English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

This question is very hard for me to word properly and I do not mean to offend anyone,but this has been bothering me for awhile.....

I love and appreciate Japanese and other Asian cultures, but Japan seems to have a dark side to their culture. They strive for perfection. They have the most advanced technology. They make the most extreme and violent horror movies ever made (google "the guinea pig movies" or "Muzan-e") as well as pornography. There seems to be an obsession with rape as well. They have among the highest suicide rates in the world. This disturbs me and I wonder what about their culture, history, or society influenced this. Does anyone have any facts, educated theories, or informed opinions on this that can tie this all together? HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED THIS? What else do you notice about the dark side of their culture?? I understand that other countries, including and especially the US, have things like these in common. But I want to DISCUSS JAPAN ONLY.

2007-03-15 11:33:15 · 5 answers · asked by chetrambo 1 in Society & Culture Cultures & Groups Other - Cultures & Groups

5 answers

Wow... There have been BOOKS written answering each of those questions, but I'll do the best that I can to be susinct.

Culture of course plays a big role in any societie's attitudes about life and history certainly does too. I suppose first I should talk about Japanese attitudes regarding death and suicide. Japan's traditionally cavalier attitude about death comes from two major sources; 1. japanese budism and 2. bushido.

Japanese budism is very different from any other variety in the world. It is really a hybrid of chinese budism and the indigenous Shinto religion (animism). Their form of budism regards this world as nothing but an an illusion. It further believes that anyone who dies without reaching enlightenment (the only real purpose to life) is reborn in 30 days. If you're just going to come back in a month anyway, what's the big deal about death, right?

Bushido - i.e. the way of the warrior- or the samurai code. In this way thinkning, honor is the most important thing in a person's life. One achieves honor by meeting their social responsibilities as according to their karma (i.e. what station in life they were reborn into). Therefore if you are a samurai your social responsibility is to fight and win battles for your Lord. If you lose or fail your Lord in some way you have failed in your social responsibilities and honor demands you pay with your life. This is also true whether you are a slave, or a merchant, or a cook. Failure means dishonor. Dishonor means death.

Added to this is the idea of social harmony. Another way you can dishonor yourself is to disrupt the harmony and peace of society. This can be on a large scale (leading a rebellion) or a small scale (being rude to someone of higher status). In either case, both can lead to dishonor and death. Even today people are very reluctant to discuss their problems with anyone A. because they don't want to let on that they might have done something wrong or B. they don't want to bother someone else with their troubles and upset the social harmony.

Therefore, the attitude about suicide has been traditionally very different from the West. In christian tradition suicide is a mortal sin. You kill yourself, you go to Hell. But in Japanese tradition suicide was a perfectly honorable, respectable, and even admirable course of action under certain conditions.

Today's Japan is by far not NEARLY so extreme, but cavalier attitudes about suicide and death persist even today.

On to sex... Given the above, the Japanese have traditionally been understandably self conscious about making errors. This fear of failure permeats every realm of their society. Even though it is no longer required that you kill yourself if you screw up, the social pressure to succeed is very strong. Because they are afraid of failure they tend to be overly cautious and exceptionally repressed in all areas, not least of which is sexual. I believe that because they are so sexually repressed in their own sex lives, they seek out extremes in their fantasy sex lives. But again traditionally, European countries have been more restrictive about sexual behavior than Japan and the idea of what is permissable in terms of sexual behavior has ironically been more liberal in Japan.

Japan of today is not the Japan of the Samurai. It is a modern, in many ways liberalized society. Women are begining to hold positions of power and influence. The government is taking strong actions to try and prevent suicide, particularly among teens, but still these old cultural attitudes persist to a certain degree.

I hope that answers your question somewhat adequately, but you could literally spend YEARS studying this subject.

2007-03-18 13:40:16 · answer #1 · answered by David M 6 · 2 0

Japan has a long history of telling horror stories. Especially at around Obon (which is in mid-August in most parts of Japan). Lafcadio Hearn wrote the famous Kwaidan short horror stories starting from the 1890's after he moved to Japan and took the name Koizumi Yakumo. These stories have been the perennial favorite horror stories of all Japanese since then. I would say that most, if not all, Japanese horror movies in some ways pay tribute to his stories.

Regarding the high suicide rate, middle school children have an alarmingly high suicide rate. This is because they are pressured to be the same as The Group and are relentlessly bullied and sometimes even tortured for refusing to bend to the will of The Group. Kids that can't handle it any more snap and escape from it the only way they know how: suicide.

Regarding the porn, Japan unfortunately has it like most countries, but because showing pubic hair is illegal in magazines and in movies, there is a large underground organization (with strong ties to the Japanese Yakuza) that produces these "illegal" materials. Japanese men overall seem to have some kind of Lolita complex which still amazes me after all these years. That's why there are so many pop singers who are still in high school and sing so horribly that I get a headache after 20 seconds or so. As long as they are young and cute, they'll sell alot of CDs.

The thing about Japan's Dark Side is that it is kept in the shadows. It is not brought out into the light like in the US, for example. I feel that that is why makes it feel even darker.

2007-03-16 05:55:12 · answer #2 · answered by Jazz In 10-Forward 4 · 0 0

Japan does have a obsession with rape, horror and suicide. Suicide comes from the samurai, in japanese culture suicide is ok. The japanese have alot of fetishes, from little school girls having sex with old men to scat. Right now scat is a very big thing in japanese porno. So is S&M.

2007-03-15 21:53:14 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

I only answer the part about suicide, and it's just my personal opinion.

I think that in a stressful society, some digree of violence becomes inevibitable for certain types of people. In the US, for example, that violence tends to be directed to others. In Japan, with very strict gun control and a tradition of 'shame' rather than 'anger', it tends to to be directed to oneself, thus very low murder rate and high suicide rate.

2007-03-17 18:10:17 · answer #4 · answered by flemmingbee2 6 · 1 0

in japan, bestiality and incest occurs... that's the ****** up side

2015-04-29 00:30:46 · answer #5 · answered by Dominik 1 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers