Aokigahara

Do you know the most popular suicide location in the world? It's San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. And in the Golden Gate Bridge, people chose point 69.

And the next place is? It's Aokigahara in Japan, it's called a suicide forest. Today I found this article "Desperate Japanese head to 'suicide forest'" in CNN. Aokigahara is a famous forest near Mt.Fuji, basically it is a beautiful place for walking and camping. Since there a lot of guide boards and trails, it's no problem to go around. However if youdeviate from the trails, it will be hard to go back where you were. Many people believe that a compass doesn't work in Aokigahara because the forest is on lava, including the magnetic material of Mt.Fuji. But it's superstition, a compass can work there. So the important part is you should walk on trails and take a compass and map always.

But it is true many people decide to die there. The really scary thing is if you walk on non-trail parts, you may find a dead body easily. A person who wants to die will choose a place where nobody will come soon, but someone will find his dead body finally. This is a little bit old date though, they said in 2003, 100 dead bodies were found in Aokigahara. Some said Aokigahara became a suicide spot because of a book of bestselling suspense author Seicho Matsumoto. In his novel "A tower of wave" published in 1960, central characters committed suicide in Aokigahara. (Of his novels, I recommend "castle of sand" Here are some videos of Aokigahara on YouTube, some look shocking, watch out. (I can't open it, scary.)

In this wiki's world suicide spots list, there is no Aokiigahara. (I don't know why, because it's the no. 2 place). Except for Aokigahara, Chuo line in Tokyo and Tojinbo in Ishikawa are famous places for suicide.

Comments

[christian louboutin]

I would like to put forward a perspective on the real reasons behind the unacceptably high suicide Japan from Japan and so will limit my comments to what I know about here in Japan but would first like to suggest that western media reports on suicide rates in Asian countries should try harder to get away from the tendency to orientalize the serious and preventable problem of increased suicide rates here over the last 10 years by reverting to stereotypical ideas of Asian people in general.

[louboutin shoes]

The current worldwide recession is of course impacting Japan too, so unless very proactive and well funded local and nation wide suicide prevention programs and initiatives are immediately it is very difficult to foresee the governments previously stated intention to reduce the suicide rate to around 23,000 by the year 2016 being achievable. On the contrary the numbers, and the human suffering and the depression and misery that the people who become part of these numbers, have to endure may well stay at the current levels that have persistently been the case here for the last ten years. It could even get worse unless even more is done to prevent this terrible loss of life.

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[Andrew Grimes JFP, JSCCP]

I would like to put forward a perspective on the real reasons behind the unacceptably high suicide Japan from Japan and so will limit my comments to what I know about here in Japan but would first like to suggest that western media reports on suicide rates in Asian countries should try harder to get away from the tendency to orientalize the serious and preventable problem of increased suicide rates here over the last 10 years by reverting to stereotypical ideas of Asian people in general.

Mental health professionals in Japan have long known that the prime causes for the unnecessarily high suicide rate in Japan are unemployment, the effects of bankruptcies, and the increasing levels of stress on businessmen and other salaried workers who have suffered enormous hardship in Japan since the bursting of the stock market bubble here that peaked around 1997. Until that year Japan had an annual suicide of rate figures between 22,000 and 24,000 each year. Following the bursting of the stock market and the long term economic downturn that has followed here since the suicide rate in 1998 increased by around 35% and since 1998 the number of people killing themselves each year in Japan has consistently remained well over 30,000 each and every year to the present day.

The current worldwide recession is of course impacting Japan too, so unless very proactive and well funded local and nation wide suicide prevention programs and initiatives are immediately it is very difficult to foresee the governments previously stated intention to reduce the suicide rate to around 23,000 by the year 2016 being achievable. On the contrary the numbers, and the human suffering and the depression and misery that the people who become part of these numbers, have to endure may well stay at the current levels that have persistently been the case here for the last ten years. It could even get worse unless even more is done to prevent this terrible loss of life.

During these last ten years of these relentlessly high annual suicide rate numbers the English media seems in the main to have done little more than have someone goes through the files and do a story on the so-called suicide forest or internet suicide clubs and copycat suicides (whether cheap heating fuel like charcoal briquettes or even cheaper household cleaning chemicals) without focusing on the bigger picture and need for effective action and solutions. Economic hardship, bankruptcies and unemployment have been the main cause of suicide in Japan over the last 10 years, as the well detailed reports behind the suicide rate numbers that have been issued every year until now by the National Police Agency in Japan show only to clearly if any journalist is prepared to learn Japanese or get a bilingual researcher to do the research to get to the real heart of the tragic story of the long term and unnecessarily high suicide rate problem in Japan.

Useful telephone number for Japanese residents of Japan who speak Japanese and are feeling depressed or suicidal: Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service)：

Japan: 0120-738-556 Tokyo: 3264 4343

Andrew Grimes

Tokyo Counseling Services

http://tokyocounseling.com/english/
http://tokyocounseling.com/jp/

http://www.counselingjapan.com

[Art Fan]

Someday, I want to visit this forest - it must be very scary. Last year, a somewhat known Japanese artist had a show in Tokyo where the works were based on that haunted suicide forest.

This same artist has a show in Los Angeles right now too, but I don't think the new art is also related to Aokigahara.

[alice]

it IS on the wiki list:
Aokigahara, Mount Fuji, Japan - averages around 70 suicides per year

[mari]

oh wolf you will come? Welcome to Japan, I will ask the Cherry Blossom, hopefully they can understand Japanese :-)

[Wolf]

Hi Mari,

It is interesting that you have focused on suicides today. I wonder if you have seen the controversial documentary about Golden Gate Bridge suicides?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2006_film)

Incidentally, if you could please ask the Cherry Blossom trees not to bloom too early I would appreciate it. We are coming to Japan in April and it looks like we will be too late unless you help......