5 ms·

I don't have any particular insight on bullying in Japan specifically, but having lived there for a big chunk of my childhood I can say for sure that you have t

by svara 5y ago

I don't have any particular insight on bullying in Japan specifically, but having lived there for a big chunk of my childhood I can say for sure that you have to be very, very skeptical of the "Look how weird Japan is" trope which is super common in Western media. Those stories always follow the same pattern - pick out the most extreme example of something that you can find, then spin some superficially insightful theory around it relating it to some essential difference between Japanese culture and other cultures. There is no such thing as essential differences. And if all that reaches your attention about a faraway place is the extremes, you are bound to come to some weird conclusions. It's just too easy to apply this recipe to anything you don't understand well. Just imagine the stories you could tell about European student culture if you started from the Belgian Reuzegom hazing story [0], and generalized from there. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuzegom#Death_of_Sanda_Dia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuzegom#Death_of_Sanda_Dia

mensetmanusman 5y ago
The modern media landscape is sub-optimal. Seeing all these surveys that show that the more you consume media the less you know is extremely sad. I don’t think there are any short term solutions.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
You are right, even asking people from a country directly can give a really false impression due to the pattern you describe. As someone who has lived both in the US as well as two european countries for equal parts of my life I know very well how easily views can become distorted by listening to single cases that are not representative.
jkhdigital 5y ago
In Japanese society, historically, ritual suicide was accepted as an "honorable" way to die under otherwise shameful circumstances. It seems pretty natural that, with such a cultural legacy, Japanese people (including children) would be more willing to resort to suicide. Reinforcing your comment, the fallacy here is in assuming that the factors affecting suicide rates among Western children are identical to the factors for Japanese children, and therefore bullying in Japan must be particularly atrocious to cause the high baseline suicide rate.
- Levitz 5y ago
  >In Japanese society, historically, ritual suicide was accepted as an "honorable" way to die under otherwise shameful circumstances. It seems pretty natural that, with such a cultural legacy, Japanese people (including children) would be more willing to resort to suicide. Does it really? Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death? The many old practices regarding marriage and the church all around? I don't think suicide as an honorable death is any more of a real thing in Japan nowadays than ninjas are.
  - burnished 5y ago
    Do you want to reframe duels to the death as gun violence and then consider America, which is the most clear comparison?
    - ploika 5y ago
      American gun violence is on a different scale to most of the rest of Western society. I don't think it's a particularly useful comparison.
  - brezelgoring 5y ago
    >Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death? Considering how common a form of retribution gun violence is in the US nowadays, yes, I'd say yes. Could there be a case to be made in comparing American school shooters and Japanese student suicides? Maybe we'd find they had similar school experiences prior to their final moments.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >Does it really? Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death? The many old practices regarding marriage and the church all around? Yes, I would. Such societal norms don't just die, they remain in the "ether" so to speak. For example, americans might not be as religious, or sticking with the church. They might not even be born in the US, or just be first or second generation. But the culture, and this includes immigrants as they integrate, contains all kinds of protestant ideas. And it's easier for something like a suicide norm to survice that a practice of the duel (which takes two to survice, plus has the law against it, even if you come out alive).
aikinai 5y ago
The "Japan is no different from any other country" trope is just as inaccurate as the "wacky Japan" trope and in my experience has actually overtaken the original in online discussions (though news articles clearly still focus on the original). Making a generalized story from cherry-picked anecdotes is an incredibly common strategy for journalists writing about anything. Sometimes it might actually match more general trends and sometimes not; you can't say without real statistics, which in most cases don't exist or aren't accurate anyway. No one's tracking it carefully, so who knows if bullying in Japan is actually worse or just picked up in the zeitgeist more. But it's ridiculous to pretend like Japanese school culture isn't drastically different from that of most western countries.
secondaryacct 5y ago
Yeah having moved to China from France, I was expecting to meet aliens honestly, and ended up concluding like you there are no essential differences between cultures. Everything is essetially the same with some limited number of levers being pulled a bit further: girls want to marry a little bit earlier, parents are a little bit more worried abt kids, politicians a bit more corrupt, racism is targeted at different colors in a different hierarchy, all that jazz, but all the patterns I was used to in France simply fit China very well and I didnt find it so difficult to just brush off the odd difference and adapt. My Chinese parents in law also discovered I have the same strengths and flaws any other Chinese guy their daughter could have found :D
- N00bN00b 5y ago
  It took me about 10 years to really understand the enormous differences between my native culture and my current culture. And those differences are staggering. And they are both western. You're assuming you can "see" the cultural differences. Sometimes you can easily see it, but often it's really hard to figure out, because they are going to express themselves in edge cases that you have to run into, which takes time and then it takes time to run into enough of them to be able to see a pattern.

