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The Difficulty of Living in Japan — On Psychiatrists, Prosecutors, and Society

Hello.

Japanese people can be remarkably kind to those they consider part of their in-group, but they treat outsiders like garbage. There are people who have no problem treating others terribly or ignoring them entirely.

The State of Psychiatry in Japan

One of the worst parts of Japan is the current state of psychiatric care.

• The low quality of psychiatric care

The level of psychiatrists in Japan is quite low. They seem to think they’re practicing medicine by copying from America, but can we really entrust Japanese healthcare to people like that? Honestly, as a Japanese person, I have my doubts.

• The problem with insurance fees and costs

Rather than paying insurance premiums to these kinds of people, there are more worthwhile places for that money to go. For example, securing hospital beds — where medical costs tend to accumulate — and improving the care provided there.

• The lag in medication and counseling

The number of inpatients in Japan is abnormally high. The handling of medication is poor, and counseling was only recently introduced. Frankly, the response is far too slow. It should have been started much earlier, and moreover, Japan has a general tendency to exclude psychological and psychiatric care altogether.

If you’re a psychiatrist and you feel like you’re garbage, the reason why is simple: you are.

People tend to say, “You shouldn’t talk like that.” But I’ve suffered worse harm, so honestly, I don’t care.

If you’re a Japanese psychiatrist and you think you’re garbage (and I do think that), what Japanese psychiatrists somehow don’t recognize is the structure of insurance-based care that lets them avoid taking responsibility for the treatments they give.

On the Prosecutors

Japanese prosecutors also wield enormous power and do whatever they want. Even when they tamper with evidence (like falsifying a floppy disk), they insist “I did nothing wrong.” Who on earth would trust prosecutors like that?

If something bad happens to you, just don’t do it back. If something good happens, just praise it. It’s that simple.

Values Around Money

I feel that many Japanese people have a strange attitude toward money. They say things like “When you move, money moves,” but they also consider it vulgar to ask for money in exchange for putting your money to work. People seem to believe that providing something should be everything.

One bad example in particular: there are people who say — in a way that I find genuinely unsettling — that articles and content should be shared for free. They act as if they wrote it themselves, without bothering to cite the source. Lately, there are so many people like this.

For instance, people take the exact content from an article and say on YouTube, “I said this, so it’s my content,” and then they earn affiliate income off of it. Or they attack someone else’s site while running similar articles to make affiliate money themselves. Honestly, I’ve grown tired of this kind of society.

The Murder Case in Nantan City, Kyoto Prefecture

Today, a big news story is the arrest of people in Nantan City, Kyoto Prefecture over a murder case. This news has been reported quite sensationally in Japan, and I heard they had been searching from ten minutes before.

But I always wonder: when police intervene like this, who pays for the cost of that intervention? In my view, the father — the perpetrator in this case — should be the one to pay for it.

Other News Items

Here are some other items that are making the news.

• Regarding reform of the Political Funds Control Act

There are calls for reform of the law, including proposals to once again completely ban donations from legislators.

• The withdrawal from BS broadcasting

It’s been formally decided that all five BS channels affiliated with commercial key stations are withdrawing.

BS-TBS, which launched 4K broadcasting in December 2018, explained that the viewing environment has been drastically changed by the rapid expansion of internet streaming, making the business environment extremely tough. The exact end date of broadcasting has not yet been decided.

The five BS channels plan to begin free streaming of their main content on the platform “TVer” this autumn.

• Induction into the Japan Golf Hall of Fame

The Japan Golf Association announced four new inductees. In the player category, Takeshi Ozaki — affectionately known as “Jumbo” — who passed away in January of last year, was selected. Ozaki won 32 times on the Japanese men’s tour and claimed the money title 12 times, leading the growth of golf’s popularity.

Violence and Power Harassment Consultations in Sports

Finally, a report from the Japan Sport Association.

Last fiscal year, 603 consultations were submitted to the counseling desk for violence and power harassment in sports. That’s 67 more than the previous year — an all-time high.

Japan’s response to power harassment and bullying is terrible: they handle things for special people, but not for people who aren’t special. I can never accept that.

The Time I Got Yelled At for Pulling Weeds

I didn’t expect to get yelled at for pulling weeds. I thought it was a normal thing to do — maybe even something I’d get thanked for — but for some reason, I got scolded. Today is another great day for pulling weeds, everyone. It rained yesterday, so today is sunny and the conditions are perfect. But be careful not to get yelled at. Make sure to clean up the grass when you’re done.

In Closing

If this world is truly led by an abundance of compassion and charity, then I suppose that’s fine. Honestly, whether murder cases are multiplying or not, I feel like as long as I’m okay, none of it matters. Because I am a victim.

The hardest thing about Japan is that there is no real approach to the things people are genuinely suffering from. Japan is a very hard country to live in, and at the same time, it’s also easy to live in.

“Easy to live in” applies to standard, average people. In other words, the more foolish you are, the easier it is to live here. Meanwhile, people who simply happened to miss their chances suffer. The gap between rural and urban areas is large too, but because Japan has been somewhat leveled out, people get told “Just put up with it.”

But I want to grow my own talents. The reason Japan has no opportunity to develop talent is simple: Japan has fallen into an age-based ideology where “you need to do this by a certain age, or it’s too late.”

The reason Japan has fallen behind in IT and semiconductors is that it neglected past generations — and this is the responsibility of the Japanese government. It is also the result of responses skewed toward specific individual administrations. Having carried on this way while ignoring all of that is clearly wrong.

Japan does not conduct historical analysis, it does not do statistical analysis, and it does not respond based on future projections. That is precisely the weakness of the Japanese government.

That’s all for today. This was Hiro.

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