Hikikomori and Others

I wasn't really planning on talking about what happened at Virginia Tech. I've watched the news in Japan, of course, and followed the story a little online, read Matt Good's take on it, got into a big discussion with Texas on the nature of Terrorism. (capitals added) But I wasn't planning on mentioning it here until I came across this article by Michael Zielenziger about Cho Seung-Hui.

Clearly, some of the evidence suggest that Cho was both enraged and very much socially isolated.We do know that some hikikomori are able to conduct themselves, from time-to-time, in the ‘real world’ while also retreating to their rooms…going to classes, or to work, then shutting themselves off. That is to say, they can have days and weeks of “normal’ behavior…and then have to seclude themselves. We also know that some social isolates grow so frustrated as to become very angry and frustrated as Cho was.

Hikikomori is a Japanese word. It refers to a pheonomenon, and the people afflicted with it, wherein a young adult, usually a student, locks themselves in their room away from stress, social, familial, and school-related. They don't go to school, or see friends. Their parents feed them, and they only leave their room for the bathroom. Sometimes it's not quite that bad. Sometimes I imagine it's worse.

It's a problem that in Japan is taken fairly serious, the Ministry of Education has a definition for it, but more and more it's being suggested that hikikomori is hardly a Japanese phenomena. Zielenziger continues.

Yet in many ways, the high-stress, high-pressure environment that Korean Confucian culture imposes on its youth…mirrors the stress Japanese young adults endure…and it is not unreasonable to suggest a young Korean, detached from his childhood environment, would retreat…or suffer some sort of traumatic incident after coming to the US.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that we're really not all that different.

Home for a rest.

I got back to Toronto last night. Spent about 28 hours airborne, and made a bad show of it the whole way.

To begin with, I missed my connecting flight in Tokyo. I had a total of three flights to catch: one domestic from Kansai Airport in Osaka to Haneda Airport in Tokyo; one from Narita to Detroit; and a final flight from Detroit to Toronto. Knowing it was Christmas and all I got to Kansai with time to spare, but the airport was basically empty and I ended up sitting in the terminal for two hours. From there to Haneda, and then a train ride across the entire goddamn city of Tokyo to get from one airport to the other. I think I'll elaborate on this point.

There are two airports in Tokyo. Haneda has existed in one form or another since the prewar era. Narita was opened in 1978 to much domestic protest. In order to build Narita the government had to confiscate a lot of farmer's land, and as a fairly vocal, grassroots, anti-Narita movement popped up. This was in a country that doesn't see a lot of protest movements. Anyway, the airport was built, and now handles most of Japan's international flights, while Haneda has become a domestic airport. While I can't pretend to speak for the farmers, I too have a problem with Narita airport - namely, it's on the other goddamn side of the city from Haneda. This means that if you, for example, fly in from Osaka, and are on your way to, say, Detroit, there is no way in hell you can make your connecting flight because it takes two hours to get from one airport to the other, not counting processing time at either end. Just for example.

Anyway, I paid the penalty fee to get on the next flight and arrived in Detroit some 15 hours later or so. Saw Pirates of the Caribbean II on the flight, it was quite good. Hung out in Detroit for a few hours, had trouble finding somewhere I could eat, but in the end got a veggie burger and it was delicious. I miss burgers.

The flight from Detroit to Toronto was pretty unevenful. I'd been in transit for a full day by that point and was so exhausted that I slept right through takeoff. When we landed we went straight to customs and I realized I'd left my passport in the seat pocket. By the time I got to speak with someone the plane had already been sent off to Minneapolis, but they're going to check when it lands and hopefully I won't have to go back to the Passport Office and the Japanese Embassy and so on.

It is nice to be home though. My family is nice people.

It's already Christmas in Japan. We've still got 12 hours to go in this time zone though.

Miscellania

A few things to quickly mention, loose ends to wrap up, and news to dish out.

Yesterday was an important milestone. As of today, I have been in Japan for one month and one day.

That article that I talked about ages ago is up on the Ubyssey's website: Recycled pen trend comes to campus. (sounds juicy, no?)

Speaking of the Ubyssey, my favourite campus newspaper has been added to the sidebar. Check out the sexy new website. The other new side dishes are blogs from fellow exchange students Brookie (very proudly of Texas) and Magnus. (very sarcastically of Norway)

In response to the roguest of the rogues' recent actions, my favourite, funny-looking, double-minority politician is headed to the Far East. Condie Rice was dishing out optimism left, right, and centre over the weekend, encouraging China to live up to its sanction obligations against long-time-ally North Korea.

