The Japanese government stipulates that families with an annual income of less than $22,000 (about 145,000 yuan) are poor families. It is said that happy families are similar, unhappy families have their own misfortunes, and so is poverty. Even in a rich and developed country like Japan, there is inevitably a group of deplorable underclass.
Especially in big cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, there are many, many homeless people on the side of the street, under the overpass, by the river, and on the outskirts of the city. Some of these homeless people are neatly dressed and energetic; some can also see some well-known brands of clothing and glasses. Strictly speaking, they are not considered extreme poverty.
Not only do they read and play chess, but many of them even have college degrees and once had glamorous titles such as engineer and president. It's shocking, why did they end up on the streets?
Wanderers on the streets of Tokyo
This has to start a long, long time ago.
When the Japanese economy collapsed, Japan entered an unprecedented period of great depression. At that time, real estate collapsed and a large number of companies went out of business. It is said that in the late 1990s, as many as 30,000 Japanese committed suicide due to the bankruptcy of their companies. Some other people who "survived" were unable to repay their debts, some felt ashamed of their families, and finally chose to run away from home, spending the rest of their lives wandering the streets to punish themselves, and living a walking corpse-like life in their hearts.
There is also a group that has caused irreparable losses to others because of their own faults or mistakes, and finally choose to self-exile. For example, the driver who caused the car accident, the doctor who apologized for the medical accident, the architect who caused the building problem... Many of them once had families and a happy life.
You may think: You waved your sleeves and left without taking a cloud, but what about your family? In fact, running away from home and self-exile is all about protecting the family.
In Japanese society, there is a very cruel phenomenon, that is, once you have a major problem, there is often no chance of rehabilitation, the people around you will only alienate you, everyone will point at you behind your back, gossip and saliva can drown you, and even your wife and children will suffer cold violence because of you.
Children, in particular, are vulnerable to collective bullying in school. In order for their families to get rid of their shadows and live a normal life, they have the option of divorce, and the extreme approach is to run away from home.
The environment in which the wanderer lives
Wandering the streets, a few cardboard boxes can build a "home".
revenue? You can make a living by picking up garbage, and the government will also provide pensions and unemployment benefits, so basic living is no problem.
food? Convenience stores in Japan sell bento, rice balls, bread, etc. at low prices that are not sold out on the day. By the time it closes, these near-shelf life foods become homeless delicacies.
The government has not thought of helping them, and has tried to get them to move into low-cost housing, relying on pensions and relief benefits to ensure rent and basic livelihood, and even re-employment training for them. However, for those who are desperate for the present and the future, this has not helped.
These homeless people are not so much economically impoverished as they are spiritually destitute. Many people spend every day on the streets expressionless and numb, and the people and things around him have nothing to do with him.
The heart is dead, and the body is the same.
It is not so much economic poverty as it is spiritual abject poverty
There is also a poverty called "poor turnover", and its representative product is the capsule hotel.
Capsule hotels, as the name suggests, are one-bed hotels like train sleepers, which can have tVs or radios. In order to ensure ventilation, the door of each capsule hotel's "room" is covered with a curtain. Capsule hotels charge a relatively low price, about 300 yuan a night, which is already very cheap in Tokyo.
In fact, capsule hotels were not originally for the poor, but for white-collar workers who worked too late and did not catch the last train; then there was the late socializing with colleagues at night, and they would be used for one night.
But capsule hotels are gradually being occupied by people who are looking for jobs and working hard in big cities.
Capsule hotels are gradually being occupied by people who are looking for jobs and working hard in big cities
There is a word in Japanese called "Shangjing", which has a faint bitterness and a sense of hard work in it, as well as the "North Drift" we say.
There are many young people in Japan who dream of coming to Tokyo to work hard, but when they first came in, they were scared by the high housing prices, and it is necessary to have a fixed address to find a job in Japan, because offers are sent by traditional email. Because more and more young people are staying in capsule hotels in order to find a job, the Japanese government has specifically approved the use of capsule hotels as the address for finding a job. In addition, those who lost their jobs because of the economic downturn ended up here.
Capsule hotels are written in brochures very convenient and comfortable, in fact, in this kind of hotel basically do not sleep well, because there is no sound insulation, there are often a variety of people in and out, the light can not be completely blocked. But no way, who called you poor!
The poor also have a cheap place to live in Tokyo, which is the attic. There was a variety show before, saying that it was a housewife, the husband ran away with all the money, leaving her alone, no job, no source of income, and had to live in an attic of only 3 square meters. The only thing in the collection was the wedding dress she wore when she got married, and I hope to meet a good man to marry later.
The interior of the capsule hotel
Joining the ranks at the bottom are many freelancers who do not have jobs and make a living by doing odd jobs everywhere. In this group, the most passive are housewives who are abandoned or widowed. Some housewives with several children rely on government handouts to make ends meet. Some housewives also have to pay off the debts left by their husbands and need to work two or three odd jobs to make ends meet.
In Japan, cases of poverty among housewives are high. Women generally fight for custody of their children when they divorce. If the husband is a little scummy, the maintenance is often not enough for the ex-wife and several children to live, which is also the main reason why Japanese housewives fall into poverty after divorce.
There was a Japanese mother whose husband eloped with Her little daughter when she was pregnant, leaving behind a mortgage and three daughters. Her life goes like this:
Get up at 5 a.m. every morning and make breakfast for your daughters, then make lunch lunches; wake up at 7 p.m. to get up and go to school; go to the insurance company at 8 a.m. to sell insurance, leave work at 5:30 p.m., and come home to make dinner for your daughters; and work as a waiter at a tavern at 8 p.m. until 11 p.m. She persevered in this life for nearly 20 years rain or shine, until all three daughters reached adulthood.
The vulnerable position of Japanese women in society will take a long time to change.
In Japan, cases of poverty among housewives are high