Mu-En-Shi Lonely Death

A while ago,
I read some intersting article on the internet
about a little phenom that
a surprising number of TV viewers had been really moved
by the documentary aired by NHK(Japan's Public TV),
which was about "Mu-en-shi."
And it was reported that more than 600 entries about it
were written on their Blogs.

"Mu" means No, Not or Nothing.
"En" means Relations or Connections.
"Shi" means Death.
So "Mu-En-Shi(無縁死)" is a(Lonely)death
of the person who did not have any family or friends.

Actually, for the first time,
I have heard this word.
Usually "Kodoku-shi(孤独死, lonely death)"
has been used for this kind of occasion.
Also "Mu-En-Botoke(無縁仏)" is the commonly used word for
graves that no longer has any visiters
as their entire family members have died off.

According to its report,
about 35000 people die alone each year in Japan.
As the rising rate of divorce cases
and people staying single into their middle ages,
many people related themselves to this story.

Though I have not seen this program yet,
I have seen the similar documentary on PBS
about agents who work for the cases that
old people died alone in their New York apartments
and nobody came foward to take care of them
like what to do with the bodies and things left behind.
Probably Americans can accept things like this
better than Japanese as something inevitable in life
though they feel sad about it as well.

On the other hand,
Japanese are still not used to this
since they have had the society that
the collectiveness had been highly important.
Until like '60s, most of Japanese live within a large family,
three or even four generations under the same roof,
where they could get a plenty of Family support.
However, as the Japanese society grew wealthier,
many peope prefer to live in a nuclear family
as they do not want to be interfered
by their old parents too much.
One reason that Japanese used to live with a large family was
that they had to help each other to survive
especially economically.



This system that family members help each others
started to eloded '70s, even in '50s in the urban areas,
Since then Japanese yet have found
the supporting system to replace that.

Until like '70s,
for people who could not find their mates,
their parents found ones for the arranged marrige.
Though this convention still barely exists,
most of people of younger generations
choose their mates on their own.
However, there are always lots of people
who are too shy to do so, especially in Japan.
As Japanese education does not put much emphasis on
being a strongly independent individual,
expressing themselves freely,
or speaking out his/her mind publically,
Japanese tend to be more shy,
and some of them are too shy to meet their opposit sex.

Though people prefer to have a life style
with a minimum interferance by their family members,
this did not make peole less shy or more attractive to find someone.
So a large number of have been left out,
and many of them have turned out to be lonely Otaku(s).

On the other hand, In American culture,
people always had/have to find their mates on their own
besides exceptions of some minority groups' traditions,
If you cannot find one, you had/have to accept that.
And even though they seems to be never enough,
there have been many support systems like Churchs,
therapies and various support groups
out side of people's close families.

I think what Japanese have to learn and invent is
the new support system to replace the old tradition
of the collective-ness driven society.
Otherwise more and more Japanes will commit suicide
because of the loneliness.

Being a single without any relationship for a long time,
I accepted the notion a long time ago
that I would die alone someday
as it is something naturally to come for people like me.
But it could have been much harder to do so in Japan
as they may feel that it could be a shame to die like that
in the society that the collective-ness is very importnant,
also as a failure to raise a happy family,
which seems to be very essencial for human beings.
In other words, Japanese are afraid of being viewed
as a failure by other people when they die.

I will have a "MU-En-Shi."
Even though I do not say I will be happy to have one,
I feel a bit lucky to be living in the society
that people do not judge me much for that.