent attempts by the recipients. I think that’s beyond anecdotal but I couldn’t point you at a study. That is why the news reports, if there are any, are a bit callous and focus on bits you find disheartening, like possible compensation they try to squeeze out of the bereaved families – a mechanism to shame people into not jumping in front of trains knowing their family would have to pick up the tab. Or a motivator in some rare cases, I suppose.

    I would say your colleagues also find a way to deal with that in a way they can. They are not ignoring the elephant in the room, but they talk around it. It might seem insensitive and callous to you. But we aren’t in a culture here where a high priority is given to expressing one’s feelings in public. Even on a sad day like this. Nobody wants to cry at the office.

    Rant here, get it off your chest. And before you lash out at anyone personally over this, just remember that they haven’t been waiting for a foreigner to tell them how to do society over here.

16. I honestly think most japanese people are just emotional drained and numbed to the thought. It’s quite sad.

17. Most people just lack basic empathy and humanity. I always wish that those who make fun or speak ill of suicide victims, would have to walk in their shoes for just a short time (like a week or so). Most of these „people“ would probably kill themselves way quicker than thise suicide victims if they were in the same situation. I know from experience and also from actual research that most suicide victims suffer for years before deciding to take their own lives. Only a very small percentage of suicides are done spontaneously and without a plan. The problem is that the vast majority of people don‘t know this and lack basic emphaty, especially in Japan, hence all those stupid comments about how suicide victims only do it for the attention etc. It‘s really sickening, I know exactly how you feel. You should be glad that you‘re feeling that way though. Means you‘re still human, unlike some other people.

18. The suicide rate isn’t that high here in comparison to other countries actually the US is even higher.
    It’s not unlike some of the things I’ve heard in the US. Kid kills himself with a gun that was in a drawer, and what I hear is “why wasn’t the gun locked up?”

19. I think the issue is that suicide by train is a very public and disruptive way to go, and Japanese culture seems to be extremely unsympathetic to such acts. The horror of two juvenile suicides is preempted by the extremely deeply rooted social norms against such publicly disruptive behavior, perhaps.

20. I work here and with jhs kids too. It is awful to hear. Especially when people nonchalantly gloss over it. Mental health is an issue of course but I feel like their education system could also use an overhaul. Kids that young shouldn’t be feeling the pressure they do.

    I don’t have the answers but if it is clearly not working, maybe try something new.

21. While unnatural deaths are unfortunate everywhere, I still prefer the Japanese response over American response of “thoughts and prayers” and then doing jackshit about it.

    Since the dead body of a middle school girl was discovered once snow melted, almost every week it has been on the local NHK TV news and info about the discussions about bullying and responses of various orgs, things happenings and actions are being taken since then are being covered.

22. I have enough pills and can buy enough booze to overdose myself while sitting comfortably on a train. I don’t know why people don’t do that instead. Much more comfortable.

23. It really depends on the community I think. A friend of mine works with Hikikomori youth, who are typically depressed and at high risk for suicide. Whenever one of the clients in the program dies by suicide, all the staff go into crisis mode and give a lot of counselling to the other clients, the families of the person who died, etc. There’s immense effort to help prevent copycat suicides and give grief counselling to the family. But, in those cases people are very connected to the case I guess. Maybe if people feel disconnected, like it wasn’t anyone they knew, it’s easier to get caught up in things like your train being late and all the other ways it affects you or your coworkers instead. Anyway, I hope the other students at the school are all right, it sounds like a terrible tragedy.

24. When the train stops it inconveniences many many people, and if it’s a bigger train line, it causes 億 in lost fees and damages.
    I’m sure many people do care about the families, but it happens so often that if you grieve every time someone jumps in front of a train, you’d probably be constantly depressed. Once again it causes inconvenience for many many people, you’d almost think they do it just to “get back at society” that ruined their life.

    What I’m trying to say is people get numb to the sadness of the situation, but don’t get numb to being inconvenienced by it.

25. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2201761

    People suck everywhere. Atleast the kids aren’t shooting eachother here.

26. I wish US people would be as serious to school shooting as you are to students suicide.

27. Hey just wanted to let you know I don’t personally think you’re being anything approaching a ‘bleeding heart’ or overly sensitive or anything like that, it’s a terrible thing but the usual response to any kind of “public fuss” here is to act like it didn’t happen as soon as the immediate evidence is gone.

