Mind the Stop

The documentary "Japan's Nightmare" opens on the streets of Tokyo's Shinjuku district with a shot of people hurrying across a busy intersection, all with similar expressions on their faces. The film discusses the growing lack of independence of Japan's youth, who are having a hard time making the transition from the warmth of their parents' homes into a cold, isolating society, a sluggish economy, and a difficult job market. Many are now reluctant to leave home when they reach adulthood, and instead rely on their parents for room, board, and other material necessities. But this phenomenon isn't unique to Japan; lost youth are a global phenomenon. What is going on? A segment of a Japanse documentary entitled NEET introduces us to the life of Suzuki (not his real name), a 28-year-old graduate of the literature department of Greater Tokyo's Saitama University. Suzuki spends his days in front of his computer, drawing comics, looking at online Cosplayer fanzines, and watching downloaded TV shows. Though he lives at home and eats the dinners his mother prepares, he chooses to have them in his bedroom to avoid the awkward silence at the dinner table. Later, he may have some instant nddoles as a midnight snack. Uehara is 22 and unemployed. He stopped going to school when he was 14, choosing to hide out at home instead. He hasn’t worked or attended school since, and has completely cut off contact with society. With the exception of the one day a month his mother takes him to see a psychiatrist, he has spent the last eight years in his parents’ home, playing video games, watching TV, reading magazines, and eating pizza and cake. He has no friends and doesn’t speak to people. In fact, before he got a computer for his22nd birthday, he didn’t communicate with anyone at all. But the computer has changed his life. Uehara isn’t his real name, of course; it’s what he calls himself online, where he met a group of people that share his interests. They’re known as the Parasites. The information he gathered about them online says that they-like him-harbor parasites and are born with the right to kill others. Noted author Ryu Murakami describes these kinds of withdrawn youth in lurid detail in his 2000 novel Parasites. Such youth exist in mainland China as well. Xiao Hu, a 30-year-old graduate of Shanghai’s Fudan University, shares an apartment near the university with younger students from the school.

The British actress Keira Knightley has rejected claims that her latest film The Duchess, a historical drama set in the 18th Century, parallels the life of Princess Diana. The film tells the true life story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was the great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales.
In the film Knightley plays an aristocratic woman who is trapped in a marriage to a man who is in love with his mistress. It is this storyline that mimics the experience of Princess Diana, who married Prince Charles only to discover that he was continuing a long-standing clandestine relationship with another woman. Even the films tag line, “There were three people in her marriage”, suggests a link to Diana’s story, as it bears a remarkable similarity to the words the princess used to describe her own situation in a highly candid 1995 television interview.