Although this is just being reported now, the suicide happened in June of 2007! Although the family of the Indian student who committed suicide asked the Otemon Gakuin University to investigate, the school let this case sit on a shelf for 3 years. The university made no report until the bereaved family hired a lawyer in August of 2010.

This is really sad news. I have not seen this picked up by a lot of news agencies yet, but I really hope this news goes international. I have personally seen cases of exchange students having trouble making friends, having trouble with host families, and even being picked on or disliked by teachers before. This story, however, is even more extreme.

If early news reports such as this one in MSN Sankei Shinbun are accurate, an exchange student (however he may have been born and raised in Japan… I’ve seen him described both ways) from India was bullied extensively while studying abroad at Otemon Gakuin University. The story reports that he was nicknamed “Bin Laden” and had his pants forcibly removed in public by a number of male students at the school. There are also reports that the students shot fireworks in his direction. The student later committed suicide.

This information comes from a friend of the student. A suicide note was also left. Otemon Gakuin University officials strongly deny that “bullying” was a factor in the suicide.

Further accounts state that a member of the group told the student that bullying him recently had been the most fun he’d had. Another member reportedly said that just looking at him made him angry. The Indian student’s friend was distressed about not being able to  do more to protect him.

A professor at the university also reportedly tolded Sankei News that even though the university understood that there was a high probability that the student had been bullied, they failed to investigate and covered up the incident.

(If I’ve missed or misunderstood anything, please feel free to let me know in the comments. I am really frustrated with how schools and university’s that have the trust of the people continually cover up things like this. In fact, I think this should be treated as a hate crime (though I don’t think Japan has any hate crime laws… time to make them), and the students (if guilty) and the university are guilty of racism and a slew of related crimes because of the cover up.)

I’ll be setting up some Google Alerts so that hopefully I can follow this story.

This is a very sad story out of Osaka that illustrates the tragedy that can result from a breakdown in communication.

Makoto Hamada, a 42 year old cook, killed his 42 year old wife, 15 year old son, and 12 year old daughter while distraught over 5,000,000 yen in debt. He strangled the three in their sleep and then unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide by slitting his wrists with a utility knife. He later turned himself in to a local police station.

Hamada had reportedly kept his debt a secret from his wife, Sachiko.

When police searched the home, they found a stash of over 20,000,000 yen his wife had secretly been saving for the children’s educational expenses.

Makoto Hamada’s debt was a result of losses from investments in stocks. At the same time Sachiko Hamada worked multiple jobs to save money. She was overheard saying that with a little frugality she hoped to let her children go to college.

Makoto was also known to take his children out on his day off, and to be very proud of them. His son, Yuki’s graduation essay in elementary school stated his desire to become a cook like his father. Friends of daughter, Aika, were surprised because of how nice he seemed at her birthday party at which he had prepared delicious food himself.

Makoto reportedly said that he was afraid that if his debt became known Sachiko would leave him and take the children. He therefore decided to kill his wife, and the children as well to keep them from having to be known as the children of a murderer.

This story really breaks my heart. It’s not a story that is unique to Japan, but this lack of communication, very strange sense of what is best for the children, debt leading to suicide, attempted suicide, murder-suicide (or, as in this case, the attempt at suicide) is all too common here. Each year brings us another 30,000 suicides or more, most of which are debt related.

This case is yet another sad illustration of a trend that needs to change, and like many of the problems facing society in Japan, the children are the ultimate victims.

The Japanese media tried to make a big story bigger this weekend by complaining about the way Maki Goto wore her hair to her mother’s funeral. Her mother died this week in a fall from her apartment balcony in a suspected suicide.

Maki Goto showed up with her hair brown. The media responded with outrage. Cooler heads on the internet bulletin boards however, pointed out that it would be even stranger if Goto, who most often wears her hair dyed, had immediately taken a trip to the beautician upon hearing of her mother’s death.

More of a funeral fashion faux-pas was committed by former Morning Musume member Nozomi Tsuji who seemed to be thinking a little more about fashion and the photo-op than her grieving bandmate.

Tsuji wore a pronounced black bow on top of her head and a very short skirt as can be seen in the video below.

