The Transience of Life

In my Japanese class, we were talking about a forest in Japan that is famous for being the second most popular place for suicide in the world: The Aokigahara forest bordering Mt. Fuji. In 2002, 78 bodies were found, and this is only second to San Fransico's Golden Gate Bridge. The reasons for the large amount of suicides in this area is probably attributed to its prestige, dying near a scared mountain that has many traditional Japanese religious and cultural connections, its eeriness, because the high density of the forest blocks wind moving through it and the sparse animal life. The sheer amount of suicides in Japan, not just including the Aokigahara forest, is primarily related to societal pressures. The biggest one is scoring high on the national university entrance exam, which is the prime factor in determining admittance to Japanese universities. Students attend extra tutoring after their main school till the very late nights, which occurs on Saturday too. They also have the largest amount of school day in the world, and you thought you had it bad! Some of the bodies discovered in the forest lay next to a book written by a Japanese author, called "The Complete Manual Of Suicide". While this book is not blamed for causing these, because they would have done it anyway, a few prefectures have restricted the book to minors. In America, I can see whole rallies being against this book, but the truth of the matter is if a person wants to do it, they will. In Aokigahara, they have numerous signs around discouraging it (the posted picture above) and telling them that life is a precious thing from your parents and to get help first. This has not deterred it, and the amount has actually been steadily increasing. If you would like to see it, this link has a lot of pictures, but some are graphic FYI: http://funzu.com/index.php/crazy-pics/aokigahara-forest-of-suicides-29102009.html