Animation made for R u OK day in Australia + Japanese text of ‘are you ok?’. While drawing I had musings about a Japanese equivalent to this day, cross cultural barriers and assumptions regarding mental health, the place of progress in implementing more positive beliefs about mental health when imposed on Japan by a foreigner + juggling the cultural iceberg on such a huge topic as emotional support in times of crisis and what is appropriate and effective.
When looking at the suicide rates in Japan and the concept of ‘face’, it’s easy to believe that the solution is to talk more about our feelings, to encourage vulnerability and openness. Certainly the method for frank human connection in Japan is met by barriers involving social taboo around talking genuinely in many situations (*edit: calling my own bullshit here: what is genuine conversation, what is vulnerability to me, how do i interpret open and honest conversation based on my up bringing?). How could R u OK day work in Japan? It’s not my place to ever impose a solution, and I meet way too many foreigners here who see Japan as cold, backward and isolating, with the desire to blindly impose western solutions to Japanese ‘faults’ (or something they presume to be faults; forgetting or not realising that the idea of fault is wildly subjective, and completely dependent on their own cultural background).
Of course the fact that I can’t speak Japanese anywhere near fluently (for now??) means I can’t much have a say or help in any serious way. But i do love the way that illustration is a means of connecting people on a heart level where we can all feel concept, which is swayed by cultural imagery and baggage of course. Or maybe cultural baggage is as light as air unless we are faced with the challenge of carrying it somewhere else, handing it to somebody else, seeing the shock in somebody else’s face when assimilation is in the air- in that way Japan is humbling.
*another edit: writing this post has made me more confused than ever. but in a happy way, like my life and understanding opens by being here and truly feeling the sense of how subjective everything is
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