The Nail That Sticks Out Gets Hammered Down

Ai-chan tries really hard in school. She does well too. While most girls at the junior high school wear their hair in ponytails or short bobs she wears hers in two thick braids. Eight months into my time in Gunma, she started missing school. Through the other teachers’ bizarre explanations, I came to realize that she was suffering from anxiety and depression (“She doesn’t want to get out of bed. She cries too much at home. She afraid to go outside.”). I prayed that her parents could find qualified people to help her through this. In many ways, the field of psychiatry is still in its infancy in Japan because general attitudes toward mental health issues are stuck in the 1940s.

By the time I left Gunma, she had just started coming back to school a few days per week. Most Japanese people don’t understand mental illness and treat it like weakness of character or lack of willpower. Therefore, some of her teachers saw her absenteeism as bothersome. Whenever I saw her, I always greeted her and told her that I was happy to see her. Apparently this meant a lot to her and she wrote me a letter saying so.

She is also a Jehovah’s Witness in a school full of non-religious or barely Buddhist people, so that also added to her reputation as a wierdo. One teacher said, “Her family goes to church three or four times every week. Can you believe it??” I told him, yes, I can. Jehovah’s Witnesses are common in the West and I’ve had JW classmates, friends and colleagues. He was shocked. He thought they were rare. 

Many Japanese traditions are rooted in Shintoism and/or Buddhism, so when there were school events she couldn’t participate in for religious reasons, I’d keep her company. It was just the decent thing to do. I didn’t want her to feel ostracized or punished for being different (which, in the land where conformity is king, it is the modus operandi).  

An often-repeated Japanese proverb says that “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down…” That’s all well and good if you’re literally referring to nails, but people aren’t nails and diversity shouldn’t be punished. Especially when it’s things outside of our control.  

December 27, 2019