    Your post is getting a lot of attention from people that are just zooming in on the tiny erroneous details you mentioned in your post that cast Japan in anything less than an amazing spotlight so they’re just going to deride your entire post and say how the US is worse instead of addressing anything you actually wanted to talk about because they feel the need to be right and be white knights for Japan more than have an honest conversation about the state of things and pass on accurate information in a way that doesn’t attack you or someone else in the process.

    I agree with some commenters here that ‘copycat suicides’ are a very real phenomenon and something to be concerned about in a place where the countries infrastructure is so dependent on what some see as a perfect way out of a bad scenario and as such the larger media has to be careful how a story is run and news is shared.

    That being said it’s a tragedy anytime someone takes their own life out of illness and despair and to be saddened by the event and annoyed at the callous remarks of those around you is perfectly natural and can be even easier to understand at the idea of it being 2 minors.

    Mental health care is a massive joke here, having worked in inpatient wards here for just over a year now I’ve already had over 2 dozen stories of attempted and successful suicides come across my floor and many have the same aspects of poor access, over reliance on medication and worse therapists, and to preempt everyone that’s already typing about how the US/UK/AUS all have bad or worse mental health awareness and care- I am well aware that many developed countries have poor mental health care opportunities, I am not saying Japan does it any better or worse only that they could absolutely be doing better than they are.

28. If these are people who are close to you, e.g. close friends, family members, romantic/sexual partners, then sure, this is callous.

    But you might just be encountering a different kind of public discourse about it than you’re used to. You mentioned the school’s comments, but weren’t they in Japanese? (apologies if your Japanese is amazing) Are you looking at the Japanese and directly translating it, or bad English in something like the Asahi Shimbun? It’s a very common translation mistake for papers to take formal Japanese and translate it into something that sounds insincere and odd. And sometimes what is appropriate in Japanese doesn’t sound right in English, but that doesn’t matter.

    That speech about the payment is often a complex and non-confrontational way of complaining about the system. Many families have been financially ruined by this kind of debt, and there are shitty insurance companies that exaggerate the risk for sales.

    Anyway, you’ve no idea what these people are doing when they go home. Perhaps they’re struggling not to cry, or crying. This isn’t even a Japanese thing – many people from Britain, where I was born, are the same. Public discourse about painful things is light, private is different. When Brits experience terrorist attacks, they make jokes.

    When Japanese people experience horror, they talk about it with the people closest to them. Is this you? If not, I wouldn’t assess their speech in the same way.

    Oh, and the 人身事故 is absolutely not always suicide. That’s something that Westerners in Japan ‘secretly know’, but I’ve done freelance work for JR, and it covers everything from, yes, death, to someone trying to hurry the barriers, or even just someone reporting seeing someone else doing something potentially risky. It is a MASSIVE category.

29. You are a good person.

30. i think japanese people don’t feel comfortable stating any sort of opinion, ever. maybe it’s a way to acknowledge what’s happening without having your opinions out in the open…. even though feeling upset over such incidents is (or should be) human nature. also, these happen so often that they must be desensitized.

    that being said, in aokigahara you can see signs that say “go die in tokyo, don’t waste our tax money”. which is so jarring and downright awful but… i guess people in yamanashi don’t have the same resources in tokyo. i wonder if those signs deter anyone altogether

31. Two kids have died, a family gets the bill, and what reddit wants to talk about how overblown the suicide rate is. We just live in a bad timeline. Hopefully something kicks us into a different one as this whole thread is a train wreck

32. People being inconsiderate of suicide victims is not a Japan only thing. I’ve seen in in my home country, I’ve seen it in western internet spheres. It’s a human thing to be assholes. In an ideal world, everyone has empathy and social graces to talk about it respectfully. But the reality is many people don’t. You’re not weird – I’m sure even among Japanese people there are softhearted ones too. Don’t be like them but also don’t take them to heart.

33. Someone once told me September is child suicide season. To this day I still think wtf.

34. Wasting 1 hour of time for millions of people should be weighted higher than the lives of 2 people

35. This doesn’t surprise me in the least. Japan doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone suffering, because to them they’re just bothersome nails that need to be hammered down.

    And if someone offs themselves, all you get is the “shoganai” attitude. The whole “well that bothersome person is gone; time to get back to being good little cogs in the machine” bit. The whole country is like that.

36. >A few days ago, two children committed suicide by jumping in front of a train.

    Im guessing you are in Hiroshima. The railway crossing where it happened is pretty close to my place. Another boy from the same school committed suicide earlier this month near the same crossing. My fiance doesnt even want to look at those crossings when we pass by anymore.

