The Dark Side of Japan - The Lost Generation

from youtube

Intro:

If you look at Japan from the outside, you’ll see this robot, advanced tech, basically zero crime, incredible culture, the third biggest economy in the world healthy population and companies that are famous all over the world. In many ways an ideal country but if you look closer under the surface you’ll see that while all of that is true, there is another much darker side to the life in Japan. Unbeknownst to most of the world Japan has millions of people who have failed to succeed in the society and ended up completely isolated from it without access to jobs marriages and means to live a normal and happy life.

They are known as the lost generation and they make up almost 15 percent of the population of the country and their sad story is a symbol of Japan’s fall from grace and a sign of its disturbing future. This is the dark side of Japan - the lost generation.

Part 1: The Japanese Miracle

While this is now mostly forgotten, in the 1980s Japan was seen as the next economic superpower that was going to replace the United States and completely take over the global economy in a similar way we might see China today. It seems so certain that there was a serious anxiety about Japan in the US, with articles like this one talking about an economic pearl harbor and how Japan is going to buy the entire united states and with movies like ‘die hard’, ‘rising sun’ and ‘blade runner’ all featuring the trope of Japanese corporations taking over America and the world. This anxiety was the result of the Japanese miracle. Three decades of enormous consecutive economic growth made possible¹ by the unique Japanese economic system that was at the time seen as superior to the western model.

这句话为省略句:
and while they were formerly independent, they are now working together to back each other up.

Basically it was based on cooperation between gigantic corporate cartels and the Japanese government. These cartels called Keirersu were basically alliances of the biggest Japanese corporations owning shares in each other and while formerly independent, working together to back each other up² and the biggest Keirersu were given unfair support from the government in the form of enormous loans distributed by the state-owned national bank of Japan.

this basically meant that these alliances had access to an infinite stream of cash to finance their aggressive expansion abroad. while at the same time the government would block foreign companies from expanding
into the Japanese market. it wasn’t a healthy system or a fair one but it was working. the Japanese stock market was booming. Japanese products were conquering one market after another and regular³ people knew that if they worked hard and got a university degree they would get a solid⁴ job at a large corporation. that would mean the guarantee of a lifetime employment. Japan was unstoppable and everything was going great until it wasn’t.

by 1991 Japan had been growing extremely fast for three consecutive decades and it became the second biggest economy after the united states. as the economy was growing prices of real estate and values of companies listed on the stock market⁵ were growing as well. but by the
end of the 1980s this growth went into an overdrive and turned into a
speculative mania. Basically everyone thought that the economic boom⁶ and the growth of assets will continue forever.

and the more you invest the more money you will make and meanwhile the national bank of Japan continued to print out and

