From kamikaze to hara-kiri, Japanese just can't stop topping themselves

This article taken from Mainichi Daily News:


By Ryann Connell
Staff Writer

September 30, 2002

Suicide has long been an honorable form of death in Japan. Lovers' suicide pacts are as old as the country itself. Ancient samurai would commit seppuku, or hara-kiri as it's more widely known, to atone for failures perceived or as an ultimate display of loyalty to their liege lords.

During the war, the kamikaze fighter fighters who slammed their planes into enemy ships were one of only a series of suicide attackers hurled at the Allies, all of which are still widely and romantically regarded as heroic defenders of the nation.

Since the war, desperate Japanese have made jumping from high buildings or in front of speeding trains almost an art form. Even now, more than 30,000 Japanese take their lives yearly.

Any wonder, then, that Sunday Mainichi (10/6) refers to Japan as the suicide capital of the world -- a dubious honor also recently bestowed by the World Psychiatric Association.

"Considering that both Japanese men and women have the world's greatest longevity, it came as a shock to learn that we're also number one for suicides," psychiatry Assistant Prof. Kazuo Yamada tells Sunday Mainichi.

National Police Agency figures released earlier this year showed that 31,402 people committed suicide in Japan last year, 915 more than in 2001. It was the fourth consecutive year that deaths by suicide had topped the 30,000 barrier and has prompted calls that the Japanese government isn't doing enough to help its people. Men in their 40s or 50s account for about 40 percent of all Japan's suicides, with health and financial problems the main reasons why Japanese are taking their own lives.

Unemployment has played a massive role in boosting Japan's suicide rate, though rising joblessness in Western countries rarely tends to have the same effect.

"One reason for this is probably religion," Yamada says. "Christianity slows down the rate of suicide. People are regarded as unethical if they take the body God has given them and destroy it without His approval. Japan doesn't have any of that. If anything, Buddhism with its emphasis on reincarnation encourages suicide. And the culture that glorifies hara-kiri continues to exist today. Japanese have no ethical brake when it comes to suicide."

Most Western governments, the weekly says, cough up to help counter psychological ailments. Even though Japan spends enormous amounts on medical hardware and know-how, it tends to leave problems of the mind to be solved by the private sector or volunteers.

"Japan's cutting edge technology leads the world, but getting to that position has come at the cost of great human sacrifice," Yamada tells Sunday Mainichi. "People feel threatened by the technological changes brought on by the IT revolution, they get lonely and commit suicide. The Internet in particular has more information about how to take your own life than it does on how to save it."

Yet another interesting aspect of Japan's suicide rate is revealed by its skyrocketing since 1998.

"That year the unemployment rate also rose rapidly and people were suddenly getting laid off in large numbers. Suicides became prevalent particularly in 40-something or 50-something guys. Life insurance companies were thrown into a panic. The amount of life insurance payouts the companies had to pay in 1998 threw the entire industry into a crisis. The companies responded by doubling the waiting period before they'd make payouts on suicides. That stemmed the flow of people taking their own lives a little bit," Yamada tells Sunday Mainichi.

Industry figures agree with the claim.

"Usually, payouts aren't made in cases where the cause of death is clearly suicide. And it is true that the decision that companies made in 1999 to extend periods before payouts are made was based on the rising suicide rate," a spokesman for the Life Insurance Association of Japan says.

Indeed, life insurance payouts seem to be a vital factor in Japan's suicide rate. So much so, it seems, that they can almost be rated along with depression as one the major reasons people take their lives.

"Guys in their 40s or 50s, the one's who're most likely to commit suicide, have got kids and home loans, yet when they lose their jobs they have no idea how they're going to cope. All they can think about is how much harder things are going to get each year when it comes to paying their mortgage or for education," psychiatry professor Yamada tells Sunday Mainichi. "Eventually, they come to believe that the only way they can fulfill the responsibilities they have toward their family is to commit suicide and ensure those relatives who remain are set up financially for life."