Comment by James

November 10, 2006 @ 11:05 pm

If only the news here in Saitama had cool cartoon intros to its weather reports!

Seriously though, this story disgusts me. Not do teachers/principals refuse to even acknowledge the obvious, but the news media is spinelessly refusing to air the video clips without completely blurring them out. I can understand blurring out the victim’s face, but is it necessary to protect the bullies? And even so, regardless of the bullying the video quality of the clips is too low to make out much of anything.

Comment by ken

November 10, 2006 @ 11:12 pm

Hey James…I agree on both points. One, the teachers/principals/police/ministry workers are a huge problem. They’re real good at pointing fingers at each other though.

Two, the TV stations blur everything, or just won’t show people’s faces any more. They’re afraid of the personal information act, and will always play it safe.

Comment by DeOrio

November 10, 2006 @ 11:37 pm

The bullies are minors. The TV stations can’t show their faces.
As for the teachers, bureaucrats, administrators, police, and even parents, I wish I could say I was surprised. This is the extreme negative end of the “nail that sticks up” ethic that we always hear about. The priority is on taking the focus off the problem instead of on fixing the problem. From the schools to the education boards to the Ministry of Education, it’s politics. They all focus first on defending themselves against accurate charges of inaction, then offer insincere platitudes along the lines of, “Don’t kill yourself.”
Ibuki says he’s instructed teachers and education boards not to cover incidents of bullying up, but has instituted no consequences for doing so, which, I would think, should be grounds for dismissal. If a teacher knows a student is being subjected to abuse and does not intervene on that student’s behalf, the teacher is failing to do the most basic part of his job - taking care of the kids. If the teacher himself is involved in the bullying as occurred in Hokkaido a month ago and Fukuoka a couple years ago, I’d call that a rather clear case of criminal conduct. The teacher in Fukuoka, who actually physically abused his charge, was reinstated, the board not having found wrongdoing.
When the buck stops nowhere, when all we get is the political Dadaism of vague platitudes and general sentiments of concern with no action, with no responsibility being taken by anyone who could address the causes of what is an epidemic, it’s time for heads to roll. How are any of the people who put their job performance rating over the safety of the students in their schools still in their jobs? How is their no serious attempt to root out the ineptitude and ignorance that has been seeing this swell to dangerous levels for years?
Doesn’t anyone in authority think it’s possible to stop this perpetually moving buck?

Comment by ken

November 11, 2006 @ 12:17 am

Didn’t think of the minors/blurring out thing. My brain’s a bit blurred out at the moment. Maybe I’m on TV.

Comment by John Sheridan

November 11, 2006 @ 8:18 pm

Three of the videos are gone.

Comment by DeOrio

November 12, 2006 @ 12:22 am

So I noticed. I noticed that two of the videos we used were gone the day the story hit the news, only to come back, then be gone again.
Any conspiracy theorists in the house? I believe you guys are best-suited to taking it from here.

Comment by Steve Schapiro

November 12, 2006 @ 1:41 am

It’s simple. Kids bully other kids, you beat the shit out of them. If a whole gang of punks wants to gang up on one kid just trying to make it through the school day, you make it well known that the girl is a whore who has had sex with various farm animals in videos, then beat the boys in turn until half of them need colostomies and the other half develop a sudden sympathy for Christopher Reeve. If their parents don’t care enough to stop their good-for-nothing dumbass worthless punk kids from making other kids’ lives hell, they deserve to join their bully kids in the receiving of beatings.
I know the bullies probably have problems at home, but we can’t run a society based on relative views of right and wrong. Ganging up on the little guy is wrong. If someone needs to suffer in this situation, let it be the bullies, and let the suffering be severe enough that all who would terrorize others take note.

Comment by Ken Worsley

November 12, 2006 @ 2:26 am

Steve, what the hell are you smoking and/or watching?

Comment by James

November 13, 2006 @ 3:04 pm

Deorio:

I would suspect that certain individuals in Japan sent complaints to YouTube, probably stating that it violated some Japanese law protecting minors (despite the fact that the video quality is too low to actually make out the faces of any of the kids).

