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'Hikikomori' shun society for years

Last Updated 17 March 2018, 19:47 IST

Ikeida leaves the house once every three days to buy food, shuns deliveries to avoid human interaction and has not seen his parents or younger brother for 20 years.

The 55-year-old has chosen to shut himself completely away from society -- such a commonplace phenomenon in high-pressure, conformist and workaholic Japan that there is a word to describe it: "hikikomori".

There are more than half a million hikikomori in Japan -- according to the latest government survey published in 2016 -- defined as people who have stayed home for more than six months without going to school or work and interacting with no one other than family members.

 Ikeida (not his real name) said he graduated from a prestigious Tokyo university and received several lucrative job offers from major firms during Japan's "bubble economy" period in the 1980s.

But he quickly realised he could not follow his university colleagues into the massed ranks of Japanese salarymen.

"I went to a good university my parents wished me to go to and tried hard to conform," he said in a rare interview arranged through a non-profit agency trying to help those isolated from society and their parents.  "But I realised I had to conform forever when I got those job offers. I felt hopeless. I couldn't wear a suit. I felt like my heart had broken," he added.

Feeling under unbearable pressure, he took the decision to shut himself away in his room, shunning all forms of human contact -- a pattern that was to continue for the next three decades.

What drives people to shut themselves away is not entirely clear, but many featured in the survey said they stopped interacting with society after struggling with relationships at work or school, or failing at job hunting.

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(Published 17 March 2018, 18:52 IST)

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