wordcrush

Awhile ago I read a sad story in the UK Telegraph that made passing mention of Hikikomori, a group of Japanese teenagers who suddenly drop out of society and shut themselves in their rooms, sometimes for years. Hikikomori has been called a "cultural disease," much like anorexia nervosa in the West, and in fact I found a long NY Times article that draws some fairly explicit comparisons between the two (free. reg.) The Japanese have set a familiar sounding network of doctors, support groups and institutions in motion to help deal with the phenomenon, and I know if I was a pissed off teenager, these would be sooper helpful. No really. Sooper.

But the flailing limbs of the medical industry aren't what interested me the most about the NY Times piece. The article discusses "rental sisters," young women who are paid to go to the Hikikomori houses and talk, joke, and cajole the angsty teens from their funks. Apparently, they've been fairly successful in helping Hikikomori reintegrate. I can't help but to question the NYT's article of "reintegration," which consists of making money, but the alternative is even less appealing, I suppose. Still, there's something missing in the equation.

Having spent a bit of time as an angsty, self-destructive teenager myself, the part I find most upsetting and impressive is the rawness of the Hikikomori phenomenon. When I was a teenager I didn't have the langauge to deal with parents, friends, and culture, so I communicated through the only means possible -- body langauge (also known as binge drinking). There's something honest about that; as sad as it was, I think it's more powerful than all of the medical descriptions and diagnoses combined. I can't sit here and deconstruct an entire culture, and I still haven't figured out what I could have done differently when I was young, so I'll leave it at that: one big loose end without recourse to simple answers.

# posted by Lintropy @ 2:23 PM