The Ikigai Podcast
The Ikigai Podcast
Exploring Hikikomori: Social Withdrawal and the Need for Connection in Japan with Naomi Berman
How do individuals suffering from social isolation cope?
In Japan, there is a sociological phenomenon known as hikikomori, where individuals shut themselves in their rooms, avoiding any form of social interaction. Despite its prevalence, this issue has not received much attention.
In this episode of the Ikigai Podcast, Nick talks with Naomi Berman about the causes and effects of hikikomori in Japanese society.
What is your ikigai? It sounds like it's jive dancing and these things you do.
Speaker 2:Community Like it is coming back to the belonging Sense of community, and belonging is definitely my ikigai. And yeah, yes, music seems to be Well. First, music brings me to the community, but also there's just jive is a bit of fun, the music like. When I moved to Japan I was a swing dancer and it's really stuffy swing dancing. You know it's all jazz hands and looking perfect, and especially in Japan because they've got to follow form. But jive is just working-class alcoholics kind of thing. It's a horrible thing to say, but I'm trying to convey the difference. They just are there because they love the music and they just want to be around. You know it's not all jazz hands. So I guess that kind of community, that authentic community, really is what I'm seeking. That's my key guy. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Find your Ikigai at ikigaitribecom. At ikigaitribecom. My guest today on episode 85 of the Ikigai podcast is Naomi Berman, an assistant professor at the Center of Global Education at the University of Tokyo, Japan. Naomi is a youth sociologist researching a variety of contexts, including hikikomori and belonging, researching a variety of contexts, including hikikomori and belonging, campus design and student wellbeing, and qualitative methodologies in youth research. Naomi has been involved in government and private industry funded research and program evaluation projects, investigating topics such as cyber bullying in schools, student leadership, media literacy and mental health benefits of community arts. She has been living in Japan for the past nine years and teaches academic writing at Tokyo University. Naomi, it's good to see you again. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2:Hi, nick, nice to see you, thank you.
Speaker 1:So, as you mentioned, this is our round two. We had a bit of a disaster with the first one, but it's good to catch up. It was good to see you in Melbourne and unfortunately I couldn't see you in Japan, but I'm sure we'll catch up in person again. So how are you. Good.
Speaker 2:Yes, very good. Thank you, getting used to the heat starting to creep into Tokyo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was nice while I was over there, a little bit humid. Now I'm back in cold Melbourne. So let's start with a little history. Do you want to give us a summary of your academic background?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, as you mentioned, I'm a youth sociologist and that I guess that makes me a jack of all trades, master of none. So I've always been interested in just random phenomena around young people and the kinds of issues that they're dealing with in their daily lives. And so, yeah, as you said, I've worked in, like I've been teaching at university level, I've worked at NGOs, I've worked for local government, I've worked at a range of different organisations, universities, in a research capacity and teaching. And then I've, yeah, moved to Japan nine years ago, started teaching academic writing and picked up my interest in young people with the hikikomori and also just campus design. I can't help but comparing the way Australian universities are designed compared to Japanese universities and the implications for young people and their well-being, because there's lots of scope for improvement in in the design of Japanese university.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine it's. Oh, this is not a very nice thing to say, but I remember a viral. This was a while ago, but it was like one of those viral emails, so before we had Facebook and YouTube, I think if something was viral worthy of sharing, it was done by email. And I remember, while living in Japan, someone shared this website where it said schools that look like prisons in Japan. And they really did look like prisons. They had all this fencing and no grass and sort of barred windows and not this environment for learning. So I guess you see that yeah, yeah, I noticed.
Speaker 2:The first thing I noticed when I walked onto the campus is, you know, it's not really designed in a way that encourages interaction between the students. You know, it really is just a functional place like a workplace that students come in, they learn, they study, they eat, they go. I mean probably, you know, in Japan they're interested in club culture and what they call circles, the kind of a club, so maybe there's the occasional space for that. But again, that's a very functional perfunctory type. It's not just spaces to relax and be and chill and that whole informal learning dimension and, yeah, so that it is very much I'm surprised they don't get students to clock in and clock out. They certainly get teachers, they get academics to do it at some universities. So the mindset is still of a, you know, a bureaucratic Okay.