The video below is a long news report describing the events and location of the death. Including a woman who reported hearing Tokiko Goto speak of wanting to die. Much of the footage is repeated over the 10 minute recording (including several showings of Maki Goto’s arrival at the funeral). Former Morning Musume members Nozomi Tsuji, Natsumi Abe, Yuko Nakazawa, Kaori Iida, and Kei Yasuda can be seen arriving after the 7 minute mark in the video below.

A former truck driver who was promoted to a low level management position at  the Sagawa Express package delivery company committed suicide recently. His wife is accusing Sagawa of bullying and power harassment which resulted in his suicide.

After being promoted, the 42 year old man began working from before 6am until after 10:30pm every working day, and from 3 to 4 hours a day on days that were designated days off. In addition to berated and having epithets yelled at him by his boss, his name was erased from the company name list, and he was called over the company loudspeaker without “san” being added to his name. (note: Not adding “san” or some other term to a person’s name in Japan is called “yobisute” which is extremely rude.  It is much ruder than just calling someone by their last name in the U.S.). He was also sent to orientation sessions for new employees several times after being told he was “not needed” (again in front of other employees).

On May 16th and 17th he took a few days off citing depression. He returned to work on May 18th, and emailed his wife who was in Tokyo on a business trip. He wrote that there was no way he could solve his problems at work. He thanked her for everything, and told her that he had been happy. After sending the email, he jumped off the top of a local supermarket building to his death. I really wish the guy had known that his wife would fight for him as she is now. Just introducing the charges of power harassment must have taken courage for her. In a working environment where it is common for superiors to get angry and yell at workers, where various kinds of abuse and harassment are common place, it can especially be a problem if there is also no way for workers to report such problems.

I know of women who worked for companies, became pregnant and told their bosses thinking they would be congratulated. The bosses in this case asked them to quit immediately. When the women asked to be allowed the legal allowed time off for having a baby, the boss said something like “I guess I have no choice, but when you come back from your vacation I’m going to make it hell for you to work here.” In the end both women quit their jobs then. (The two cases I have personal knowledge of were in two very different industries, two different sized companies with near identical results.)

A lot of what I have seen in Japan would send the boss into anger management classes, but in Japan it’s common. I’ve even heard people suggest that the worker who was yelled at and embarrassed might take small opportunities to get back at the boss to make themselves feel better. Again, in my experience this is not the case at all. A scary boss is a scary boss, and if a worker makes things harder there is a danger that the boss will realize what happened and come down even harder on the worker. Sadly the problem is that there is not a large system in place to protect these workers or an easier way for people to be able to lodge complaints or work out disputes. I hope the wife of the Sagawa express worker fights to the end leading to some kind of legislation that will provide people in similar situations with an outlet, a means to take action, or a place to get counseling.

The cynical side of me worries that the woman will must settle for monetary compensation and Sagawa (often rumored to be rife with bullying, sexual harassment, and abuse of power by superiors) will never have to be investigated.

I’ll embed the video here. The suicide problem is way too big here and growing. The only issue I’d take with the narration is the idea that suicide is still seen as an “honorable” way out to many people. I think the “honor” of suicide is the furthest thing from the minds of people who are killing themselves over debt. The “honorable” thing from a Japanese perspective would be to pay off the debt and fight the good fight.

Suicide is an easy and convenient way out for people here… and the debt is not magically erased when it happens either. In fact, if someone jumps in front of a train or commits suicide in some other way that inconveniences people or costs money, the family will be forced to pay compensation to the rail company or others who suffered financially from the suicide.

To say that suicide is not the answer if you’re thinking of your family’s best interest in Japan is an understatement. Suicide makes more problems for the family and society as a whole. The only people suicide absolves from debt are the suicides themselves. The debt and resulting cost of the suicide all transfers straight to the family left behind.

There are lots of places people can go to get help and counseling about their debts in Japan. Maybe the first stop should be the local ward office.

Here’s the video from CNN… which just made me want to go visit Mount Fuji again!