She said, "I am not concerned that the Chinese are going to turn their backs on their obligations. I don't think they would have voted for a resolution that they did not intend to carry through on. And let's remember: no one has an interest in seeing the trade in dangerous materials or weapons of mass destruction. That is, if anything, more destabilizing to the neighbors than even to the interests of the United States." (Epoch Times)

It's nice to hear the US tooting the multilateral horn every now and then. Now that the White House has broken its silence and confirmed what Russia has been saying for weeks I expect we'll be hearing a lot from them over the next few days. If the rhetoric stays this moderate, I'll be willing to give GWB and staff some points for diplomacy.

Not a lot of points mind you.

High-level Japanese politicians seem to be very aware of the need for multilateral and bilateral dialogue, and moderate language. But not surprisingly, it looks like some of the most radical language is coming from lower down.

"There are concerns that North Korea may launch large-scale terrorist attacks or sly and heinous activities in retaliation to additional sanctions," said Hiroto Yoshimura, deputy director general of the National Police Agency.

Yoshimura was addressing the first meeting of a security task force that he heads since North Korea's Oct. 9 atomic test, according to NHK.

Yoshimura told task force members to step up security and intelligence efforts to head off possible retaliation by North Korea. (Japan Times)

And that would be all for the day, if it weren't for some terrible news my old friend Evan told me this morning. He's going through a rough time, and my thoughts are with him and his family.

Osama bin Layton

Today is a day for general musings. It's rainy and miserable and I have these photos from my weekend trip to Nara but I don't think I'm going to get around to posting them for a while. There's too much stuff going on in the world right now, and I am spending way too much time staring at a monitor as is. I'm going to logoff, I think, maybe do some homework, maybe go to the gym. Maybe I'll put up those pictures tomorrow.

A guy I know is in Uganda

Let’s start on a positive note. Sort of. Here’s a little tidbit from a former Ubyssey-er. John Woodward has an article on CBC.ca today that documents the energy crises in Uganda that began four years ago.

North Korea still on the table

Getting back to Korea, I know I tried to point out yesterday how crazy Kim Jong-il is, but then today I ran across this little tidbit from an old CBC.ca biography that I just had to quote.

According to state officials, he was born in February 1942 at his father's guerrilla base on Mount Paektu, North Korea's highest mountain. "At the time of his birth there were flashes of lightning and thunder, the iceberg in the pond on Mount Paektu emitted a mysterious sound as it broke, and bright double rainbows rose up," the official lines read.

[…]

In 1964 he graduated from the Kim Sung Il University where legend has it he wrote 1,500 books, all of which are stored in the state's library. It is also said that he wrote six operas, all of which are better then any in the history of music, and designed the Juche Tower, a 150-metre tower that commemorates his father. (Source)

On the international scene, China, Russia and the US have all publicly ruled out an armed response, while talks on sanctions and blockades remain stalled. While US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton continues to push the six-party talks, Japan, the current president of the security council, continues to push unilateral sanctions, but says it will not take part in cargo inspections, which are considered an act of war and are therefore banned under Article 9 of the constitution.

China is still a horrible place to live

Even putting aside talk of coal mines and “death-vans,” Chinese ex-pat Yang Dazhi has a chilling story of persecution in Communist China. As much laud and honour as China may be getting these days for its transformation into the latest Asian miracle economy, it’s difficult to see what makes it that different from arms-dealing "terrorist regimes" like North Korea, or fascist, anti-Semitic Iran.

Not that we should be that hard on them, really. Among other things, we, the collective plutocrats of the West, have built our fortune largely on the blood and sweat of the lower-class that came before us. The same thing can be said about environmental pollution, or, say, nuclear weapons. The tricky part is, that in all the talk of China being a nation of socialists, or at worst dirty communists, it more closely resembles a fascist dictatorship like Nazi Germany, right down to the nitty-gritty of the internment camps. It’s gotten so bad that even the US Congress is beginning to take note.

David Kilgour, a former Canadian cabinet minister, was among those who testified. "The government of China and its hospitals, detention centers and other agencies in numerous parts of the country, has over the past half decade put to death a large, but unknown number of Falun gong prisoners of conscience,” he said. “Most of the victims were convicted of nothing. They were murdered by medical professions for their vital organs. These organs were, virtually, simultaneously seized for sale at high prices, often to foreigners."

It’s so easy to be a fascist state these days, what with ideas of “cultural differences” and “moral relativism” sprouting up in all the right places. But this guy can’t get away with it anymore. Neither can these guys. Meanwhile, rubes like Jack Layton continue to press for Canadian withdrawal from crisis points like Afghanistan. Whatever happened to Human Rights and anti-fascism?

This will make you laugh. "MR LAYTON: CANADA MUST CHANGE MISSION IN WESTERN EUROPE [1944]"