Speaker 2:You know, universities do insist that academics clock in and clock out, which is bizarre.
Speaker 1:I actually had two. I worked at a fine arts school teaching English and I remember thinking, oh, go in 20 minutes early because I had to clock in with one of those time cards and yeah it just. I mean, it sort of became routine, but I think it was the only time in Japan I had to do that. But yeah, I guess, looking back, that's a bit strange. I think you'd be doing that in Melbourne.
Speaker 2:No, no. I think in my first year or two I drove my bosses crazy because I was like why do I have to do this, why do you want this, why do you want this?
Speaker 1:Oh well, that's the beauty of it all. So these interesting things. So, with that, how did you end up living and working in Japan?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so I was a bit in Australia. I was kind of like you know what it's like when you just take things for granted, and so I thought I was bored and needed a change. So, you know, this job came up. It wasn't teaching English, which is great, because my English is still pretty bad, so it was teaching writing. And so, yeah, flew over, which is great, because my English is still pretty bad. So it was teaching writing. And so, yeah, flew over, did a great job, great conditions, only meant to be five years, but it turned into nine. But I am actually kind of almost ready to come home now, but yeah, so it was not like I ever had a burning desire or interest in anime.
Speaker 2:A lot of people I meet meet there have this pre-existing kind of affection for the culture of Japan. I actually really wasn't on my late radar. I was just kind of interested in something different, a change, and admittedly I did like Japanese baseball and I was coming over for the snowboarding and summer sonic festival, so I was already. That was my interest it. It was more entertainment.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's Japan. It has so much to offer. So, whether it's traditional culture or the modern quirky popular culture, or snowboarding, skiing, mountain climbing, it has so much.
Speaker 2:Oh, just the other weekend I went to an event. It was a Northern Soul event. So Northern Soul this is. I mean, japan has subcultures, but this would be less subculture within a subculture. Northern Soul is from the 60s in Manchester. It was a type of music or dance move. Even in Manchester or the North it was kind of like subculture. Some people in Japan have discovered it. They love it and there was this little, tiny, tiny kind of there's a group in Osaka, there's a group in Tokyo, tiny, and I'm standing in this like, you know, just a small bar, and all these people are dancing and they've got the moves like they're. You know, they're probably better than the original and they've got the moves. I'm in Japan watching these wonderful Japanese people emulating a 1960s dance from a northern part of the UK, like it's extraordinary, one of those moments. So yeah, it never ceases to amaze the quirkiness and I don't know how to describe it in Japan.
Speaker 1:You're right. There is that quirkiness, that niche-ness, almost a little tribalism would you call it that Japanese? I remember once it was on the news and there was this backpack that became incredibly popular. It was so popular that there was a bar where if you wanted to enter the bar you had to wear the backpack. So you had all these people wearing empty backpacks drinking in a bar and they built this little tribal community based on this really cool designed backpack. And I just thought that is a bit strange. You know, drinking at a bar to celebrate this backpack, that everyone was wearing it's commitment and passion.
Speaker 2:It's really, you know something. It is a level of commitment and passion for something like a unitary focus that you don't really see anywhere else.
Speaker 1:So today we're not really talking about these quirky tribalisms or this sense of unity. Actually, we're almost talking about the opposite, and it is. It's a sad and shocking condition, but it's also sort of fascinating at the same time. So I am familiar with this to some degree on a personal level, involving one of my family members, and it's hikikomori. So what is hikikomori? I should mention you've written several papers on this, you've done your own research on this and I think you've spoken to other researchers and even spoken to your students to some degree on this theme. So what is hikikomori?
