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Ask HN: Are you from Japan?
I found something out today that seemed interesting, and wasn't sure if it was representative of all Japan. In this book I'm reading, it says that at the age of 6, most children in Japan are expected to become independent from their parents (if your parents are taking you to 1st grade, it is considered weird.. as a 6 year old, you should know buses, subways, etc). This usually doesn't happen until about age 24 in the US.
Is this representative of most of Japan? Anyone from Japan have any comments on this? Once you reach 21 or 24, what are you typically doing? (this is not really hacker news, so feel free to flag, but I was mostly curious to know... I'm mostly interested in Japanese culture through the book about Yukichi Fukuzawa, who was fairly entrepreneurial)
- lionhearted 18y agoJapan is a lot safer than almost anywhere else in the world, so you get preteen kids from Yokohama going to hang out in Tokyo. That'd be a bit like some 12 year old American kids going to "hang out in Manhattan" - with no detailed plan, supervision, etc. But largely socially emancipated at six years old? I don't think so. Maybe somewhere between 8 and 12, which is a few years younger than a lot of places, but nothing crazy.
- ramchip 18y agoI'd add that 24 feels a bit old to me for the american number. I've been living on my own since I'm 18, and I started taking the city bus by myself to go around when I was 13 or so. This isn't exceptional at all among the people around me (Quebec).
- pavel_lishin 18y agoI think the sad thing is that there are spoiled teenagers in America who don't truly become independent until well into their twenties. But that's like rumors of America's obesity - yes, there may be a problem there, but we aren't literally drowning in basement-dwelling twenty year olds or other people's flab.
- nandemo 18y agoYes, OP's book's claims seem doubtful. I don't see many unaccompanied 6-year-olds in trains around Tokyo, but then elementary schools are typically within walking distance. It's fairly common to see an older sibling (say, 10~12 y.o.) taking care of a smaller kid. Anyway, maybe you can find some things that a typical Japanese x-year-old can do that an American x-year-old cannot. That doesn't mean they're "independent" from their parents, though. If anything, I'd say Japanese kids are more dependent on their parents that "Western" kids. Some 6-year-olds still bathe with their parents.
- kqr2 18y agoWhen I visited Japan, I remember these very young school kids getting on the subway by themselves. They were all wearing school uniforms with bright yellow hats and were holding hands when they went on the subway together. One of them also had this "emergency" alarm she could pull if something went wrong.
- gojomo 18y agoAge 24?!? Urban teens in the US often take public transit on their own to school or other destinations. Suburban teens (~16+) often drive themselves wherever they want to go, sometimes in a car they effectively own themselves. Even younger children sometimes also take unaccompanied public transit trips, especially in smaller, more family-oriented cities and towns, or in groups. Children under 10 in many places walk or ride bicycles on their own to school, stores, and events.
- pavel_lishin 18y agoI grew up in Moscow, Russia, and was taking the bus and subway by myself from quite an early age; I left there at 10, so it must have been several years before then. (I know it's not Japan, but wanted to point out that this was done even in what some might consider to be a western-yet-scary part of the world.)
- netcan 18y agoI think this issue is a great example of something. We defend what we are used to. Desperately. When we see a 2-4 yr difference in either direction over what we allow our kids to do, we are generally appalled. "He's 15 & can't take a bus!?" "She let an 11 yr old take the train herself!?" An interesting trend I've seen between myself & my brother (12 yrs Junior) is that he & his friends seem to have slightly less desire for freedom. Sure they are annoyed when they're limited, but it comes up less frequently. I think a lot of it comes down to video games, internet & such. What they do with friends, it's mostly at home. We were never home at 10-15 yrs. Nothing to do at home. So most days we went out with friends. We naturally hit more resistance from parents who had a harder time tracking where we were. It also highlighted who had more or less freedom. Our parents got used to us being 'gone' as 11 year olds. Now it feels like kids are at one house or another, easier to track. Cell Phones help. In my particular world, I think many things have moved 2-3 years older. When I was a child, I lived in the US. We had no freedom at all. One reason was crime rates, particularly random crime rates which are the thing that really contributes to your feeling of safety. Another major factor was geography. Couldn't walk anywhere in those sprawling US cities. Kids had to be driven to school. Friends lived far away, etc.
- patio11 18y agoYes, it is considered normal for a Japanese child in elementary school to get themselves to and from school. For the first few years they typically travel in gigantic groups with an adult chaperone -- think of it like meeting your schoolbus at the corner, except the bus is a bunch of people walking together. After that, they'll mostly be biking to school alone or in small groups. Factors which make this more common than the U.S: hyper-secure streets, availability of public transportation (it isn't unusual in my neck of the woods for home and school to be separated by a 30 minute train ride), hyper-secure public transportation, and a good lump of inertia. (How many institutions like that really change, when you think about it. The U.S. still has a summer vacation so that kids can help Mom and Dad on the farm, for Pete's sake.)
- RK 18y agoYes, but at what age do they move out of their parents' homes?