www.japantoday.com/e/?content=popvox&id=486
Former abductees Yasushi and Fukie Chimura, in a letter of protest to a weekly magazine over an article that claimed their 16-year-old son Kiyoshi has a smoking habit.
It is hard to believe that such a young child could do such a terrible thing. Something like that would never happen in my country, South Korea. Of course, we also have conflict over children's use of the Internet. Japanese parents need to keep an eye on their kids more and need to know what they are thinking of."
Kana Yamamoto, 23 "I cannot understand her action at all. She calls her classmate to a room, slashes her neck, and then goes back to the classroom. It sounds like she thinks it's easy to kill a person and does not know how important a person's life is. I assume that she has been influenced by the Internet, video games and TV. Parents need to teach their children how to use those media and supervise them when they do."
Susumu Naito, 39 "Many things such as the Internet and her family relationship have been discussed now, but they all seem unrealistic reasons to me. I think this is going to be a very difficult incident for us to understand. Considering that she planned to kill her classmate, how can she apologize that fast, the day after the murdercomehappen that fast. I suppose she may be acting for the benefit of the police and the public. These days, even a 3-year-old knows how to act favorably and what to say to adults to score points. I also wonder if it was a good thing for the authorities to keep the rest of the class at school for the investigation that day.
Shinobu Arikawa, 33 "Although there is saturation media coverage of this right now, I think it's a problem concerning the family structure. We all know families in which kids and adults are using Internet chat sites and message boards. However, the entire society is losing its ethics and morals now. Every time a minor commits a crime, it becomes big news, but I think this is something each of us has to think about rather than just letting the media play it up."
Michiko Okubo, 62 "I think it is the very first incident in which a child killed another all of a sudden without a serious motive. However, I knew the world would be like this when I had my first baby about 30 years ago. Let's say the hardware is the Internet, food and the Earth, while human beings are the software. Today the hardware keeps changing and developing every year, but the software is not catching up. I think that sort of distortion has just happened to this schoolgirl. If you look at the entire picture of the family, the way we live, what we eat, the stimulation we get, you realize we are all distorted in some way. I think we have reached a transition point for better or worse. That is why I think this incident will be an important learning experience."
Since adults are paying less and less attention to kids, it is getting impossible to understand their inner nature. I think her action resulted from this kind of situation -- a basic lack of communication. When even kids get frustrated today, they have no outlet. Therefore, they need a place to release their stress and need to play outside more.
Ryo Yakushijin, 46 "My guess is that as kids live in a free world in which anything is accepted, they become unable to distinguish between good and bad. For example, when I was small, adults told kids not to smoke, not to go out with a girl too young and so on. However, today, if you see a child smoking, no one says anything and more teens are having babies now. When I was in school, we all teased each other with words. Today's kids do not use just words, they use threatening weapons such paper cutters. People say she must have been sending out an SOS, that she was emotionally frustrated, but I don't think so. She had a good relationship with the victim and grew up in a stable family. She just didn't know what was important, so I doubt she was sending out any signals. It's very ironic because I hated rules and restrictions when I was young, but it seems that we need some of it for today's kids."
Ayako Shibata, 22 "I wonder what she was thinking of when she killed her friend. Was it an irresistible impulse resulting from anger or a planned action? Compared to my school years, I can hardly believe that an elementary school student could possibly kill someone with a knife. Today's kids should interact more with nature and animals and learn the importance of life."
Click here to see all messages by J-t-k (Jun 4 2004 - 22:51) some regular ideas wait.. What do you think about the 11-year-old schoolgirl who stabbed her classmate to death?
Click here to see all messages by superfrench (Jun 4 2004 - 22:58) "Something like that would never happen in my country, South Korea." And the worst comments' award of the year goes to Cho Min Ji from South Korea. Sure in South Korea 'nothing like that' would ever happen. How about this man who set fire to Daegu's subway killing 125 people in the process?
anyway, on topic - this kind of crap, unfortunately, happens everywhere, not just japan. while i do seem to think that this country has an issue with mental illness and a lack of social infrastructure to deal with it, i've read stories of equally horrible and shocking atrocities carried out in other countries by similarly aged children.
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