Speaker 2:So hikikomori is, you know, to really reduce it into a single kind of sentence definition it's basically it's people that choose, like the social isolation they withdraw themselves from society, basically lock themselves in their room mostly, and, according to the government definition, if they've been self-isolating for more than six months, that constitutes hikikomori. There's so many negative ways to describe it so it's hard to kind of, you know, especially with well, as you mentioned the things I've been writing. It's kind of critiquing some of the ways it's been understood and described and the narrative surrounding it. But yeah, the stereotype is often of the otaku, you know, or gaming geek, just locked in their room. But it really is. There's a range of variability, but basically an individual that locks themselves away, usually in their home or mostly even in their room if they've got family that can take care of them and don't really leave.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's. I mean I love exploring words or the compound of the word. So hiku is the verb to pull or draw back, and then komodo is to shut oneself in, be confined, to hide away, and I mean this is a problem that started in the late 70s, early 80s, particularly with boys, teenagers, men who just school's too stressful, I want to stay home, or this company's too stressful, I'd rather just stay at home and lock myself in my room, and then that goes from one day to one week to one month, to one year to a decade, and it's a condition. I mean the word hikikomori describes the condition, but also the person who does lock themselves away. And we're talking decades, we're not talking a couple of weeks or months, years to decades. So it's sort of astounding that someone can even do that. Like I can't imagine wanting to lock myself in a room for more than a few hours.
Speaker 1:So yeah, you have written several abstracts and articles on hikikomori, including Unlocking Hikikomori, an Interdisciplinary Approach, and Reinventing Isolation, imagining the Other in Seclusion and Hikikomori and Belong belonging in a post-pandemic Japan. So the question is what led you to researching and publishing on hikikomori? Why were you attracted to this subject?
Speaker 2:I had just arrived, it kind of. You know, I think I was in my first six months and in my job, the fellow faculty or academics have a research, a monthly research forum where they present their research, and one of my colleagues he's he's one of the. So yeah, about the different ways that hikikomori is understood. There's it's a very popular, obviously psychology, medical model, but there's also a cultural studies model that likes to look at the, the cultural aspect. So he's a cultural studies, actually media studies, cultural aspect. So he's a cultural studies, actually media studies, cultural studies person. And he gave a talk on Hikikomori.
Speaker 2:He actually was my co-author for two of the papers and he gave a talk and I hadn't actually heard of it before and I was at the talk and at the end I went up to him and went this is fascinating and let's, you know, I want to explore this further with you. Let's, you know, I want to explore this further with you. Let's, you know, let's write something. So we agreed and you know, one article turned to two and then pandemic, you know, different circumstances started changing in my, my interest started getting more. I guess I took it not taking it more seriously. I always very serious about it and concerned about it, but I really started getting a little bit more.
Speaker 2:This cannot be you know there's something that has to be more of a dialogue and more public debate about it, rather than just the few random people writing. Yeah, I'm not explaining myself, but that's how I got interested. It was basically a random talk I went to and thought, wow, this is fascinating.
Speaker 1:I think you mentioned to me you ended up coming to Japan from a friend saying, oh, there's this job in Japan and I'll check it out, and you sort of tagged along and you ended up getting it, or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my propensity to say yes to things has worked out well, it's funny how things fan out.
Speaker 1:So let's go a bit deeper into this condition. What are the causes of hikikomori?
Speaker 2:you know there's a psychological model and the social model really isn't like. You know, the psychological model or the medical model would be saying it's individual, they've got mental health issues or they're broken. It's. It's always focusing on the individual and pathologising them. So the cause is they have something already a problem, like they'll mention neurodiversity on the spectrum, or that there's some kind of mental health issue such that they don't have the resilience to bounce back from. You know, like school bullying. Bullying is a big. I look at it as push-pull factors, you know. So the factors pulling them to do this and the factors pushing them into it. And school bullying is the factor that's pushing them, which is bullying. In Japan, schools is endemic, it's almost part of the cultural foundation, and I guess the psychological or medical model will say well, these kids couldn't cope with the bullying and this is how they responded they refused to go to school, and that school refusal is a big precursor to hikikomori yeah I guess social model is more, um, not, it's more not choice, but more social behaviours and attitudes.
