“Am I Too Different"?”
Stories from a Japanese counselor working with youth in juvenile detention.
By Aki S.
Edited by Felicia Yap and Adora Du
What comes to your mind when you are faced with an overwhelmingly large, blank canvas, with the only prompt: “Your Future”? Is it your own dreams or what your parents dreamed about for you? Is it your own potential or what is expected of you by your society? Do you consider your own happiness or feel an obligation to prioritize those around you?
The implications of these questions in Japan are quite different compared to that of the western. While western culture emphasizes a search for one’s uniqueness in their identity, Japanese adolescents struggle to find how they can fit into society and blend seamlessly into their communities.
In Asian culture, we are taught to blend in well, that we should prioritize group harmony over personal beliefs and adjust our individual traits to mesh well with the larger community as a whole. Sometimes to accomplish this, we need to reduce and modify personal opinions and feelings, an honorable sacrifice for society to function well.
“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down,” is a core guiding proverb in Japanese society. As you grow up, failing to understand where the other nails are, reading the atmosphere of social situations and identifying where you should fit in, causes you to feel exposed. Being unique or different is not a desirable trait, and when a young child cannot grasp social norms, they end up feeling lost, lonely, and isolated. Being on the periphery of society abandons you in a dark pit in their sense of connection and meaning.
During my time as a counselor in the Japanese Ministry of Justice, these are frequent challenges I have seen among the adolescents I have worked with. Some found themselves without a safe home or a supportive community, causing them to skip school or engage in dangerous behaviors. Some ended up in psychiatric hospitals, where they were stigmatized by society for their medical needs. Some ended up in juvenile detention homes after being held for two weeks at the police station. Their legal offenses marked them as outcasts as much as the consequences of their actions did. These adolescents were the nails that stuck out, and the hammer that tried to drive them back in created cracks and imperfections in the wood that continued to brand them as deviant.
Despite the differences in situation and context of these youth, the uniting factor between them all was the fear that they failed to belong: “Am I too different for this society?”
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A 13 year old girl I worked with had a father who was a service member of the Japanese Self Defense Forces. Because of her status as a “military child”, her peers and community did not accept her, especially given the negative connotations associated with the Japanese military after their surrender in WWⅡ. She longed for human connection and a social community, but instead hid herself at home and avoided going out because of the isolation she felt as a result of her father’s occupation. By the time she ended up in the juvenile detention home and began meeting with me, the only thought that burned in her mind was, “Am I too different to fit into this society?”
She was excited every time I came to visit her - she loved to show off her room, draw pictures, study, and play catch for hours with me in the nearby parks. What she was afraid of was not people, not the outdoors, but the reality that she was far too different from her school classmates. Whenever she finally found someone to build a connection with, it would lift her spirits and help her recognize that she was deserving of belonging despite her differences.
“Am I too different to feel connection?”
No, not at all.
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There was a 14 year old boy I met with who had undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome. He couldn’t fit in a large classroom or a school environment; it was too complicated for him to figure out how to fit in. He was different from most of the people around him, but he was never too different. He was sent to a school adjacent to one of the public schools in the area. The student body was made up of all students with truancy issues in the district. Once he was transferred to this much smaller environment - this school had only one classroom and 10 students total - he began to study hard, enjoy recess, and build relationships with his peers. The support from the school and the anomalies of his peers from “typical” societal expectations helped him find a place of belonging.
“Am I too different to find belonging?”
No, not at all.
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Another youth I worked with was a 19 year old girl who grew up in an abusive household. She was caught by police while working in the sex industry, and ended up in the juvenile detention home for the courts to examine her social and psychological background and identify the best plan for her recovery. When I went to meet her and conduct her psychological evaluation, she stated that she felt “happy and safe” in the shop where she worked - it was a place where no one hit or abused her. She recalled receiving a high, consistent salary, and she had many friends who were of similar upbringings and experiences. In our meetings, she even tried to encourage me to quit my job and join her industry! This community, though illegal in the legal sense, was the place she felt the most belonging and security in the world - it was where she found a group of other girls who shared her goals and visions for the future. Finding that shop and her community confirmed to her that her differences did not justify her label as an outcast.
“Am I too different to feel at home?”
No, not at all.
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There was another 14 year old boy I met. His father was a member of the Japanese mafia - the yakuza. The father’s love for his son was a parental love irrelevant from his yakuza identity. When his son ended up in the juvenile detention home, the father would visit him often, always bringing a bag full of snacks, instant noodles and comics with him. The son always had a bashful, playful, and elated look whenever his father visited him. Their father - son relationship was sweet, but it wasn’t enough to help him fit into his school or community environments. The boy was ashamed of his father’s social status. “Am I different from my classmates?” Yes, he was. And that reality pushed him to the sadness and loneliness of isolation and a lack of belonging.
Once while I was working with him, the boy told me that he loved playing baseball because everyone started the game with equal opportunities to participate and bat. In the batter’s box, nobody needed to ask what his father’s associations were. He wore the same uniform and participated in the same ways as his teammates. Nobody had time to worry about anything except the game at hand.
In the detention home, the boy had a similar experience. Being placed far away from the stigmas and labels he had lived with all his life, he felt very relaxed, smiled often, and spoke of the difficulties he experienced as the son of a yakuza member. In the walls of the detention home, he didn’t have to worry about being outcasted or standing out because of his differences. Even though he was held against his will, there was a sense of freedom that he experienced as he was not subjected to the opinions of the people in his community.
“Am I too different to find safety?”
No, not at all.
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The stories of these adolescents are just a few of many that I hold close to my heart, and despite their young ages, their stories and insights have taught me so much about what belonging can do. Even the smallest gestures can help someone feel less isolated, and a strong sense of community and support makes an unimaginable impact on each individual in that network. A lack of belonging is so detrimental, especially for members of a society like Japan’s, where togetherness means everything. I hope that the compassion I held as I walked with each client provided a small piece of the support they had lacked for so long. Crying as they cried, laughing as they laughed, I felt a sense of belonging within my clients’ experiences as I mourned for their losses and suffocated with their pain. Putting myself in their shoes, I could see that their sadness and their loneliness was not different from mine.
Those pockets of belonging were the greatest gifts my clients gave me, those moments where I could see them most clearly, sitting tall across the table from me and holding my gaze with trust and pride.
