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Views on suicide in today's Japan

What specifically is it about Obon that makes you associate it with an elevated incidence of suicide? Can you cite statistics that show a spike in suicides around Obon. Most people in Japan associate Obon with 1)Going home to visit relatives 2)One of the few chances of taking several days off and 3)Oh yeah, we have to go to the cemetery and spend ten minutes cleaning up a bit.
Didn't say that it was the primary cause, but i do think that it's part of the culture that leads to japan having a higher suicide rate (that's what i originally wrote) in comparison to other countries.

First time i was in a cemetery was when i was ~15 so your no.3 "Oh yeah, we have to go to the cemetery and spend ten minutes cleaning up a bit." would surely be enough to make at least a slight difference in comparison to other cultures that don't have such a thing.

By the way... No, i don't have statistics but i wouldn't expect a suicide spike, being accustomed to doing something again and again (Obon) over the years wouldn't cause that.
 
You can't extrapolate your own personal experience of not having been to a cemetery until you fifteen and arrive at the conclusion that people n Western societies don't have an awareness of death until their teen years.

Nor can you make any sensible link between Obon and and an increased incidence of suicide. Do you think Obon is a celebration of death?

And Japan isn't the only country where people visit cemeteries and clean them up from time to time.
 
You can't extrapolate your own personal experience of not having been to a cemetery until you fifteen and arrive at the conclusion that people n Western societies don't have an awareness of death until their teen years.

Nor can you make any sensible link between Obon and and an increased incidence of suicide. Do you think Obon is a celebration of death?

Off course i'm judging by my own personal experience, so are you. Did i say that it's a celebration of death? What i said was:

Eudaimonia said:
Kids in western societies may not fully understand that people die etc until they're in their teens! Is that true with Japanese children? I doubt it.


And Japan isn't the only country where people visit cemeteries and clean them up from time to time.
Did i say that Japan is the only country where people visit cemeteries? Truth is though that i doubt that there are many countries that it's tradition to do it at a certain time of the year, each year.

I'm not saying that i'm 100 percent sure that i'm correct here, this is a forum not a scientific conference on the psychology of the Japanese people. I made my case, i provided a reasonable argument and that's that.
 
Off course i'm judging by my own personal experience, so are you. Did i say that it's a celebration of death?

You know, sometimes questions are straight, unloaded questions instead of rhetorical traps and only require a "yes" or "no" answer.

Sometimes Obon is referred to as the "Festival of the Dead", and I wondered if you had perhaps heard that term and been misled by it.

I can think of no other reason for your notion that Obon is linked to elevated rates of suicide.

I made my case, i provided a reasonable argument and that's that.

What was reasonable about it? The notion that Western youths are unaware of death until their teen years is one of the most absurd assertions I've ever heard in my life.
 
What was reasonable about it? The notion that Western youths are unaware of death until their teen years is one of the most absurd assertions I've ever heard in my life.
Yes, it's absurd. It's even more absurd because you made it up. "Are unaware" =/= "Aren't fully aware".

You may know something but not really be aware of it until you become a bit older, what i'm saying is that the average Japanese person because of obon (which doens't have an equivelant in the supreme majority of countries) is more fully aware of death than the average non-Japanese person is. This is all i'm saying. You not understanding is your own fault, i have nothing more to add.
 
"People in Japan are more aware of death because Obon" is as random a statement as "People in the UK are more aware of death because Guy Fawkes" (find/replace: Mexico/Day of the Dead, Christian countries/Crucifixes, etc etc etc) and equally as provable and applicable to the discussion at hand.

If you want to look into cultural reasons for differences in suicide rate, start with access to mental health services and social stigmas surrounding accessing them.
 
You may know something but not really be aware of it until you become a bit older, what i'm saying is that the average Japanese person because of obon (which doens't have an equivelant in the supreme majority of countries) is more fully aware of death than the average non-Japanese person is. This is all i'm saying. You not understanding is your own fault, i have nothing more to add.

You seem to have a romanticized view of Obon. It is a Buddhist practice that Japan shares with the rest of Asia where Buddhism is practiced. They share the same outlook, but how about the suicide rates for such countries? The Asian countries with high suicide rates have at the same time achieved a high level of industrialization. Suicides are closely linked to mental health (stress, financial woes) than this Buddhist practice.