Speaker 2:It's a different, it's more the cultural dimension of, you know, modern-day hermits, as my colleague would want to describe it. So there's kind of two and, you know, maybe they're not separate, I don't know, but there's different ways to look at the cause. But it happens in older people as well. Certainly seems to be more men, yeah, and a 40-year-old like. If men lose their job, they find it difficult to get back. It's usually triggered by some kind of event and then they get sets it off and getting back into or having bouncing back from that can often be a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's always been for me like some condition or some problem in Japan has always been something I've read about and not really had any personal experience with. However, to some degree, one of my brother-in-laws is Hikikomori. He's just not independent. He's 40, still living in the family home and he works with the family and doesn't appear to have any social group. And you know, I can't imagine him ever being independent and I think everyone just accepted that around him and it's been like this for all his adult life.
Speaker 1:And then a good friend of mine, his son, who's a university student. He struggled, I remember when living there he struggled with, you know, primary school and then when we moved back to Australia later hearing he was struggling with school and he would basically be mute, like mutism and not talking. And I recently found out that's continued. And even though he's studying in Tokyo, he's living on his own and he's doing what he wants to do studying the subject he's really passionate about His father kind of learnt, other than that he doesn't go out and he even struggled to talk to his father because he's almost out of practice of just speaking. And I just thought, gee, how is that possible? Like how did he become mute, so or not mute, but he goes through these bouts of mutism and no social connection in his life at all, and I just thought, oh, this is a problem you know in.
Speaker 1:Japan, and it seems to, as you pointed out, happen to more men than women. So what's the general demographic of hikikomori?
Speaker 2:I should have had my stats in front of it. I do think the majority are older, I think the stereotype is a younger age group, but I think the bulk of them 30%, are in their 30s men. But again, getting statistics is another. You know, actually understanding, capturing the is also its own, has its own challenges, but yet has largely been um more older men. And then second is younger men. Women usually factor in very minimally, not because they don't have it or suffer or you can see even describing. They don't identify or are considered it's more because they're not caught in the measurement mechanisms the surveys that the government does, they slip through the net a lot.
Speaker 2:There's this kind of you know when, what you were saying about your friend's son, there is this cultural passivity. In as much as you know, people step over it. They don't interrupt it or interact. If there's stigma attached to it, there's shame. Then there's the idea that you don't kind of interfere in other people's lives. So what I'm noticing, even just with my students, that experience currently, that experience some serious problems. There's a real hands-off approach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah diversity, which I find quite appalling and like this is, I don't know it. I want to say there's almost a collective bystander effect that is really contributing to this. That would probably be my next paper, if I wrote one how this cultural bystander effect is supporting it.
Speaker 1:That is a shocking. That's probably the most shocking aspect of it for me is as a parent. If you know my son displayed any kind of behaviour like this, within a few days I'd be saying, hey, you know what's going on. And then, if it was persisting for weeks, you'd do everything possible professional help, you'd drag him out of the room, take him out somewhere and, yeah, you're right, there's this passiveness to well, we'll just give him time to work it out. And then years go by.
Speaker 1:And you're actually right that it is widely known in Japan that parents are unwilling to reveal to friends or relatives that they have a hikikomori son or daughter, let alone report it to a formal institution or agency. Traditionally, such families are reluctant to engage any agencies that might discover the situation at home. And I think it's yeah, it's like the opposite. If I had a problem, or when I've had it, you know parenting issues or relationship issues, you know I talk to my friends, I get it off my chest, I seek advice and all people have dysfunctional families. So you talk about it, but in Japan it's like you cannot burden other people with your problems and, yeah, stigma, shame. So really it does not help the situation, does it, and why is that the case? Why don't families of hikikomori proactively seek help? What has your research revealed Because I'm taking an educated guess here based on my life in Japan and relationships with Japanese?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think it is the shame and the stigma. I don't know, and probably your area would be more able to even dig deep into what causes the shame and the stigma around it. But you know, I think it's that and there's such negative stereotypes and there was this famous incident that actually really brought it onto the public table internationally. I guess was when a young person there was a stabbing on a bus, I think in the 80s or 70s, yeah, and the person that did it was considered Hikikomori. And all of a sudden there's this stigma and deviance label actually that's right and all of a sudden hikikomori got kind of. It went from being this, possibly just a quirky kind of thing to possibly a potential danger or threat to society, which is completely media-driven and a media-constructed narrative. But that change, I think that might have shifted things a lot. So more reason for parents not to mention that their child is sick in Kimura, because now not only have they got someone that's not functioning or not participating in society, but potentially could be a threat.
