12 replies to this topic

[Simbi Laveau]

http://www.pattayada...ent=Yahoo! Mail

A 30 year old man committed ritual suicide in his room in Thailand .
The Thai police speculated he did it because he had been robbed ,but the motive is not known.

Ritual suicide is an ancient Japanese tradition .It is called hara kiri or seppuku .
It was a ritual used by the royal and samurai classes ,throughout the feudal years of Japan . It has long since been abandoned .

Edited by Simbi Laveau, 23 November 2012 - 10:53 PM.

[DKO]

What a painful way to go.

[Hilander]

Poor guy, if he had been robbed maybe he didn't have the money to pay his hotel bill.

[with bells on]

sounds like some serious mental issues going on..

[Simbi Laveau]

with bells on, on 23 November 2012 - 11:41 PM, said:

sounds like some serious mental issues going on..

Mmmmm,its very Japanese . I suspect there must be other factors . You aren't shamed just because you had your pocket picked .Unless he was a cop or something .
Sad

[AliveInDeath7]

I'd find a better way to go. lol But, after my badass life I'll probably end up dying in my sleep.

[keninsc]

Many Japanese committed seppuku at the end of WWII rather than accept defeat, it's not so uncommon even today. And it is painful when done properly which is why the person who was doing the seppuku often had a "friend" or honored person, called a kaishakunin stand over him to whack off his head so he wouldn't cry out in pain. If you scream then it doesn't count as an atonement for whatever you were trying to make amends for, thus rendering the entire ritual null and void.

Back in the old days in Japan whomever a Samurai was sworn to he lived and died at his word. One day your Master might look at you and simply order you to kill yourself for whatever reason he decided and you were expected to do so without question. They took that stuff serious back then.

[with bells on]

Simbi Laveau, on 24 November 2012 - 12:41 AM, said:

Mmmmm,its very Japanese . I suspect there must be other factors . You aren't shamed just because you had your pocket picked .Unless he was a cop or something .
Sad

yeah, i highly doubt its because he got his wallet stolen.. thats what i mean there must be some other mental issue happening, and he prob went to Thailand to suicide.. its not really popular for Japanese and even for Hong Kong natives to visit South East Asia.. im sure some do, obviously.. but ive never met any Japanese that have ever wanted to.. its too dirty for them.. i dont mean to generalise.. ive worked with lots of Japanese people over the years.. had loads of Hong Kong Chinese clients in my business and they refuse to go there..

it is so sad..

[Lava_Lady]

It's true that Japanese culture, at one time, condoned sepukku as a way out of shame or shaming the family but in this day and age, it's the sense of hopelessness, that the feelings of sadness and anguish will never change; that there is no way out of utter sorrow and loneliness.  To think there are people that you may know that feel this way is scary.

I lost a friend to suicide so now, I try to tell my  friends and family that I love them as much as possible.

Ugh...  Sappy, I know.   Let's get back to arguing about the existence of Big Foot and ETs crashing their UFOs and such.

Edited by Lava_Lady, 24 November 2012 - 05:41 AM.

[Simbi Laveau]

Lava_Lady, on 24 November 2012 - 05:31 AM, said:

It's true that Japanese culture, at one time, condoned sepukku as a way out of shame or shaming the family but in this day and age, it's the sense of hopelessness, that the feelings of sadness and anguish will never change; that there is no way out of utter sorrow and loneliness.  To think there are people that you may know that feel this way is scary.

I lost a friend to suicide so now, I try to tell my  friends and family that I love them as much as possible.

Ugh...  Sappy, I know.   Let's get back to arguing about the existence of Big Foot and ETs crashing their UFOs and such.

I'm so sorry Lady L . I've had one ex bf ,and one close work friend,commit suicide ,and .....about 4 people I knew in Japan .
I lived in japan ,on and off ,going back to 1990 .
So I understand all of this very well .

Seppuku is not suicide ,not in the mental or emotional sense .

Not all harakiri is done out of shame . Vassals and Daimyo would do it,if their lord died .Their families were to accept this,as it was shameful to *not* kill yourself in this instance.
You were expected to follow your lord into the next world .


Some did it as protest .
Political issues,that upset various bafuku and daimyo,again ,committed seppuku on say,the front steps of the offensive parties steps.
There are some famous examples of this.A brother of a particular shogun ,abused his brothers position .
He raped and mutilated women . Killed entire families on a whim.
The daimyo wanted him out of the scene ,but his Shogun brother kept giving him more power ,and his deeds got worse.
A daimyo committed seppuku on the steps of the palace ,and made it known ,he did this as protest to the brothers increasi.g power.

The story of the 47 Ronin ,which has been retold numerous times,was about 47 samurai that served a certain lord . An altercation at  the Shoguns castle,resulted in the lord being killed .
The person that killed him ,was not punished ,because of political connections .

The samurai should have all killed themselves.
They went into hiding ,and plotted revenge .
It took....I want to say two years,to finally kill their lords murderer .
There are stone markers with all 47 names commemorating the event .
Initially they were viewed as traitors to their lord,for acting cowardly.
They all committed harakiri,once their task was completed ,making them all heros.

A lord dying ,can destroy an entire clan .Restoring honor ,saves the clan . It's a very complicated system .
The thing is ,as different as it seems ,Japan's inner workings,really have not changed since feudal times .
Business and money issues ,seem modern ,but its the same ancient principles at work .
Shame is handled differently now ,but many Japanese do punish themselves,depending .

For example ,if a man disgraced his family ,he may go live on the street . These men live in cardboard boxes . They still go to work ,and give their wife their pay check .
Things like this . It's a culture unlike any other .

[and then]

I was absolutely amazed at the behavior the Japanese exhibited after the Tsunami.  Anyplace in the West and you'd have had people raising Caine and complaining to anyone who'd listen about how hard they had it.  Those folks just started cleaning up and moving on...

[Simbi Laveau]

and then, on 25 November 2012 - 03:02 AM, said:

I was absolutely amazed at the behavior the Japanese exhibited after the Tsunami.  Anyplace in the West and you'd have had people raising Caine and complaining to anyone who'd listen about how hard they had it.  Those folks just started cleaning up and moving on...

It's what they do . They experienced an atomic bomb long before anyone else . Then the earthquakes .Tokyo ,Kobe . They have had to endure a lot ,and they know how to recover,without expending excess energy .
You know the president of one of their major phone companies ,Softbank ,made a huge donation to Sandy relief ,and he took a lot of flack at home for it .

[pallidin]

Man, that guy had guts.