What a surprise! This is one of the most unexpected things (for me) to find out, child abuse in Japan!

I've always thought that the culture and development should've kept such acts away from Japan, but it seems I'm wrong.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10879109

"The report also found that cases of child pornography in the same period had risen by about 60% to 599 cases."

http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News...30473.html

"In December, a 14-month-old girl in Yokohama suffocated after being confined in a wooden box by her mother and the man who lived with her."

"According to the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry, child consultation centres around the country handled a record 44,210 cases of child abuse in fiscal 2009, about four times the number 10 years earlier."
Isn't this too much for a country like Japan?

I know that it's a real country and not the dream land or something, but Japanese stick to their culture and pride which should preserve high ethics.
Everyday this country surprises me!

People are the same everywhere, Japan included.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affair_of_t..._of_Sugamo

Kanjiiz Wrote:I know that it's a real country and not the dream land or something, but Japanese stick to their culture and pride which should preserve high ethics.
Everyday this country surprises me!

There are scum in every country, Japan included. Not all Japanese stick to their culture and pride, and neither of those really preserve high ethics. (I won't go into detail on why, since I'm fresh out of ethics class and I could ramble forever).

Kanjiiz Wrote:I know that it's a real country and not the dream land or something, but Japanese stick to their culture and pride which should preserve high ethics.

you have to be joking, right? Japan is just as messed up as any other country. Have you ever been taught by a Japanese teacher? They tend to have zero empathy and are copmlete egomaniacs. They can never be wrong even when they know they're wrong.

I'm sure it's much harder to tell a parent in Japan that what they're doing is wrong than somewhere like America where different of opinion is common and celebrated.

Don't listen to those articles or the comments in this thread. Japan is a shining paradise where nobody ever does anything wrong, thanks to the bushido code.

juniperpansy Wrote:somewhere like America where different of opinion is common and celebrated.

hahaha

juniperpansy Wrote:you have to be joking, right? Japan is just as messed up as any other country. Have you ever been taught by a Japanese teacher? They tend to have zero empathy and are copmlete egomaniacs. They can never be wrong even when they know they're wrong.

Amen to that! My best teachers of the Japanese language have always been Gaijin. The worst is when a Japanese teacher tries to teach a subject in English!

Surprise! Japanese people are humans.

juniperpansy Wrote:you have to be joking, right? Japan is just as messed up as any other country. Have you ever been taught by a Japanese teacher? They tend to have zero empathy and are copmlete egomaniacs. They can never be wrong even when they know they're wrong.

Incompetent perhaps...but egomaniacs with zero emphathy? That's pretty scathing, and I'm guessing based on your sample of a hand full of teachers you've met. Way to talk out your arse.

Move along, folks, nothing to see here. Human beings are human beings.

Japanese parents seem to not spank (to me a form of child abuse) their children as a form of punishment. In the rural area where I grew up in the Bible Belt of America, if you didn't beat your children, it was assumed they would grow up to be criminals or something.
I think child abuse is MUCH more common in America.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Japanese parents seem to not spank (to me a form of child abuse) their children as a form of punishment. In the rural area where I grew up in the Bible Belt of America, if you didn't beat your children, it was assumed they would grow up to be criminals or something.
I think child abuse is MUCH more common in America.

Funny thing is while I was in Japan, I always thought Japanese little kids were some of the most well behaved in general that I saw. Sure many tended to have tantrums now and then, but on the whole I thought they were well mannered and not out of control. Compared to the stuff I tend to see every day now in the states.

tokyostyle Wrote:There is no social nor political vice that the Japanese people have not fully explored. Maybe they keep it out of the foreign press, but the amount of domestic violence in this country in general seems fairly large.

How do you know this? From my large apartment complex windows in Japan, I have never once heard a battered woman screaming.

bodhisamaya Wrote:

tokyostyle Wrote:There is no social nor political vice that the Japanese people have not fully explored. Maybe they keep it out of the foreign press, but the amount of domestic violence in this country in general seems fairly large.

How do you know this? From my large apartment complex windows in Japan, I have never once heard a battered woman screaming.

Is that the barometer for whether or not there's domestic violence in the country? :lol:

Ever seen those signs on the Tokyo Metro encouraging people not to commit domestic violence? Clearly there's a problem they're trying to solve.

They still have signs up looking for the people who were responsible for the saran gas incident decades before. That goes to show how rare violent crime is in this country.

I'm unsurprised.

juniperpansy Wrote:

Kanjiiz Wrote:I know that it's a real country and not the dream land or something, but Japanese stick to their culture and pride which should preserve high ethics.

you have to be joking, right? Japan is just as messed up as any other country. Have you ever been taught by a Japanese teacher? They tend to have zero empathy and are copmlete egomaniacs. They can never be wrong even when they know they're wrong.