by svara 5y ago

mensetmanusman 5y ago

The modern media landscape is sub-optimal. Seeing all these surveys that show that the more you consume media the less you know is extremely sad. I don’t think there are any short term solutions.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago

You are right, even asking people from a country directly can give a really false impression due to the pattern you describe. As someone who has lived both in the US as well as two european countries for equal parts of my life I know very well how easily views can become distorted by listening to single cases that are not representative.

jkhdigital 5y ago

In Japanese society, historically, ritual suicide was accepted as an "honorable" way to die under otherwise shameful circumstances. It seems pretty natural that, with such a cultural legacy, Japanese people (including children) would be more willing to resort to suicide. Reinforcing your comment, the fallacy here is in assuming that the factors affecting suicide rates among Western children are identical to the factors for Japanese children, and therefore bullying in Japan must be particularly atrocious to cause the high baseline suicide rate.

Levitz 5y ago
>In Japanese society, historically, ritual suicide was accepted as an "honorable" way to die under otherwise shameful circumstances. It seems pretty natural that, with such a cultural legacy, Japanese people (including children) would be more willing to resort to suicide. Does it really? Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death? The many old practices regarding marriage and the church all around? I don't think suicide as an honorable death is any more of a real thing in Japan nowadays than ninjas are.
- burnished 5y ago
  Do you want to reframe duels to the death as gun violence and then consider America, which is the most clear comparison?
  - ploika 5y ago
    American gun violence is on a different scale to most of the rest of Western society. I don't think it's a particularly useful comparison.
- brezelgoring 5y ago
  >Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death? Considering how common a form of retribution gun violence is in the US nowadays, yes, I'd say yes. Could there be a case to be made in comparing American school shooters and Japanese student suicides? Maybe we'd find they had similar school experiences prior to their final moments.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >Does it really? Do you feel the same way about western society and, say, duels to the death? The many old practices regarding marriage and the church all around? Yes, I would. Such societal norms don't just die, they remain in the "ether" so to speak. For example, americans might not be as religious, or sticking with the church. They might not even be born in the US, or just be first or second generation. But the culture, and this includes immigrants as they integrate, contains all kinds of protestant ideas. And it's easier for something like a suicide norm to survice that a practice of the duel (which takes two to survice, plus has the law against it, even if you come out alive).

aikinai 5y ago

The "Japan is no different from any other country" trope is just as inaccurate as the "wacky Japan" trope and in my experience has actually overtaken the original in online discussions (though news articles clearly still focus on the original). Making a generalized story from cherry-picked anecdotes is an incredibly common strategy for journalists writing about anything. Sometimes it might actually match more general trends and sometimes not; you can't say without real statistics, which in most cases don't exist or aren't accurate anyway. No one's tracking it carefully, so who knows if bullying in Japan is actually worse or just picked up in the zeitgeist more. But it's ridiculous to pretend like Japanese school culture isn't drastically different from that of most western countries.

secondaryacct 5y ago

Yeah having moved to China from France, I was expecting to meet aliens honestly, and ended up concluding like you there are no essential differences between cultures. Everything is essetially the same with some limited number of levers being pulled a bit further: girls want to marry a little bit earlier, parents are a little bit more worried abt kids, politicians a bit more corrupt, racism is targeted at different colors in a different hierarchy, all that jazz, but all the patterns I was used to in France simply fit China very well and I didnt find it so difficult to just brush off the odd difference and adapt. My Chinese parents in law also discovered I have the same strengths and flaws any other Chinese guy their daughter could have found :D

N00bN00b 5y ago
It took me about 10 years to really understand the enormous differences between my native culture and my current culture. And those differences are staggering. And they are both western. You're assuming you can "see" the cultural differences. Sometimes you can easily see it, but often it's really hard to figure out, because they are going to express themselves in edge cases that you have to run into, which takes time and then it takes time to run into enough of them to be able to see a pattern.