Stay classy, Japan

Full story here. - Link is possibly NSFW since some of the ads can be a little iffy.

Quote :

The classmates who drove a 12-year-old girl to hang herself with the scarf she knitted as a gift for her mother with their bullying attended her funeral and delivered a tearful eulogy, but made no mention of the cause of her death.

120 people attended the funeral of Akiko Uemura, including her entire class of 38 – the very class which drove her to suicide by excluding her and saying her Filipino mother was a “gorilla” and so was she.

The child selected as class representative gave a tearful address – “I’ll never forget the time we spent together since you transferred in.” His address pointedly avoided mentioning the cause of her death – “It’s very sad when someone suddenly passes away. I hope she rests in peace.”

The principal repeated his innocent platitudes: “We put you through an ordeal at school. I swear to Akiko that this will never happen again.”

Her father was exceptionally gracious where the children were concerned, telling her “You were all alone at school, but today everybody came for you.” He was less restrained when addressing the teachers – he angrily told them “Please give me back my daughter!”

On the full story there's some comments they found on 2ch about it. They use a lot nicer language than what I'm sure many other people would about this. I'm torn between feeling devastated for the girl and her family, and just wishing someone would actually yell at those kids for what they did. The girl's father is possibly one of the most forgiving guys on the planet, given that he didn't take it out on the kids directly like he could have (it must have been really hard to deal with seeing the class there).

Try not to follow the links below the story either unless you want your brain to break from rage.

I can definitely understand why he was more angry with the teachers. Twelve-year-olds are mostly just stupid kids who do what everyone else is doing. The teachers, on the other hand, are adults and should have acted like adults by putting a stop to this bullying. The kids were the ones being awful little monsters, but the teachers were the ones who should have stopped them.

Lapin wrote:

I can definitely understand why he was more angry with the teachers. Twelve-year-olds are mostly just stupid kids who do what everyone else is doing. The teachers, on the other hand, are adults and should have acted like adults by putting a stop to this bullying. The kids were the ones being awful little monsters, but the teachers were the ones who should have stopped them.

There are so many problems with Japan's education system that's it's almost horrifying. Bullying is simply accepted, teachers ignore it, and if anything ever does happen to do with a school, the staff denies anything to do with it. It's a terribly broken system, and from here you can sorta see why suicide is the leading cause of death amongst young people there.

Raine wrote:

There are so many problems with Japan's education system that's it's almost horrifying. Bullying is simply accepted, teachers ignore it, and if anything ever does happen to do with a school, the staff denies anything to do with it. It's a terribly broken system, and from here you can sorta see why suicide is the leading cause of death amongst young people there.

The same attitude towards bullying gets carried over to the work place. It's normal for people to pretend to be working when the day is done just so their supervisor doesn't bully them for being lazy.

Raine wrote:

Lapin wrote:

I can definitely understand why he was more angry with the teachers. Twelve-year-olds are mostly just stupid kids who do what everyone else is doing. The teachers, on the other hand, are adults and should have acted like adults by putting a stop to this bullying. The kids were the ones being awful little monsters, but the teachers were the ones who should have stopped them.

There are so many problems with Japan's education system that's it's almost horrifying. Bullying is simply accepted, teachers ignore it, and if anything ever does happen to do with a school, the staff denies anything to do with it. It's a terribly broken system, and from here you can sorta see why suicide is the leading cause of death amongst young people there.

If you want more information on this phenomenon, look up "ijime" on your search engine of choice. If anything, Raine is downplaying the problem.

TheHermit wrote:

If you want more information on this phenomenon, look up "ijime" on your search engine of choice. If anything, Raine is downplaying the problem.

Yeah, I most likely am. D: I haven't really tried to research it, but it's obvious enough just from the way bullying is portrayed in the media/entertainment industry.

Lapin wrote:

I can definitely understand why he was more angry with the teachers. Twelve-year-olds are mostly just stupid kids who do what everyone else is doing. The teachers, on the other hand, are adults and should have acted like adults by putting a stop to this bullying. The kids were the ones being awful little monsters, but the teachers were the ones who should have stopped them.

This.

I mean, the twelve year olds are retarded. It's to be expected, however, they're twelve. And they had the decency to read some nice little speech someone else wrote them them then forced them to read. More than I'd do. I'd probably be there bragging about it. But then, I'm an asshole.

The teachers are supposed to be authority and order. They clearly weren't.

Rainey wrote:

It's a terribly broken system, and from here you can sorta see why suicide is the leading cause of death amongst young people there.

