Having worked as a teacher in Japan for 5 years, I really take odds with this story. Japan is really, really different from the west. Take the survey about being happy with yourself -- I'm actually surprised that half the Japanese people surveyed actually said they were. It doesn't mean that Japanese youth are depressed. You just don't say that you are happy with yourself because it can limit your development, it makes you look vain, etc, etc.<p>It frustrates me to no end because this lack of understanding perpetuates really hurtful stereotypes. Things are not perfect here, of course, but this reporting is absolutely off the mark. Japanese people are no more soulless, depressed automatons than Americans are psychopathic mass murderers.<p>Please don't measure cultures using a yardstick from your own culture. Do not extrapolate from peculiar societal problems into thinking that there is an overall systemic failure. Different cultures have different problems and different ways of dealing with them. This kind of "journalism" is voyeuristic at best and hate mongering at worst.
I'm not sure why learning English and working abroad is supposed to curb depression? What does one have to do with the other? The article just sort of jumped from "depression" to "working abroad" without really establishing a link. I suggest there isn't one. I mean, in addition to working 80-hour weeks, new recruits have to attend English lessons as well?<p>If Japan was serious about curbing depression it would take serious measures to reign in the permanent overtime a lot of employees find themselves in, where many are staying in the office until nearly midnight. By "serious" I mean fines and possibly jail time for employers that allow it to happen without reason, or allow it to happen regularly even if they have a reason. And don't rely on reporting, either - start doing audits. If that sounds severe, remember that these are the people whose government formed a committee to investigate why so many Japanese companies required their workers to come in on Saturdays - which committee itself met every Saturday. "Soft paternalism" is probably not going to cut it.<p>The drinking culture here probably doesn't help, either. Alcohol's links to depression are well-known.
I get the feeling that the first paragraph or so is trying to make this Japanese school sound somewhat dystopian. I can't help but be amused by that, thinking back on reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every day in gradeschool.
The fascinating part of the indoctrination toward citizenship isn't so much the bowing in unison and redoing it till the bow is perfect, it's rather the inane but repetitive instructions over communications systems _everywhere_ at school, in the subway, in the stations, at department stores, public spaces, always a calm soothing voice reminding you what you are to do next. It's pervasive. It's also interesting from a cultural perspective.
I have seen about "Hikikomori", but only in anime and Wikipedia. I am really curious. Do they really exist? How could they live without work? How do they make money?