Speaker 1:It's the irony or the dichotomy of Japan creates this harmony without going into too much detail about problems and not burdening their friends with their issues, but then these problems go unaddressed for years and decades and so many people seem to suffer. Seem to suffer and I don't want to be making unfair comparisons, but in Australia or Melbourne there's so many services for mental health or loneliness.
Speaker 2:Like all the. I mean they transformed it. Well, I don't know the effect of it, but you know, with school bullying, the way to address that is they introduce values, education, into school. In Australia it could have come from UK, I'm not sure, but you know, when there's a phenomenon there's almost like a public, like you know, messaging. I remember there's some spate of racism and then I've been here but on public transport they had posters saying don't sit back and say nothing. Yes, like it's kind of pushed. So there's this kind of like. Not only is this highlyist approach, but also now let's draw in the public, don't be a bystander. You know, I don't know. Again, you're right, we're comparing apples and pears, but that doesn't happen in Japan. There's nothing like that.
Speaker 2:Don't dobbing. I mean the negative side is I remember the dobbing your neighbour during, I think. I remember when I was young and there was water restrictions oh, that's right, and we had droughts and people were encouraged to dob in their neighbour if they were watering their garden on a non-watering day. I mean, like that's ridiculous, that's extreme. That's extreme, but that's a cultural thing, the stuff in Australia that the Australian government reacts to whatever because it has a significant public health cost, economics right. You know, like I think, with Hikikomori, at the moment it's not costing because the parents are bearing the cost of maintaining. You know this situation. So maybe when it shifts to becoming more public health cost, maybe the government might intervene. I don't know, but at the moment it's easily managed and it's not costing the government, you know, because the parents are taking care of these hikikomori.
Speaker 1:But I think it's costing. I mean, we're talking and this is based on like conservative estimates, but if we're talking about two to three million men who are between the age of 20 to 50 and they're not working, that's a good chunk of working population in a country where they're already got problems with declining birth rate, aging population.
Speaker 2:Exactly. They're not reproducing either. They're not working and they're not reproducing. So that's huge.
Speaker 1:So these men aren't paying taxes, they're not generating income, they're not adding value to the community. So it's one of many problems. But I think you mentioned or you wrote about how the pandemic had impact on its perception and also on the lives of hikikomori. It actually gave them a bit of freedom. So we all probably to some degree experienced what it was like to be hikikomori through the pandemic, being forced to stay at home. So how did the pandemic impact hikikomori in Japan?
Speaker 2:Well, I personally, and even just from my experience with students, it enabled them to access education because, you know, traditionally Japan doesn't really have an online, I mean even that much of a distance. It never really had an online presence education-wise. So I still have blackboards in some of my classrooms, chalkboards. So going online really, I think, was a boon for access to education and there is evidence that, you know, also work. So some you know Hikikomori. There was even a job agency set up to place Hikekamori in jobs because of the online opportunities.
Speaker 2:Now, again, this really transformed Japan. None of this occurred before. Remote working was not a thing, you know all that. So that really opened up a lot of opportunities. You know, I've even noticed just in the last couple of years, I'm getting more requests, it just seems to me, because there's the opportunity. Now students are actually taking advantage and requesting that. You know, having that need met, whereas before, if there wasn't an opportunity, they just couldn't enrol. Now they can enrol and request, you know, or go through the disability services, because there is a solution. So before there was no solution, so there was no even point trying to access. Now there's a solution. More and more are trying to at least get there. So that was definitely opportunities.