Obon certainly reflects the Buddhist outlook toward life and death but is no trigger to suicides. It is a time when your dead members of your family (ancestors) are welcomed back home for a short stay and celebration with the living ones. The live ones have no intention to accompany the dead to the otherworld!
BTW, don't you have All Souls Day (also known as Halloween) in Greek Orthodox Church? Obon is just an extended version of the same concept, just Asian style.

Do Japanese children have sharper awareness of death than those in the West? Absolutely not, a lot of kids live their lives without encounter with death until they see their grandparents/parents die. The family grave is just a stone block that adults come to clean once in a while and to which children are told to pray because so-and-so dead family members are in it. So much for reverence toward death.

Suicide forest? You mean Aokigahara. That is a forest near Mt. Fuji that reportedly sits on iron-heavy soil that absorbs magnetism and makes anyone wandering into it to lose his/her way. This is a myth that triggered people to go there to die, but this is not a cultural thiing. It attracts people because it is dense, close to Mt. Fuji (i.e., its sacredness) and made fashionable by a popular novel in the 1960s.
 
"People in Japan are more aware of death because Obon" is as random a statement as "People in the UK are more aware of death because Guy Fawkes" (find/replace: Mexico/Day of the Dead, Christian countries/Crucifixes, etc etc etc) and equally as provable and applicable to the discussion at hand.
BTW, don't you have All Souls Day (also known as Halloween) in Greek Orthodox Church? Obon is just an extended version of the same concept, just Asian style.
Sure... I'd expect that Mexico/Day of the dead would have simmilar effects as obon, if not a bit worse. Though how many people in this world practice it? :) BUT i'll have to disagree about crucifixes, halloween and Guy Fawkes though, sorry.



You seem to have a romanticized view of Obon. It is a Buddhist practice that Japan shares with the rest of Asia where Buddhism is practiced. They share the same outlook, but how about the suicide rates for such countries?

Part of my original argument before Mike Cash picked just one thing from it was this...
If you could take the death (obon matsuri etc) and sucide (the suicide forest stuff, harakiri etc) related culture away from Japanese culture there'd be no more suicides in Japan than on your average western country. It's very difficult to change that though.

...did you bother to reading it epigene? If you did then why you write that other Asian countries should have simmilarly high suicide rates when it's only one word following a "etc" out of a argument about culture?




The Asian countries with high suicide rates have at the same time achieved a high level of industrialization.
Suicides are closely linked to mental health (stress, financial woes) than this Buddhist practice.
If you want to look into cultural reasons for differences in suicide rate, start with access to mental health services and social stigmas surrounding accessing them.
I agree, that's a factor too, but this doesn't make my argument any less valid.
 
If you could take the death (obon matsuri etc) and sucide (the suicide forest stuff, harakiri etc) related culture away from Japanese culture there'd be no more suicides in Japan than on your average western country. It's very difficult to change that though.

Your premise is absurd.

Explain why other countries have higher suicide rates than Japan:
List of countries by suicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Why Sweden's suicide rate was as high in the 1970s as in Japan today. They certainly don't practice Obon.
http://www.google.co.jp/url?sa=t&rc...P6MoL9sH4_jHAbqZLRzSTCA&bvm=bv.44158598,d.dGI
 
I suppose all things considered you'd expect Guy Fawkes to increase the number of people in the UK who become arsonists. This is my new theory and I'm sticking to it.
 
Your premise is absurd. Explain why other countries have blah blah they certainly don't practice Obon.
Can't continue this conversation when you can't even be bothered to read what i wrote in my last message and you make the exact same mistake twice in a row. I never sighted obon as THE reason, it was just an example, a very small part of my argument that culture has its effects on suicide rates.

Playing broken telephone is boring to me, see you around the forum.
 
Sure... I'd expect that Mexico/Day of the dead would have simmilar effects as obon, if not a bit worse.

The premise being that either are viewed as negative by most people?

I don't know much about Obon just yet, but do know that Day of the Dead in Mexico is a celebration, not a sad time. Day of the Dead is a time for respect, tidying up graves and celebrating the life of those who are gone. I've never heard of it being thought of as a negative or depressing thing. Maybe it's just the way we look at it from a different cultural lens?
 
For lots of people in Japan, Obon is a good chance to travel overseas on a nice summer vacation.

Sort of analogous to how very few Americans keep the spirit of the intent behind Memorial Day, if you get my drift.
 
i dont think its held in such a positive light as much as it used to be, e.g. in Aokigahara there are signs trying to convince people who want to suicide not to do it
 
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