The terrible rise in suicides in Japan (more than 33,000 last year) has everyone talking about what can be done about the problem. While U.S.-style medical services that provide counseling for people in mental distress are not completely absent from Japan — I remember being fascinated after learning that my old Japanese teacher had been training for a license to work a suicide hotline — the fact is that these kinds of services seem to have much less reach in Japanese society compared with the U.S. Even if psychological counseling were widely available here, my feeling is that it wouldn’t be used that much. Perhaps as a result of living in a country with half the population of the U.S. crammed into the area of Nebraska, the Japanese are extremely protective of their privacy, and many people in need of counseling might be unwilling to open up and talk about their problems with strangers, instead choosing to gaman, or stoically endure their problems in silence. The Japanese also have an extreme mistrust of drugs, and many of the most common medicines in use in the U.S. aren’t even available here. In an odd way, the role of psychological counselors is filled in Japan by — no laughing, now — fortune tellers, people who provide advice and guidance after reading palms, tarot cards, and so on. Whether it’s a website accessed from a cell phone that gives advice on what emotional challenges a person may face tomorrow or the weekly TV appearances of famed author (and former Iron Chef judge) Kazuko Hosoki, when Japanese need some advice, more likely than not they’ll get it in the form of fortune telling.