Speaker 2:It also, you know, in my research I found that even though Japan didn't have a lockdown per se not a strict one we were invited to stay home. There was less people around, so there was anecdotes of some hikikomori actually going out at night time, going for walks, because the fear of being in public was reduced and so some of them felt a bit safer to go to the shop. So there was a few anecdotes or evidence of some of them exploring, going out a bit more. And yet, like you said, hopefully I think that needs to be proven but the idea that maybe there was a bit more collective empathy, because people did experience a little bit of what it must be like and so they might have a bit more empathy of the hikikomori.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that surprised me because I think I remember reading other papers thinking, oh, it's increased the number and people who weren't hikikomori because of the lockdown ended up becoming hikikomori. So it was. Yeah, it was interesting to read. Oh, okay, there's some benefits from pandemic lockdown.
Speaker 2:In Japan.
Speaker 1:In Japan yeah.
Speaker 2:It might have worked. It actually could have worked the other way in Australia. You know countries like Australia, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was pretty. I think Victoria had one of the longest lockdowns and I mean it wasn't too hard for me because I work at home, but for some of my friends they were really struggling where their you know, social life was really important to them and they just could not go out. So, with all of this in mind and the theme of my podcast, I would relate hikikomori to a lack of ikigai and a lack of belonging, and you touched on belonging and also unbelonging in your papers. So would you like to share how the pandemic impacted sense of belonging and the perception of belonging in Japan?
Speaker 2:I, that's a good question. Somebody actually does some really good, thorough research now that the dust has settled. But, like I said, there is a suggestion. A few academics were highlighting that, in developing a sense of empathy, it opened up opportunities for greater sense of belonging for Hikikomori, in that sense of, you know, oh, they understand the position or the way it is. And also, yeah, just being able to participate in education and work can enhance sense of belonging.
Speaker 2:But saying that, you know, I do have currently now a student that has chronic social anxiety and has requested, you know, to have that accommodated by submitting the assessments online rather than coming to class, and I've allowed for that. But, you know, I don't know if it's affecting belonging because, yeah, sure, the student is now still part of the broader academic community because he is enrolled at university, he's doing course, but he's not meeting anyone. He doesn't, you know, he's not coming to class, you know. So it's like his education is parallel. Yes, so he has a sense of belonging to the institution of education, but he does not have a sense of belonging, certainly to campus or to fellow students. I don't, yeah, because he's online. He's not actually doing online classes, he's just submitting, he's not turning up because the classes aren't online, they're face to face. I've just allowed for him to submit a video, a different assessment to replace the participation.
Speaker 1:Great if that makes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I don't can. Yeah, it can actually also reproduce the exclusion, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:There's this irony to this lack of belonging in Japan, because in my research of Ikigai I end up uncovering related words, almost what some researchers call sub-theories. So there's a word called i-bashel, and it's a compound of i-ru to exist and bashel place, and it just used to mean whereabouts, like where's the whereabouts of someone, but now it means, I guess, in a psychological context, you know your place to be, or a place where you feel a sense of belonging, where you feel you can be yourself, place where you feel a sense of belonging, where you feel you can be yourself. And actually I mean it came out of, yeah, this problem of social anxiety and Japanese struggling to find their place to be. So it's a kind of a beautiful word, but it's sort of now used in the context of, oh, japanese are lacking this sense of belonging, they can't be themselves in a social context.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, they either become hikikomori or they avoid social interaction as much as possible. So it's yeah, it's so strange Japan has this awareness or this observation of nature or beauty or social context. They have these amazing words to describe these concepts, like ikigai or ibasho, yet under it they also have these really dark problems that don't seem to be taken seriously by the government and there's no money going into helping people with hikikomori or social withdrawal or loneliness. So, as a researcher and someone who's quite aware of this problem and the statistics and, I guess, the forecast of the problem, do you have much hope for hikikomori or this lack of belonging in Japan?
Speaker 2:No For hikikomori or this lack of belonging in Japan. No, because, like you said, I don't feel enough is being done, it's not considered urgent. I mean, like you know, I was saying to my students, like when the pandemic descended, the government just moved mountains to sort this out. So you know, all governments did so. There is evidence that if a government really is committed to changing something, they can. So you know, there's just no, there's not sufficient urgency, and so, yeah, I don't see it changing Nothing. Yeah, even the pandemic, even though there were little pockets of, you know, opportunities, I'm not sure how long-term, how enduring they're going to be, or whether that's going to bring about even greater change. So, yeah, sorry, you're very negative. No, no, that's good.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's fine because it kind of goes back to your earlier comment I think it was something like the inactive bystander Because I think there's also this collective denial.