37. The formula “my anecdote = Japan” never helps.

38. One way of looking at this, right or wrong, is that showering too much attention on those who kill themselves encourages copycats. Grim but not necessarily wrong.

39. >*Two kids are dead, two kids “”effing” killed themselves*

    First, communicating in an hysterical fashion by using swear words as emotional amplifiers is a very unhelpful way of communicating even if it might attract more attention due to increasing the emotional pitch via contoversy-drama sentiment.

    Second, thinking about the tragedy in context both culturally and statistically should be appraised first.

    Finally personal opinion and feeling should be offered if the person writing (you OP) has strong feelings as you say and then you broadcast that at the end for extra value but ultimately (lastly that is) of least information value for discussion…

    In NY I once heard it called a “Track Pizza” when someone did this. I think people find ways to deal with tragedy over-reporting in the news-media. It’s not healthy to become upset by everything that happens. In my city kids are stabbed seemingly daily by other kids… if I’m honest, I wonder more about what all these kids parents were doing to raise kids who are involved in this (gangs, drugs, screwing around etc).

    Fortunately a lot of wider context and contemplation from other redditors exposes how narrow this reaction of the OPs really is.

    For OP, if you are this upset by it, at least it shows your human heart is still beating, but don’t wear it on your sleave as badge of honour: If you are upset go light a candle somewhere and say a prayer or else give something to charity to make good your thoughts to actions instead of using social media to feel better. That would be the best thing for you to do if you feel very sad.

    In terms of explanation, I think, as said, the organization of this discussion should try to present scenarios or context and the emotion should be relegated to the end in terms of significance.

    It seems from other’s responses, it’s more fo a big city thing where people as per my own experience with teen gang stabbings, people learn to deal with the over-exposure or reporting of these things in their own ways.

    I mean, for contrast, it depresses me enormously hearing about species going extinct, but I find a way to deal with it…

40. I think the culture is pretty much the same anywhere you have thousands of people whose day can be severely disrupted by a stranger’s suicide. In NYC, back in 2016, a teenage boy killed himself by jumping un front of a Metro North train, and an MTA employee was caught on the intercom saying “I hope he suffered like a motherfucker.” I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the only time a transit employee said something like that after a suicide on the tracks — but usually they don’t say it into a hot mic. It’s not a praiseworthy reaction, but I don’t think it’s unusual or culture-specific (other than, maybe, some kind of big-city anonymous mass transit user culture). Same with your colleagues’ reactions.

41. I was a teacher for almost 10 years and a student killed themselves and I saw the aftermath of that. In my industry now
    I’m cool with multiple people who have dealt with tremendous mental instability and issues.

    My takeaway from all of these situations is that Japanese people at large tend to not engage these types of feelings directly, even if they’re involved. This shit is just not talked about in the zeitgeist either so I think most just don’t know how approach or deal with it.

    A big eye opener was one time I was watching the news with my wife. Her mother is a paranoid schizophrenic. This guy ended up waving a knife around in the street and attempting to attack people and it was being covered on the evening news shows. I was like “This crazy mf, lucky he’s not in the U.S. his ass would be gone.”
    My wife stopped me and was like “Stop. He looks like my mom. There’s something wrong with him and he needs help.”
    After that I definitely felt more empathy for situations like this. Oh, and the news covered the incident for a couple hours and then a few days later it was summed up in a 15 second blurb that he was evaluated for health concerns. That’s all they said. Coming from places where this type of discussion is more accessible can make it harder to stomach the nonchalant way it’s processed by most of society here.

42. Amazing that given the point you are trying to make, many of the responses focus on how your seemingly erroneous assumption that Japan’s suicide rate is the highest / close to the highest in the world.

    Like, two teenage girls (sisters you say?) felt compelled to commit suicide, and there’s clearly a whole discussion to be had about why that came to be, but hey, your numbers are wrong… SMH…

43. A lot of the time suicide by train is also an antisocial statement while many others will try and find a way that minimizes bother to others.

    It’s a sad reality either way, but when suicide by trainers are saying their last fuck you to society it’s not really surprising society says the same back at them.

    It’s kind of detached from reality when it’s an abstract thing just inconveniencing people. Same perhaps as the war in Ukraine that’s resulted in massive electricity bills. People aren’t really thinking of the thousands dying and displaced there, just the impact on themselves.

    You do have to develop some indifference in this world where not only are sad things happening all the time but where we can also know about them in great detail despite having no real connection to them