Comment by Ken Worsley

November 13, 2006 @ 5:16 pm

The only thing is that complaints to YouTube usually take 48-72 hours to go through. But I’m sure someone did complain. Do a search for 札幌, by the way.

Comment by Marco Polo

November 16, 2006 @ 4:51 pm

Though written in 2001, Shoko Yoneyama’s Japanese High School is an eye-opener on this issue (and other, school-related ones). The data she collected suggests that bullying (ijime) in Japan is almost always group bullying (i.e. a group bullies an individual), and that it is an expression of over-conformism to school rules. That’s why teachers and principals are often so powerless to do anything about it (tho there are exceptions, as Yoneyama points out): teachers bully the kids into conforming to the rules (that’s the point of the rules, duh!), and criticize/punish those who “disobey” (i.e. don’t conform), and… guess what!! The kids do the same to each other! Who’da thunk, eh? I.e. school culture is one of high-pressure conformism and hence bullying is an inevitable result. As proof of this thesis, Yoneyama points to a) the light (sometimes non-existent) reprimands given to implicated teachers, and b) the frequently resulting “crackdowns” on bullying that follow high-profile cases, which crackdowns involve (guess what?) more stringent application of the conformism rules, more “watching” (to see who’s “disobeying”), and in the end (this is Yoneyama’s and others’ deduction) yet more bullying, driven underground and often more vicious.
“Kicking the crap out of the bullies” sounds satisfying, but it will probably just pour oil on the fire. Blurring the faces of the bullies on videos might also be to protect the victims from (yet more) retaliation.

Comment by DeOrio

November 16, 2006 @ 7:49 pm

Marco Polo, I agree, oddly with both you and Steve in a way.
I agree with Yoneyama’s thesis, which you were kind enough to relate to us. The “crackdowns” are clearly not helping. It doesn’t help the approach of those in power is quite clearly focused on PR instead of the cessation of bullying.
I agree, too, though, that the attention needs to be turned to the bullies, not just the bullied. Why do kids bully other kids? Get the ringleaders into counseling. What’s going on that’s making them lash out? Maybe there’s something there.
The onus should not be on the bullied, though. This happens from childhood through adulthood in Japan. In cases of workplace bullying, an employee who complains will be encouraged to quit; if a third employee reports bullying with which he is not involved, he and the victim will probably be encouraged to leave. When uyoku attack people with whom they disagree, their victims are restrained, quarantined, and sometimes arrested. If a kid is bullied in school, he has to change schools.

It’s time for people who think this is fucked up to stand up and say so. It’s absurd. The “culture” argument won’t wash - some aspects of a culture can be bad.
The bully is more powerful than the victim and the authorities want an easy job, so they single out and separate the victim because he’s less powerful and easier to handle.

I don’t think kicking the crap out of bullies will help, but I think strict disciplinary action against teachers who ignore bullying they know is going on and prompt dismissal and criminal proceedings against teachers who engage in bullying themselves are in order.
Kids need to be dealt with as kids. Adults need to be held responsible for their actions, from teachers all the way up to government ministers. Teachers’ main responsibility is to care for their charges, if they fail to do that, they shouldn’t teach. If they abuse their charges, it’s simple child abuse, cut and dry.

There are difficult institutional changes in order if people in Japan actually want to help their children. If not, they can just go on smothering fires with damp leaves.

Pingback by Tokyo Damage Report » Blog Archive » TDR’s dictionary of awkward Japanese

February 19, 2009 @ 4:58 am

[…] Ijime - bullying. Not like wedgies or getting your milk money took. Japanese bullying has driven more than a thousand children to suicide. The hatred of anyone "outside the group" combined with the cultural ethic of "if something bad happens, ignore it," allow groups of kids to deliberately target a random kid for destruction, and the rest of the school just looks on, or even joins in because they are afraid they’ll be next on the shit-list. The schools cover it up because of that awesome Asian concept of "saving face." Did I mention how much I hate face? […]