lend money to basically anyone who asked

regardless of what the money was for or

how trustworthy the creditors were and

then one day the bubble popped

throughout the year 1990 the stock

market fell by 43 percent and real

estate prices followed the bursting of

the bubble meant that regular people had

much less money to spend and that no one

was willing to invest in japanese

companies anymore leading to an end of

the economic boom on top of that in the

years after the burst of bubble cracks

in the japanese system quickly began to

show it was revealed that corruption was

widespread and common in japanese

business and government from insider

trading to stock manipulation and fraud

and bribery and that the practically

unlimited supply of loans created

hundreds of zombie companies businesses

that would have gone bankrupt years ago

but that kept surviving on never-ending

supply of cheap money borrowed from the

state in one decade japan went from

being called an economic tiger riding

the japanese miracle to being called the

sick man of asia but while this was a

drastic downfall it wasn’t that unique

economies of different countries go up

and down and that’s part of life but in

japan it was different unlike in other

countries the economic downturn in japan

had devastating effects for a whole

generation effects that millions of

people have never recovered from so why

was that well in order to answer that we

need to understand the japanese work in

hiring culture which is to put it mildly

very intense and it has several unique

aspects that make it quite different

from any other job market in the world a

corporate career in japan starts with

shushoku katsudo a unique japanese job

hunting ritual that university graduates

go through at the end of their studies

many companies including the biggest

keretzu hire only fresh graduates and

only once a year but in mass loads of

people at once the fresh graduates

passed the job hunting ritual filled

with group interviews and seminars that

thousands of people dressed in identical

black and white suits have to go through

and at the end of it they get a job and

they keep their job for decades until

retirement in line with another common

policy known as shushinkoyo or lifetime

employment and their company will then

only promote from within a policy known

as shanichoshen grooming and cultivating

their employees throughout their career

to become future executives one day

these practices which were basically the

universal standard in the 1990s and are

still very common in japan to this day

bring stability but they also create an

incredibly rigid job market if you want

to get a good job you have one shot

after university and once you are hired

you stick with a company for the rest of

your career but if you fail to do that

you are left out in the cold and the

doors of most companies will remain

close to you forever but the point is

that when the economic bubble burst and

the economic boom ended this ritual was

broken while during the boom it was not

that hard to get at least some corporate

job after 1990 most companies froze

their hiring entirely for almost the

entire decade and they were not hiring

any graduates at all in order to keep

all of their lifelong employees during

the economic crisis they eventually

resumed their hiring in the new century

although finding a job became much

harder ever since but for a whole

generation of people who graduated in

the 1990s it was too late they were not

graduates anymore by then and so the

companies would not hire them as they

were hiring fresh graduates instead

those people whose only fault was being

born at the wrong time missed their

shock and fell through the cracks of the

system and a whole generation millions

of people were left behind

destined to spend the rest of their

lives on temporary part-time low-paid

jobs this period became known as the

employment ice age and people who

graduated during that time as the lost

generation and since the japanese

economy never fully recovered more young

people graduating in the 2000s and then

2010s joined their ranks and the period

of the last 30 years became collectively

known as the lost decades

this is obviously tragic for those who

are part of the lost generation but it

doesn’t affect just them instead their

sad fate negatively affects the entire

japanese society and it casts a dark

shadow over japan’s future there is an

entire generation of people now in their

30s and 40s who are missing from the job

market entirely they usually live with

and often off their parents they were

never economically secure enough to

start families of their own and they

never had proper jobs and careers around

15 percent of the population almost 17

million people are considered part of

the lost generation and they make up the

age group that’s the most important for

an economy of any country it’s the

people in their 30s and 40s who usually

spend the most on their families housing

taking mortgages buying cars they are

those who keep the economic engine going

but in japan there’s no one to do that

now and economy is not japan’s only

problem that’s getting worse because of

the lost generation currently the

country is dealing with what’s been

called super aging japan has the highest

percentage of elderly people almost 30

of the population in the world and it’s

aging more rapidly than any other

country and that is partly also because

of the millions of children that the

lost generation never had by 2050 the

ratio between seniors and people in a

working age will be 1 to 1.3 meaning

that there will be almost as many people

over 65 as people between 15 and 64. in

any country in the world the elderly are

dependent on the taxes paid by people in

what’s called productive age but in

japan this will be at some point simply

no longer sustainable and on top of that

the lost generation created another

social issue that is becoming

increasingly damaging to the survival of

the japanese society the phenomenon of

so-called hikikomori these are japanese

men who have voluntarily decided to

completely cut themselves off of society

and they’re spending their lives in

complete isolation never leaving their

house and not having any social contacts

at all usually being completely

financially dependent on their parents

the first hikikomori were members of the

original lost generation men today in

their 30s and 40s who could not fulfill

the requirements expected from them by

the japanese society get a job climb the

career ladder start a family and provide

for them and decided to give up entirely

instead but eventually they were joined

by others from the younger generations

as well who although they did have a

chance to join the job market just found

it too stressful and competitive today

there is almost 1 million of these men

in the japanese society with many more

on the verge of joining them and the

social phenomenon is quickly becoming a

very real mainstream problem affecting

the entire society the japanese

government is aware of the extremely

negative impacts that the existence of

the lost generation and the growing

number of hikikomori are having on the

japanese society and economy and it has

announced that it will try to help the

lost generation to get back up on its

feet and reintegrate those who have

secluded themselves from the society but

so far it had very little success the

problem is that the japanese economy is

still not doing great and at the same

time it still has extremely rigid work

culture not only that people are

expected to work extremely long hours

and comply with strict hierarchy but

many companies still follow the same

pattern of lifelong employment hiring

only once a year and promoting only from

within the company making it impossible

for the employees to take breaks or even

to get a second chance if they fail to

get their foot in the door and so

millions of people are stuck and their

numbers are constantly growing as more

young people fail to succeed in the

ruthless system and eventually they just

give up

Description:

Looking at Japan from the outside, in many ways it looks like a model country - the 3rd biggest economy in the world with world-famous companies, extremely safe cities, a healthy population, and advanced technology and automation everywhere. But underneath the surface, Japan is struggling. And most of its biggest issues are linked to its Lost Generation - millions of people who failed to succeed in the brutal Japanese job market and failed through the cracks of the system. The sad story of the Lost Generation is a symbol of Japan’s fall from grace – and a sign of its disturbing future.

Footnotes

1. This disappearance made possible the rise of mammals on the earth. 恐龙的灭绝使地球上的哺乳动物的产生有了可能. ↩

2. If you back someone up, you show your support for them. ↩

3. ordinary; without any special or extra features ↩

4. definitely good and steady but perhaps not excellent or special 相当不错（但谈不上出色或独特）的 ↩

5. 定语, 上市的公司 ↩

6. here, used as a noun ↩