[OrangeE]

we are currently in the process of doing the body of our research paper and our professor suggested we do interviews about japanese suicide. but really.. we have no idea how to conduct the interview because we lack the time because our professor got back 2 weeks ago after filing a leave for 2 months? but yeah, that's not really what this is about. i have thought of this as substitute for interviews.. because this is the new era and we have to make good use of the technology haha and i really hope you guys could help us out. BTW, I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO PUT THIS BUT SINCE THIS IS SOMEHOW RELATED TO COLLEGE WORK AND WE ARE ON OUR 1ST YR IN COLLEGE. I'VE PLACED IT HERE. IF THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE, KINDLY MOVE THIS TOPIC.. THANK YOU MOD.

so here it is..

you'll be answering series of questions.. i'll be needing to know your nationality because basically, we need specifically japanese people to answer but i thought, we can the other nationalities' answers for the general information according to the data we've gathered from this so i am not just limiting this to the japanese people. but we hope more japanese people can answer this..

nationality:
age:
worst problem encountered:
have you ever thought of committing suicide as a solution to a problem?
why do you think suicide crosses people's minds?

thank you so much for those who would be nice and help us out...

[little mixed girl]

i'm not japanese, and i don't know how easy it would be for you to interview japanese people on something like this.
i don't think they'd be comfortable talking about it either.

from what i've seen in my time in japan, people don't normally discuss depression.
in fact if i go by what i've seen on tv, japan has only just discovered depression and that depression can lead to suicide!

people are somewhat encouraged to just suck it up.
and when you feel down, your friends are literally of no help. (i was watching this thing on the news where rape victims were told by their friends to "forget it" or "they probably liked it", etc)

and, suicide is almost like an easy way of solving a problem.
you can't talk to the person who's causing you stress, so you kill yourself and leave a note detailing what happened.

[hikki]

I honestly don't think that more than a handful of Japanese nationals troll these boards... Talking to a Japanese American will just debunk all of your research.

It's something that isn't really talked about (the mental health aspect of it) because it's such a taboo.

If you build your piece up from the glorification of suicide in olden times, to the modern day themes of lovers' suicide, group suicides, internet suicide communities, etc., your work would be a little more compelling.

[bonbons]

i think it's the asian mentality, you're just expected to forget about it, get better and go on with your daily dasks...I'm from china and I don't see a lot of people discussing about depression. since I had depression last year, I don't even think my family in china thought of it as a big deal compared to people here.
My cousin was just like "suck it up, go have fun outside" .. he just didn't understand how depression can affect someone's ability to do anything.
I'll answer your survey though:
nationality: Chinese
age: 20
worst problem encountered: I hit rock bottom around may of 2008(family problems and just years of grief and emotions bottled up inside of me sort of all spilled out), started around early jan. and it continued throughout summer and I'm all better now. so it's like a year + ... lol
have you ever thought of committing suicide as a solution to a problem? Yes, I've thought of ways, and I even went to suicide support sites, almost tried, but never went through.
why do you think suicide crosses people's minds? It's an escape. Outsiders would think it's selfish and stupid, but for someone that's not right in the state of mind, it seems like the only way.

fortunately I realized I had issues I needed to deal with and got help.

[fwnc_b!]

nationality: malaysian
age: 21
worst problem encountered: examination (studies during high school was extremely stressful)
have you ever thought of committing suicide as a solution to a problem? No.
why do you think suicide crosses people's minds?
Since you're researching on Japanese, as an Asian myself, I say is the society's mentality. As Asians, we are often pressured (or self-imposed) to get good grades/do well/ succeeding is vital, failure is well, not an option, if you failed in terms of studies, you don't get good education, and perceived not to succeed.

When I attended a student exchange program to Japan, I lived with two families, both have three kids, but one family, has kids my age, 16-21 years old and the other one, 3-6 years old. What I noticed, indeed suicide has been a great concern, and it's a taboo- also it has to do with the open minded-ness of the families. The family with older kids i noticed doesn't have computer knowledge, they don't go online as well- which I think I remembered my host father told that he didn't encourage them to use it- prolly from the fact that internet/group suicides are common in Japan.

Opposites of the first family, the 2nd family with younger kids uses the internet, doing classroom assignments and even chatting.

I think the exposure plays an important part. I come from a country that has strict Muslim laws, even stricter than Muslims majority countries such as Saudi Arabia or Istanbul where it's know to be less conservative than us. It's really how the government, the society, the community, the parents educated young children from start.



So there you have it, my two cents. I hope that helps.