There is always a myth about suicide. When people think about Japan and suicide, we thought about "harakiri 腹切り" , the story of "Chrysanthemum and the sword", and the incidents of suicide of some famous people in Japan. The general perception commonly appeared to the general folks and missionaries while respond to the Gospel call to Japan, we tend to relate death with the Japanese.
In fact it had been true that Japan has a high suicide rate. One hundred people kill themselves by their own choices, perhaps perceiving death as the only solution to their circumstance. Yet, if we based our assumptions on what we thought is true/classical novels/legends, then our work will always fall in deception.
In Japan, the reasons to suicide had been classified as follow: Some, due to mistakes that they had made that would eventually lead to shame. Some because of being badly bullied perhaps including physical assult and rape. Some because of financial difficulties involved loan sharks. Most ended their lives because of a huge health burden. (Health burden = "cost for treatment" as well. )
For more detailed graphs and info, http://rose-risk.blogspot.com/2008/11/suicide-rate.html
There are so many things that we could discuss and drill further into. As our initial interest focus on Japan, the conclusions that we could obtain from this graph are:
1. "Japan's culture is uniquely associated to suicide" is a myth. (we will discuss this further in next article, you are welcome to contact me personally in this matter.)
2. "Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world" is a myth.
3. "Japan has the highes suicide rate in Asia" is a myth.
4. "Japanese people is suicidal people while compare to others" is a myth.
There are many reasons that tie to suicide. We should not neglect the very foundation issues of bread and life. Prof. Hedley sounded us that "Poverty is the greatest disease". In a movie production by Akira Kurosawa, Akahige 赤鬚, had said the samething.
Poverty in physical or spiritual, are equally deadly factors!!!
Another point taken home for my dear Heart4Japan people, Japan being NOT the nation with highest suicide rate does not hold you from responding to the Lord about the needs of Gospel and Salvation in this land.
We, as a responder to His heart, should had been responded by having sensed His heartbeat, His strong desire to see His people in this land to be saved!
3 comments:
Dear Heart4Japan. Working and living in Japan I have seen what you are talking about. Suicide for many reasons. I understand why you are putting the Myths of Japan here on the internet. Thank you. I want to put my heart out and say after seeing a suicide, and talking with my students about it my heart was crushed. They told me that 30,000 people commit suicide here a year. Knowning that it is on a yearly basis, and knowing how small japan is as a country it is huge. There are generations lost here. I can see from the charts that Japan is not the highest country with people committing suicide, but for the size of this country I believe it is a huge loss. Would it not be amazing to go one day with out a suicide here? One week? One month? One year? It would change how this country ran. Hope like that is what we are praying for.
Came across a 'manga messiah' which is actually the gospel in manga format, have u seen one in japan? :)
Yes, I have the Manga Messiah, and there are many more that have come out as well. Like one covering the book of acts.
I let one of my students borrow the Manga Messiah and she said "sugoi wakata" Meaning I totaly understood what it was saying. So that is a huge blessing with having the new Manga Messiah's
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