Speaker 2:So it is denial, but it's also just the fear of offending someone else is such that they're willing to not address something for the fear of offending.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is that social burden. There was also this expression I learnt. Actually, I would hear a lot of parents tell their children as almost like a parting expression of meiwa kukakenai de, and don't cause trouble, that message, if it's repeated over many, many years. I mean, I see my wife. She struggles If we get invited out. She's like you know, are you sure we can go? And I'm thinking, of course we can go, we've been invited, but she's worried we're somehow causing trouble, we're putting people out.
Speaker 1:So there is this sort of heightened awareness of oh, am I causing trouble to someone that Japanese seem to have to carry? And yeah, I guess for some it's too much, you know, and they would rather not participate in society. I read another paper on hikikomori and I think someone framed it like that they would rather not participate in society because the burden of it is too much, it's too stressful, yeah, so what about you, as someone who's lived in Japan as a foreigner, on these themes of belonging? Or I'm pretty sure you're not a hikikomori, but have you ever struggled with a sense of belonging in Japan? It's such a radically different culture to Australian culture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, yes absolutely. It's something I'm really confronting currently. This is what's made the decision to come back home is, yeah, I've felt liked like in a collegial kind of superficial way, but not belonging, not really ever like I belonged, and the pandemic really kind of heightened that sense of belonging. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's because I'm a foreigner or it's just the japanese way. You know, I just, you know again, don't want to be intrusive, but I really don't feel like anyone's really got my back here in the way that you know. I feel that I have that in australia and maybe it's because the friendships in australia longer term, I don't know, but I've been here 10 years and and and I have some I have some friendships but they're just very superficial and no matter how much I try and kind of get deeper it, there's just a wall, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I, I went through something similar and I think living in a small town had its benefits, but it also felt very isolating because I'd see very few foreigners and I just, yeah, I was really lucky, I had some very good friends, but yeah, I just felt out of place and there was other stress going on.
Speaker 1:So I think I mean you go through periods in your life where you've got stress, you start a business or you're becoming a parent and there's all this uncertainty. So going through that in Japan was probably a bit more challenging than maybe how it would have been in Australia. But yeah, I think it's probably a little bit harder for foreigners to find that sense of belonging because you're generally you meet new Japanese, you're generally asked oh, you know, where are you from and do you like natto, and you know same questions all the time that kind of remind you oh, I'm an outsider, I'm a foreigner. So it's yeah, I remember it being quite hard sometimes, and now I'm also thinking of going back. So I've sort of had this on my mind how will I handle that aspect of living in Japan?
Speaker 2:I do think language is a big part. I have to confess I don't have, you know, I haven't really. I can get by, but I don't speak japanese. I have basic day-to-day kind of stuff, but not uh. And I've got a friend she's uh in english and she's been living for over 10 years. She speaks fluent, she, she seems to belong, she's into you know, uh, kimono. She just gets into kimono competition, she just want like so's. I think her sense of belonging is much more entrenched in my curriculum.
Speaker 2:She speaks the language and she's into, you know, the visual, like the music and the like. So you know, in part this might be also because I'm just not participating in the Japanese tradition. I participate in West, like I do jive dancing or swing dancing, you know. So I do belong to subcultures, but actually when I think about them they're actually kind of Western ones. We're all Japanese people and I have friends there, but actually when I think about it I don't really. I don't speak the language well enough and I don't belong to any Japanese cultural group. So in a way that's probably my bad, actually, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe I think you're right about the language. The deeper you understand the language, I guess, the deeper the relationships or friendships you can forge. And then, yeah, look, if you have a love for, I guess, traditional Japanese culture or, you know, modern Japanese culture, I guess that's going to maybe give you that platform to have a sense of belonging as you build relationships with people interested in the same I guess things. But yeah, I mean, I had a really good, as you know, I went to Japan last month and I had a really good time, sort of rediscovering, and I was quite conscious of my feelings Like, oh, how am I feeling? I'm back. I had some challenging and bad memories here. I'm not feeling that way now and I don't have those problems I had when I had them. But, yeah, it certainly has a lot to offer. But there's also, yeah, it certainly has a lot to offer, but there's also, yeah, this side of Japan that I guess a lot of people don't see as a tourist or even as a long-term.