Or it may be a cultural tendency to off oneself at the slightest provocation that goes back as far as one can remember.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Lapin wrote:

I can definitely understand why he was more angry with the teachers. Twelve-year-olds are mostly just stupid kids who do what everyone else is doing. The teachers, on the other hand, are adults and should have acted like adults by putting a stop to this bullying. The kids were the ones being awful little monsters, but the teachers were the ones who should have stopped them.

This.

I mean, the twelve year olds are retarded. It's to be expected, however, they're twelve. And they had the decency to read some nice little speech someone else wrote them them then forced them to read. More than I'd do. I'd probably be there bragging about it. But then, I'm an asshole.

The teachers are supposed to be authority and order. They clearly weren't.

It's worse than this, actually. One reason that students find it so easy to do this and get away with it is that the teachers themselves do it to students. One of my friends went to Japan on a English-teaching internship. She assisted teachers in the classroom by reading examples so they could listen to good pronunciation, stuff like that. She told me about one incident at a school called Nagawachuu where a student couldn't answer a question, and the teacher spent half the class period yelling at the kid, telling him how useless he was, and encouraging other students to "discipline" him. My friend was so horrified that she went to the school principle and her boss, but they told her that there was nothing that could be done, and that the teacher had tenure. Once that teacher even turned her wrath on my friend, because she corrected the teacher's pronunciation. She complained again, and they told her that she didn't have to put in an effort at that school.

It's not just the students. It's the teachers too.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Rainey wrote:

It's a terribly broken system, and from here you can sorta see why suicide is the leading cause of death amongst young people there.

Or it may be a cultural tendency to off oneself at the slightest provocation that goes back as far as one can remember.

You need to work on your long-term memory.

Verandering wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Rainey wrote:

It's a terribly broken system, and from here you can sorta see why suicide is the leading cause of death amongst young people there.

Or it may be a cultural tendency to off oneself at the slightest provocation that goes back as far as one can remember.

You need to work on your long-term memory.

I believe he's referring to Harakiri/ Seppuku, which started some time in the 12th century. I certainly can't remember that far back

grmblfjx wrote:

Verandering wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Rainey wrote:

It's a terribly broken system, and from here you can sorta see why suicide is the leading cause of death amongst young people there.

Or it may be a cultural tendency to off oneself at the slightest provocation that goes back as far as one can remember.

You need to work on your long-term memory.

I believe he's referring to Harakiri/ Seppuku, which started some time in the 12th century. I certainly can't remember that far back

Even I can't remember that far back, and I'm one of the oldest people on this board.

The point is that just because Japan has cultural tendencies that have led to a higher suicide rate than most countries does not mean that there isn't a huge problem with bullying there.

I wouldn't give Mikey too much credit. I'm also not sure how "honourable suicide" has much to do with "killing oneself at the slightest provocation." I took it to mean something about World War 2.

World War 2 was what I was specifically thinking about. Though I knew some form of suicide was something of a cultural norm before then.

Again, I overestimated Mikey's brainpower.

If this had happened in America, somebody would be getting sued by now.

grmblfjx wrote:

Again, I overestimated Mikey's brainpower.

Are you implying blindly rushing US Marines over open fields isn't simply assisted suicide?

You're just mad because you lost.

Also, the Germans seemed fond of killing themselves around that time as well.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Are you implying blindly rushing US Marines over open fields isn't simply assisted suicide?

No. I'm implying that I gave you too much credit when I assumed you knew anything about pre-WW2 Japan.

Quote :

Also, the Germans seemed fond of killing themselves around that time as well.

Hey, it wasn't the Germans who put their own soldiers in penal battalions and made them clear mine fields by running across them. Hint: Russians are crazier than anyone.

Gumball wrote:

No. I'm implying that I gave you too much credit when I assumed you knew anything about pre-WW2 Japan.

I know vague crap about it. D8 And how their peculiar fighting traditions would have caused their doom at the hands of slightly less disciplined Mongols had a inordinately strong storm not occurred at a very unlikely time of year and sunk the Mongols little fleet.

Gumball wrote:

Hint: Russians are crazier than anyone.

Crazy like a fox. I bet they got all of those minefields cleared.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

I know vague crap about it. D8 And how their peculiar fighting traditions would have caused their doom at the hands of slightly less disciplined Mongols had a inordinately strong storm not occurred at a very unlikely time of year and sunk the Mongols little fleet.

That just means you read Cracked.

This reminds me very much of this. When i read about this one i was wondering how the hell they're allowed to get away with these things.