This is an interesting video that’s been going around. It was aired about three years ago on the popular tv show “Kin Suma” or “Kinyobi SMAP” which is hosted by Masahiro Nakai, leader of the uber-popular and ubiquitous SMAP. The show generally targets women and covers topics such as women with interesting jobs and some information about the biographies and personal lives of popular stars. In the video below, you can see Ai Iijima talk about how a fortune teller in Taiwan had cried while telling her that she’d die in three years. Ms. Iijima even looks into the camera and says, “Maybe you can use this video three years from now!”

You can see in the video how bright and open she was. I know that the news keeps mentioning her career as an AV star in Japan, but that was a short time a long time ago (although she was incredibly popular). It was just how great a person she was that enabled her to transcend all that and become popular with both men and women in mainstream tv.

There are reports that she’d gone to the local police station last January and said she was lonely and afraid of what she might do. She left the entertainment world nine months ago saying that she had kidney problems.

If it was a suicide, it may have been through loneliness, pain, depression, or some side effects from the kidney medicine she was taking. My first reaction was that she had had enough of the pain from the kidney problems, but the fact that she had not been found for a week also suggests that the loneliness was real and she may have been having other personal problems in addition to the sickness.

Shortly before her death she had created a company to sell her own brand of condoms over the internet. This goes along with her dedication to wiping out AIDs in Japan where AIDs is still a big problem (despite almost no media attention to the widespread sexually transmitted diseases here). Her dedication to wiping out AIDs and bringing these societal problems out into the open is yet another reason this death is a tragedy.

The newzjapan family out here is really sad about this. We’d been looking forward to her eventually returning to tv once she felt better. This is all too sad. Another tragedy out here.

Hyogo Prefecture, Akashi City

At 7:35 a.m., at the JR Okubo station in Hyogo Prefecture a woman jumped in front of a westbound (toward Himeji) train. When struck, the woman was killed instantly, but knocked up into the air and back onto the platform where four men and women were struck and suffered minor injuries. One thousand five hundred riders were delayed.

There is no mention of (and probably won’t be much investigation into) the reasons behind this particular suicide. I’d like to see someone in Aso’s cabinet try to take this issue on… of course there’s no big business interest or “ama kudari (“descent from heaven”) incentives to solving this particular social problem in Japan.

I previously wrote about the suicide of newscaster Ako Kawada.

Here’s an article that goes further in depth about this particular suicide as well as some of the more issues involved and ways people can get help.

Exclusive Insight into Ako Kawada Suicide

Read it for some in depth exclusive insight into this sad situation.

After someone wrote a comment on her blog telling her to die, a high school girl hanged herself. Although this is most probably another case of bullying that also took place in school as well, the school will deny that any bullying took place in order to avoid the wrath of the bereaved’s lawyers and the Ministry of Education. I’m sure some more information will come out in the next few days including a straight up assertion from the school that they “completed an investigation showing no evidence of bullying”.

If the schools would just be open and honest about this kind of thing, I’m not saying the problem would go away, but if that openness just saved a couple of kids a year it would be worth it! Take responsibility for the failure to see the signs, for allowing kids to have the opportunity and mindset to do this kind of thing for each other, and for not giving the victimized kids the kind of support and strength they need in order to see that they don’t have to do what the bullies want them to. In fact, almost everybody wants them to live!

Here’s the story in Japanese without much detail yet. “Suicide: In Suicide Note A First Year High School Girl Says ‘DIE’ Was Written On Her Personal Blog”

I’ll try to follow up when I hear more.

Technoratiのタグ suicide in japan

I don’t want to seem too morbid, but I could write multiple blog entries every day if I just wrote about all the suicides in Japan.

This one is also a little unique because the 29 year old woman was on her way back from a vacation in Honolulu. Some people who had been sitting near her notified the flight attendant when the woman failed to return from the bathroom. When the flight attendants checked the bathroom, they found the woman unconscious, having hanged herself using her scarf. Once the plane was able to land the woman was immediately taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Something really has to be done, what’s making all these people think that life’s not worth continuing with? Adult film stars known to date popular Japanese comedians, well-known freelance announcers, people returning from Hawaii, high school kids… why is this even an option.