Young suicides and lonely expatriates: the melancholic side of the Asian metropolis

A view of the city. How could a collectivist society — one in which the group is more important than the individual, and where relationships and hierarchy are central — become a fragmented society of people who rush about, busy and often alone, like isolated atoms spinning in empty space? Tokyo is not Japan; it is an exception — as all large metropolises are. The “average” life may well be found in smaller towns and provincial cities. Yet Tokyo, as an exception, contains both what is traditional and characteristic of the local culture and what departs from it. After spending most autumns here for three years, I have slowly and with difficulty begun to form a deeper sense of the city — not so much through its outward manifestations or its urban layout, but through what I might call Tokyo’s “intimate emotional life.” Continua a leggere “The Solitudes of Tokyo” →