Living Lonely and Loveless in Japan | Foreign Correspondent

I've been ABC's

correspondent

in Tokyo for four years and I have to admit that I've really fallen in love with Japan. It's endlessly exciting and one of the most vibrant places in the world, but something deeply worrying is happening. Why in this economic power? millions of people are hiding from the world tens of thousands of people are dying alone and the number of neglected births is plummeting and people are left single while I finish my post and pack my bags to leave Japan. This is a story I haven't told yet and it's hard to know. This is a rich and powerful country, but it is facing a social crisis.

Before I go, I want to understand why almost every day since World War II, an army of men packed into work sacrificed their lives for business and family and women stayed home to take care of the children, but the economic miracle they built was shattered in the 1990s. things changed. women could work and work became more insecure and competitive. The old rules don't fit the modern world, but the new rules don't replace it. For them, it is a paradox that causes deep social anxiety. She has a successful career in the fashion industry and has no intention of following the old rules of society by getting married and having children, instead pampering her beloved dogs by 2040.

Japan is on its way to almost half its population being single this is unimaru with her new haircut and this is rikomaru's friend sayaka rika is also choosing a single life her dogs are sweet and vanilla Do you want to get married someday? Do you feel any pressure to get married? Figures from the latest fertility survey showed that a quarter of women in their 30s were single and half of them were not interested in relationships. I read a study that says younger Japanese people don't necessarily have sex. It's true? Is there something that convinces you to want? to get married, whatever you need or feel that marriage would offer more in what is still a very gendered society.

More and more people do not start relationships and do not have children. The face of Japan is changing. Walk through the streets. from Tokyo and you'll see a lot of old people but not too many babies a few years ago it was called a national crisis since then it's only gotten worse this is an intensely private society but I'm meeting another young professional who's prepared to talk openly about the pressures of

living

in modern Japan under Kovid restrictions. Nao Yakudo, 32, works from home. He is a successful creative director at a high-impact advertising company, but he also has a work ethic that is quite new in Japan.

He works hard. and he plays hardball and doesn't accept the responsibilities that come with marriage and family before you moved here you had a girlfriend, but what happened shortly after what changed recently turned his grandfather into an Instagram star wearing his high-end clothes sewing like many successful young people. people who love to live in the moment and spend their money, this little pointy number costs about two thousand dollars abroad, it's easy to live single in Tokyo, almost anything you want is there day or night, but He tries to buy a house at unattainable prices and assumes the burden. a family for many has as much attraction as a straitjacket now your friends are also trying to find their way before marriages were arranged now there are few guidelines for dating and people often don't know how to do it right, that's why I am single, so I don't know how to make a couple.

Katsuyuki has just started a relationship that she found through social media. Would you like to have children someday? You are looking for? You are interested in finding a partner someday, but not yet. You feel

lonely

? Many people sometimes find it difficult to reconcile their sense of duty with the pressures of modern life. The stress becomes overwhelming. Suicide rates are at worrying levels. There are few places where people can let their guard down. This little hidden cafe has become a haven. For troubled souls, its owner, Toro Hashimoto, used to work at Nintendo, now offers a year ready to listen to your problems and knows what it's like to feel rejected.

There is a stigma attached to mental health issues and many of your clients are lost or unsure. I think in that case maybe the old expectations haven't necessarily caught up with the modern freedom of hiding in the bedrooms of homes across Japan. More than a million people have retired all together. Hirahiro Shinmasu is one of his bedrooms that have been his universe for most of the time. 20 years old, now 40 years old, they have allowed us to visit this very private space, he lives at home supported by his parents and has spent days mentally preparing for our arrival, the problem of confinements is so serious in Japan that it has a name hikikomori, his downward spiral began when He couldn't live up to his family's expectations and society felt he had shamed his family.

It was different in a culture that values ​​conformity. What daily life was like. He wants to feel accepted. Are you comfortable? with this life in

foreign

america the call for society to be more inclusive is going out nationally from a small town called kitakami the alarm about hikikomori she gives advice to those who suffer she herself has gone through the ordeal it took her years to accept her son masato could barely leave his room things got better when she realized that it was her problem and that she was the one who had to change she feels uncomfortable speaking but agreed to explain her experience

foreign

seiko has been heard in tokyo the government has invited her to help fix the hikikomori problem, but making these government health officials understand it is not easy just speaking at the meeting is a bit overwhelming the government's efforts to stop negative social trends have so far been ineffective for centuries the spirit of harmony united society people buried their own needs For the good of family and community, loneliness permeates this populist nation of 125 million people.

Traditional family ties were strained by postwar modernization as the high-speed economy took off. Massive housing estates were built for Western-style nuclear families and traditional families. Multi-generational ties broken now danchi apartments house thousands of

lonely

and disconnected people. More than a third of Japanese households are single-person households. By the end of the decade, tens of millions of people will live alone. Many will be left alone. die alone like the 64-year-old man who lived here the police have removed the body but masato yoko has come to clean up the mess she wants due respect to be paid to the lonely dead the man who died was an electrical engineer unable to work afterwards had an accident about three or four of these cleanings a week and everyone has an impact abroad.

The man had been dead for two weeks before his daughter opened the door and made a gruesome discovery. Why do you think there are so many people, so many older people? They die, everything that the families do not want comes here, where it is cleaned and sold, it is all that remains to mark their existence, there are no official statistics, but Masatomi estimates that every year about 40,000 people alone die. The underlying problem is reveals that she is still going to see her family for the first time in over three years and they have invited me to meet them.

Okinawa is as far away as possible from Tokyo, where family ties are still close and traditional rules are quite unquestionably. The last time the family got together was for Grandpa Shigeru's 73rd birthday at the center. It's a big family. Big family. My sister. Sayaka's sisters are married and have children, but they didn't come tonight. Her aunts married young and live nearby. Hello, how cute. Is it to see Sun? What do you think of dogs? No, no, no, no, she is happily single and not interested in marriage or children, what do you think of that grandfather who doesn't mince his words and who is in his element with his big family around him ? foreign hope that one day she will bring human children back to visit, but for now please these children, it is Kogamato's birthday. um, this spiritual land faces a social crisis.

Globalization and consumerism have brought prosperity and new freedoms, but they weigh heavily on an old complex. The culture that resists change, discord leaves many of its people struggling and unable to find a harmonious path in the modern world.