Рубрика: Теория и история культуры 
УДК 159.932.1(520)
Одиночество поглощает Японию?
Немчинова Евгения Сергеевна, бакалавр
Владивостокский государственный университет экономики и сервиса
Россия. Владивосток
E-mail: anfisa-s4815@yandex.ru; тел.: +79146507291
Котенко Светлана Николаевна, старший преподаватель
E-mail: svetlana.kotenko@vvsu.ru; тел.: 240-42-45
ул. Гоголя, 41, г. Владивосток, Приморский край, Россия, 690014

Сегодня можно часто слышать о том, что в Японии очень много одиноких людей, но вряд ли кто-либо представлял масштабы проблемы одиночества. Автор статьи пытается понять, почему одиночество, знакомое каждому из нас, приобрело такие крупные параметры и странные форматы именно в Стране Восходящего Солнца. 
Ключевые слова и словосочетания: Япония, одиночество, общение, проблема, хикикомори.
Is Loneliness Taking over Japan?
There are a lot of lonely people in Japan, but hardly ever thought about the scale of this problem. The author of the article is trying to understand why loneliness is of great concern and obtained very strange forms particularly in the Land of the Rising Sun. 
Keywords: Japan, loneliness, communication, problem, hikikomori. 
Japan is famous all over the world as the country of well-developed technologies, strong economy and high quality of life. The Japanese seem to be the happiest people, but it is far from it. One of the most serious problems of this country is loneliness. In Japan it is taking awful scales.
The situation looks rather sad. There are a lot of Japanese who don’t have friends, who don’t speak to relatives and hardly ever spend time with the opposite gender. Instead they are dipping into virtual reality, where they can have virtual girlfriends or boyfriends, go with them on dates and even marry them in the special establishments with a clergyman and a cake. According to the research of National University of demographic and social research, 42% of men and 44% of women have never had romantic relationships (Table 1). [1]
Men
Age	1992	1997	2002	2005	2010	2016	
18-34	41,5%	35,7%	35,3%	31,9%	36,2%	42%	

Women
Age	1992	1997	2002	2005	2010	2016	
18-34	56,3%	43,5%	37,3%	36,3%	38,7%	44,4%	

Table 1
Also, there are some services in Japan that can provide you with communication activity. Many people pay money only for spending some time in one’s arms – just embrace, nothing else, just a wish to get out of oppressive loneliness. [5]

To hire a family is common: lonely persons can rent for some time a wife/husband with children and feel true family people. [5]
About 450 000 Japanese have reclusive life style. They isolate themselves from society fully, locking up in their houses for years. These people are called hikikomori (Pic. 1. Hikikomori). It is common for any of us to feel stress, communicating with the surrounding world, but it leads to such pathological phenomenon as a full long isolation only hikikomori. In some cases they can stay in their houses or even rooms for many years. Usually hikikomori have few friends or don’t have them at all. Self-isolation from society is developing gradually. [4]

Pic. 1. Hikikomori
Every year the number of people, dying alone, is increasing. Their bodies are founded by neighbors after some days or even weeks. Such cases are called kodokusi and common around senior people who are forgotten by their children. [6]
Japan is still staying a leader in number of suicides (Pic. 2. Amount of suicides). [2]  In 2017 about 20 000 people did away with themselves. The highest rate was in 2003 when 34000 people committed suicide. Despite the decrease, the level on suicides in Japan is still high comparing to other developed countries. However, I should notice that the Japanese government takes a lot of preventive measures, enacts laws, and conducts actions to struggle with suicides. In universities there are established anti self-murder classes and students organization. [7] 

Pic. 2. Amount of suicides

The reasons for loneliness in Japan:
•	I suppose the problem of Japanese loneliness is rooted in the beginning, the burning of Japanese civilization. Initially Japanese islands were a closed place that was cut from the other world by seas and oceans. So, the idea of isolationism, dissimilarity of Japanese race in others could form in people’s heads. [3]
•	Also, in my opinion, the main reason is a hard lifestyle that is devoted to work. Its very complicated in Japan to find a job. And if you are employed to Japanese firm, you will stay there forever.  A person identifies himself with a firm, with a job, confines himself to communication with colleagues.  Deprivation of a job is a falling in the social pit.
•	It is always not enough for Japanese what they have already known and had. They always want to look beyond the horizon, to find the boundaries of the permitted and step over them. They put their hands to everything and bring to the limit. There are incredibly a lot of examples: pornography, horror movies, computer games and robotics. The irony is that the Japanese really succeed in looking beyond the verge, they could look into the abyss, but the abyss also started to look into them.  And I think, the loneliness is a consequence of cognition of this abyss.[3]

The ways of the solution
 Japanese solve the problem of loneliness with the virtual reality and special services that can provide you with lease of pets, family, communication or embraceю But I consider that so they only aggravate the situation. I think Japanese people should change their attitude to a job and don’t make from work a purpose of life. Working hours should be shortened in order to give time to people for heaving a rest and communication. It is necessary to reform such traditions as «a worker shouldn’t go home earlier then a chief», to propagandize polite bosses’ attitude to workers. 
In primary school special classes should be instituted where boys and girls would be thought to communicate with each other, to understand surrounding people and to be self-confident. Also, it is necessary to inspire to children that the real world is better than virtual one, and it is not worth dipping inside computer games with the head.
Making special free organizations to struggle against loneliness also can solve the problem. The Japanese would go there and discuss their problems with a psychologist, talk to the same lonely people, speak out everything is happening in their souls.
For sure these ways can help the Japanese to get rid of loneliness. No matter how the technologies are well-developed, they cannot solve this problem because a human needs a human.  

List of references:
1.	https://www.nippon.com/ru/features/h00150/ (accessed: 2/04/2018)
2.	http://vawilon.ru/statistika-samoubijstv/#lidery-samoubijstv-po-stranam  (accessed: 
2/04/2018)
3.	https://yahabog.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/одиночество-в-японии /  (accessed: 2/04/2018)
4.	https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Хикикомори (accessed: 2/04/2018)
5.	http://yaponia.net/japanuslugi.htm (accessed: 3/04/2018)
6.	http://bigpicture.ru/?p=606913 (accessed: 3/04/2018)
7.	https://sibac.info/studconf/social/lx/93279 (accessed: 3/04/2018)
8.	Kevin Kuhn, «Hikikomori» (accessed: 4/12/2017)
9.	Vsevolod Ovchinnikov, «Branch of Sakura» (accessed: 5/01/2018)