I'm sure it's much harder to tell a parent in Japan that what they're doing is wrong than somewhere like America where different of opinion is common and celebrated.

Since they don't accept new ways (as you said) and are greatly influenced by their culture, which I suppose doesn't view child abuse as something good, such acts aren't supposed come from them!

Jarvik7 Wrote:Surprise! Japanese people are humans.

But with culture still having great influence on them.

Culture may view hitting children as normal, but I'm sure the kind of hitting is small in force and not done regularly. But to become an issue to report and be counted that's not a culturally acceptable hitting, so I'm referring to child abuse out of the boundaries of culture.

My personal impression is that Japanese kids are pretty much better or the same than kids from my home country in a lot of ways, but it's definitely on a child to child basis - ADHD and friends exist, why else would they have special needs teachers in most schools.

Child abuse is everywhere and has been around since the ape-days when mumma monkey hit baby monkey for falling out the tree for the 1,000 time. Doesn't make it right or wrong (with massive exceptions). Personally, I don't support hitting kids.

Quasi-child porn is sort of accepted here (not the "gross-me-out what's wrong with you kind!" - although, that exists here too), except it's called Manga/Hentai (the lolicon kind that is). They sell it in convenience stores. (Whether I agree or not, it's part of the culture. I choose to be open minded and accept it - I'm a foreigner on foreign ground + fan service is amusing.)

By the way, I discovered Wishotouch. That app is the shizzle!

Doesn't obsession with national culture and pride actually leads to things like nationalism--or even militarism--like Japan during and before World War II? (In fact, large social movements that are obsessed with 'high ethics' almost always lead in the wrong direction) Seems to me that keeping the amount of child abuse low is more related to family planning, social support, knowledge about what child abuse is and how to prevent it, and a host of other things completely unrelated to 'culture and pride.'

Tzadeck Wrote:Doesn't obsession with national culture and pride actually leads to things like nationalism--or even militarism--like Japan during and before World War II? (In fact, large social movements that are obsessed with 'high ethics' almost always lead in the wrong direction)

Couldn't agree more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_massacre

Quote:The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly.

Tzadeck Wrote:Doesn't obsession with national culture and pride actually leads to things like nationalism--or even militarism--like Japan during and before World War II? (In fact, large social movements that are obsessed with 'high ethics' almost always lead in the wrong direction) Seems to me that keeping the amount of child abuse low is more related to family planning, social support, knowledge about what child abuse is and how to prevent it, and a host of other things completely unrelated to 'culture and pride.'

I have to admit that this is a good point.

Maybe my interpretation wasn't that correct. Where I live, culture influence peoples ethics for good and bad, but more for good, and in fact the less the people adhere to their culture here the less ethic they become (honestly they also get rid of some stupid habits too), I guess that's not true for all cultures.

Looks like there isn't a strong connection between culture and ethics, I still believe there's a relation though. Maybe culture has more to do with habits and views.

EDIT:

buonaparte Wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_massacre

Quote:The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly.

Good read, Thanks.
From the massacre link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_...ng_a_sword
What?!

As to child abuse in Japan - there are some good movies about the problem, for example:

是枝 裕和 Koreeda Hirokazu
誰も知らない Daremo shiranai
http://www.asiatorrents.com/index.php?pa...d2d6ebd060

奥田瑛二Okuda Eiji
長い散歩 Nagai Sanpo
http://www.asiatorrents.com/index.php?pa...b171038574

And this one is not Japanese and not about Japanese children,
but it is a masterpiece, a Finnish documentary about children in Russia and Chechnya:

Pirjo Honkasalo - Melancholian 3 huonetta (The 3 Rooms of Melancholia) (2004)
http://www.foriegnmoviesddl.com/search?q...elancholia

buonaparte Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:Doesn't obsession with national culture and pride actually leads to things like nationalism--or even militarism--like Japan during and before World War II? (In fact, large social movements that are obsessed with 'high ethics' almost always lead in the wrong direction)

Couldn't agree more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_massacre

Quote:The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly.

I think it was the demoralising effect of war on the soldiers more than anything that contributed to them committing war crimes. Sure, bigotry played its role, but I don't think it's the cause. It happens to soldiers from every nation; the US did their fair share of raping and killing in WWII and Vietnam as well, but I wouldn't say that the large majority of the soldiers were nationalist bigots or anything. When you're constantly surrounded by atrocities and living with a mob mentality, it's pretty easy to imagine how you could become desensitised.

Edit: On a different note, it really annoys me how much denial there is over the Rape of Nanjing in Japan.

For a rebuttal to any negative opinion you have about Japan, go to this guy's Youtube channel

His videos are nicely done, but they all paint an overly "Japan is wonderful" view and occasionally states that those who don't think so are "Japan haters"(4:00 of this video ).

There are things to love and hate about every culture, pointing out the weaknesses doesn't necessarily make you a 'hater'.
That's it, I've said enough.