Speaker 1:I think you'd probably see them as a long-term resident, but you can avoid them when you're a foreigner because they generally don't happen to you. They happen to Japanese because they generally don't happen to you, they happen to Japanese.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I mean seriously to think that 3 million people, and most or at least half of them are young right now, locked in a room and they have not been outside potentially for months or years and the way they interact with the world is through the computer. They're not even talking to their family and the stress for them, for the mother, the father, the siblings, it's, I find it really hard to process, probably because to some degree I know two people who are, I guess, quasi semi mori.
Speaker 2:Yeah there, quasi semi mori, yeah Mori. There's all these different descriptives.
Speaker 1:And I kind of think, oh, it doesn't have to be this way. So yeah, do you often reflect on, think this is a tragic and sad problem?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, more so for, like, the social dimension, that again, the lack of intervention into it, or stigma. You know, like I wrote in one of the papers about well, actually, the first one was really questioning, well, what's wrong, what's the problem? You know I was like, well, you know, a monk can go lock themselves in a cave for 12 years and no one thinks that's a problem. So you know, like part of that was the inquiring to well, what's so wrong with this? Why is everyone making this out to be such a deviant thing? You know, leave them alone if they're happy, you know. So there's part of me is like questioning do we need to automatically pathologize it or assume that? You know it's wrong?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, part of me is dealing with that tension but between there's people that need help, they should be getting it, but there's if people that don't, and they're happy, you know, leave them alone, kind of you know. But then the other part is more focus on broadening out to well, what does this say about the society? That this is acceptable to have other members of society like excluded in this way? So yeah, my probably disappointment or sadness around it is more of the social setting rather than the individual if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, it does make sense. And I think I mean for my work or area of interest, ikigai is very much about, you know, social interaction. It's sort of one of the Ikigai needs. And there's that word itaikan, unity, sense of unity, in Japanese. That's related to Ikigai, and also jikojitsu, again like self-realisation. So traditionally the West would be focused on self-realization. We want to become the best version of ourselves and all that sort of thing. And in Japan there is this idea of, you know, unity serving the greater good. And even the word jibun in Japanese, like myself, ties self part, suggesting you're a part of something bigger, you're part of a community. And so hikikomori would sort of say, well, I don't want to be a part of the community. So for me it does represent a lack of ikigai and I'm really honest about that in my own program, like, okay, sure, there's this great concept, ikigai, but many Japanese don't have it, and I want to be upfront and honest. So with that we should end on a positive note. So what is your ikigai?
Speaker 2:it sounds like it's jive dancing and these things you do community, but like it is coming back to the belonging Sense of community, and belonging is definitely my ikigai and yeah, yes, music seems to be Well. First, music brings me to the community, but also there's just jive is a bit of fun, the music like when I moved to japan I was a swing dancer and it's so, and it's really stuffy swing dancing. You know it's all jazz hands and looking perfect, and especially in japan because they've got to follow form. But jive is just just working class alcoholics kind of thing. I'm trying to convey the different atmosphere. They just are there because they love the music and they just want to be around. You know it's not all jazz hands. So I guess that kind of community, that authentic community, really is what I'm seeking. That's my key guy, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, keep dancing Now. If people want to read any of your papers, we'll provide a link to your website, but I think your website is naomibermanjpwordpresscom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and email me directly and I can send the papers out.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll put links to your papers. If it's okay, we'll even put your email up in the blog post and, yeah, it was so good to see you in person in Melbourne, so I'm sure we'll have coffee or lunch again, either in Japan or Melbourne, and thank you for the research and the work you've done and thank you for spending time with me today.
Speaker 2:It's fabulous. Thanks, it was really really great.
Speaker 1:Thanks Okay.
Speaker 2:Bye for now.