Tokyo-Yokohama is THE world's most populated city at 35,000,000 people. Though over 90% of its population consider themselves financially middle class, Japanese average low levels of life satisfaction and happiness when compared to most other highly developed societies [wikipedia]. They say there's a suicide every 15 minutes.
So...stop reading if this is depressing you. No, seriously. Stop.
Still reading?
...
Ok...
I warned you.
...
Walking through Shinjuku, mildly lost while trying to find the damn apartment office to pay my rent in another city, I was beating myself up for not having thought this through earlier. I mean, who the hell doesn't do online payments these days? I knew I should have printed that map. I get to this fairly large intersection on my way back to the station to start over, since this route turned out to be a dead end (i.e., I ended up in Shibuya). I was ruminating on unpaid rents and someone earlier who had called me a "stupid foreinger" in Japanese, thinking I wouldn't know what they were saying (I did), I was just standing there, waiting for the light to change, feeling sorry for myself.
There was a blur of movement. And a thwack-thud. Think wood-framed leather couch meets concrete at 40+ mph. It was really loud. I turned to look, wondering what kind of asshole throws furniture out the window on a busy street in the middle of the day...they could have hit someone -
oh.
shit.
It wasn't furniture.
It was a suicide jumper. Just like that. Thwack, and it was over. No warning, no suspenseful buildup, no negotiators or crowds. Just a rock solid instant and he...wasn't. He still had his glasses on. Lying there, a little distorted, doing some kind of fatal yoga move. A couple people came out of the shops lining the fateful sidewalk, looking, standing back a little. A passerby in a nice grey business suit approached hesitantly, and kinda stonefaced-like, waved his hand in front of the guy's face. It was more like the suit thought it was what he was supposed to do, not like he thought it would make a difference. Someone jogged down the street to the koban (police kiosk) to notify the authorities. Within a few minutes, a policeman arrived. The suit waved. He didn't even approach the scene by more than 15 ft., and radioed back. No American-style shock, no freak out, no noise. Just calm, though serious, faces. It was like the whole thing had been rehearsed. And then I realized that it probably had. With a suicide every 15 minutes, these people had probably seen it before. I started to wonder who he was - not his name or anything superficial like that - but who he was as a person. What circumstances in life had led him here, to this 5th story ledge, at this moment, for this purpose? Was he a businessman or a janitor. What millions of memories and experiences were now lost forever in the now-uninhabitted body. Had he played a significant role in other people's lives. What about the girl he might have fallen in childhood-love with, so many years ago. What if in that moment, he had known that this is how it was all going to end? Would he have even tried to go on to do whatever it was that he had been doing for the last 40+ years? Did he bring his ID with him? How would they know who if anyone to tell? Would he be missed? Or was his situation so dire that this was the "honorable" route?
Anywho, that's how it went down.
One every 15 minutes.
Do me a favor tonight and tell your family members that you love them. You never really know what they're going through.
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