I strongly urge you to read NYT Magazine’s Sunday piece about the hikikomori— the reclusive youths in Japanese society who shut themselves inside their rooms for years. The article is extremely well written and seems to do a fairly substantial amount of research into the subject of why these youths lock themselves away from the world for such a long amount of time -- one of the individuals interviewed, Y.S., closed his door at 14 and didn’t leave his room for 13 years. Y.S. has spent half of his life inside his room.

So why do they do it? What drives these people to hide away from the outside world? On the most basic level, it is fear. On an individual level, it is fear of rejection from classmates, teachers, and even family. It is also the fear of the possible.
As Maggie Jones, the author, puts it:

Hiroshi didn’t say why working would have been better or why it was too late at age 26 to start a career. He said only that he wouldn’t leave the house “until I know exactly what I want to do.” It was typical hikikomori thinking: better to stay in your room than risk venturing into the world and failing.

On a broader cultural level, the fear stems from the Japanese push for conformity and the Japanese proverb that “the nail that sticks out gets hammered in.” These teenagers feel different from their peers and classmates. The worst part is that it doesn’t matter if they are worse or better students. The article talks of a hikikomori who was a victim of bullying in fifth grade because he was better than other teammates at baseball and he hadn’t practiced for as long as they. The worst part is that this happens in the developmental years. These kids are teenagers for God’s sake. What teenager has never felt like a diametric contradiction to the entire world at some point in time?

And we have parents who, in the 70’s and 80’s (approximately the ages when these kids were growing up), were the epitome of the Japanese salaryman image: working all the time and not standing out from the crowd of millions of other salarymen. This salaryman mentality taught things such as conformity, but it also taught that one needs specific and concrete goals and benchmarks all throughout ones life. One graduates from a top high school with top grades, then one goes to a prestigious university, followed with a life at a big corporation. That, in the Japanese mentality of the post-WWII era, was success.

But today Japan is still dealing with economic recovery from the early 90’s crash and globalization has taught that conformity, while comfortable, is not what the economy of the internet age requires. Success today demands individualistic and capable thinking. One needs to think out of the proverbial box in order to define success in today’s economic and business world. Schools in Japan certainly haven’t taught that in the past 20 years (the time of development for today’s hikikomori) and the schools are struggling to catch up today.
In addition, culture also brings about the shame of having a hikikomori in the family. Currently, the highest estimate brings the number of hikikomoris to approximately 1 percent of the Japanese population -- one million Japanese. But since it is such a new phenomenon, many families are shamed by having one among them and instead of actively confronting the problem, the disease is strengthened through denial and waiting for years until the families call for help. And remember, the older one gets -- the longer one stays locked up and away from the world -- the more difficult it becomes to reintegrate themselves with the real world. The shame of a family, which has also rapidly become more urbanized (and therefore removed from the close and tight-knit communities from before) drives the hikikomoris deeper into their solitude behind their doors.

At the end of the article, 23 year-old Takeshi, who had stayed in his room since he was 15 finally came out. Today, he is slowly trying to integrate himself into the outside world. In the end, it was a Radiohead lyric that helped him take that step. From the song ‘No Surprises’, the lyric goes: This is my final fit, my final bellyache. Then, Takeshi said

It’s not hopeful, but I learned that the world is not such a good place...and regardless, we have to move on.

While I was in China, this fear of venturing out into the world and failing was more real than I had ever before felt. Some mornings during the first couple of months there, I would have to use all my strength to get myself dressed and showered...only to find myself unable to walk out the door. I’d end up turning around and spending the rest of the day watching movies, playing games, or doing anything but going outside. My trips outside were to the deli next door (where they spoke English and served western food) or to the supermarket across the street where I’d buy enough food to stay inside for as long as possible. On a smaller level, I see no difference between myself and these hikikomori. The risk of failure and of humiliation was not worth going outside into the unknown. At that time, I was happier -- and safer -- staying inside and being alone rather than going outside and finding myself unable to speak Chinese.

And so it was for months, there was fear on my part, but also a deep deep shame for feeling so weak. I never told my family about it and I would tell my friends in China that I was just lazy and liked watching DVDs instead of attending class...
I was afraid.

After being able to break out of it, I tried to do my best to live to the fullest while in China. I took trips to Harbin for a week without telling anyone, speaking nothing but Chinese. I went to Mongolia, I went to Beijing, I took daytrips to everyplace that I could. I would spend days speaking nothing but Chinese, I would go out and drink with the Chinese businessmen and Chinese youths, and I would take in as much as I could in everyway possible. But it also struck me how much of my life I had chosen the comfortable and less stressful road. While I did not stay in my room all of my life, I didn’t put myself out to where I was vulnerable and afraid. China was hard, but it wasn’t the only time I had stayed indoors for a week or so at a time, it was just the first time I did it literally. Figuratively, I’ve been doing it all my life.

Ironically enough, I found that the best way for me to “step outside” was to come back to the United States last month. I came back in order to face the fears and things I had run away from in the first place. I want to see who I can become if I try and challenge myself. I want to see what my potential is all about. I’ve been afraid to send out a law school application for the past three years because I’ve been afraid of rejection. Last year, I ran away to China instead of dealing with the fact that I had just spent another year doing nothing to achieve my dreams. Rather than face failure, I ran away to the other side of the world. I came back to the United States to face reality and the responsibilities and difficulties associated with it. Few understand my decision, fewer support it. That’s life, and it’s not easy...but I still stand by my decision.
Did I have opportunities in China? Could I have done more with it? I strongly believe so, but I believe that I can’t do that without facing reality here at home first. China taught me that I can learn a language from scratch, that I can walk out into the world and face it head on. The US where I’ll see if I can apply it all and get into school and achieve my dreams...then, China and the world better watch out.