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14-year-old boy killed by express train in apparent suicide

8 Comments

A 14-year-old boy was hit and killed by an express train in an apparent suicide at a rail crossing at Chikujo, Fukuoka Prefecture, on Wednesday.

According to police, the incident occurred at around 1:30 p.m. on the JR Nippo Line, Sankei Shimbun reported. The driver of the express bound for Oita was quoted by police as saying, "I saw a boy standing on the tracks looking at the train. I applied the emergency brake but it was too late.”

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8 Comments
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Yet another Japanese teen suicide. I really feel for these kids. I see so many young, broken spirits everyday. The system and society crushes them and the adults rarely (if ever) even acknowledge these unfair and unnecessary pressures. They have no one to turn to. RIP young man.

9 ( +11 / -2 )

Poor boy - how terrible, and how sad.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

What does this country have to do to convince kids that suicide is not the answer? Is their life and outlook for the future so miserable that they believe suicide is the answer? I work with teenage kids every day (13-22) and do everything I can to make them feel like everyone of them is special in their own way. It's this bloody system of everybody must be the same that creates these insecure kids with no dreams of the future. I also have nearly a thousand college students (18-22 year olds) and most of them cannot tell me what they what to do in the future. They are always amazed to learn I had kids, a degree and a career by the time I was their age. And, this is the generation that is going to grow up in an ageing and shrinking population? Japan will become a third world country in the future! It's sad for this kid to kill himself, but in a country where there are nearly a hundred suicides every day, I think the news is only the fact he disrupted train services.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

I might not have made it here as a kid, at home (London) its easy to say "sod it, dont care" doesnt work here. Let kids be kids, oh i forgot that would offer tooo much freedom and not enough molding, RIP little man.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

@Disillusion that is a tough question to answer. Perhaps kids just need to be kids it seems as if in Japan they learn stress at a very young age and it progress though out life. It culturally driven and if what I am saying is true, nothing can be done at this point. Kids will continue to die there is no end!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Unfortunately this is the other side of the male psychological control issue here, some snap and resort to violence, other take themselves out of the equation like this. Either way it comes down to a lack of communication in the family, fathers doing the overtime thing and not coming, mothers telling themselves there's nothing wrong at home. The wife and husband sleeping in separate rooms. There is no family moral support, there's no talking in this type of dysfunctional home so if the kids is struggling with school or getting bullied the parents don't know and the kids have no where to turn to. Very common here. Ask all you male friends and co-workers if they ring/talk to their sons regularly. Even if the parents are married the wife is basically a single mother to the kids. To many Japanese rushed to get married before turning 30yrs (because that what you have to do in Japan) and have a family because everyone else does not thinking about what it takes to raise a loving caring family, they got married and had kids because everyone else does.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Disillusioned and misunderstood- you both nailed it. He didn't have to die, but what was he really going to look forward to? A salaryman's life where he works 100 hours of overtime a month? J society doesn't give you much to look forward to and they pile the stress on pretty early. Its not hard to imagine why so many choose this way out. Terribly sad

1 ( +3 / -2 )

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