A part of this is from a column written in 1993 about "ijime" (bullying). It was not the first, and today I can't even recall that specific case. There have been so many. At the time I objected to the newspaper comment that ijime had been a serious problem for a decade. Brutal discrimination against those who did not fit in with the group was certainly not unknown when I came to Japan 40 years ago. It could be a sports club bullying a member who wanted to resign. When the bullying resulted in death, it was reported. Sometimes there were deaths when nonconformist youngsters were being disciplined. Remember the girl who was crushed by a heavy metal gate at her school as she tried to make it through so as not to be tardy, a serious offense at her school? Some comments reflected the view that it could have been avoided if she had been on time, somehow tilting the responsibility a bit toward the girl, a bit away from the teacher who shut the gate.

I cannot be indifferent to ijime, and I am outraged and often sickened at social punishments inflicted on those who are different. These can be the handicapped who learn they can easily avoid prejudice by staying at home; the "burakumin," who are assigned the lowest niche in Japanese society and are familiar with the many aspects of discrimination; the vagrants, who are bullied by society's obliviousness of their existence. They are not there even though we see them.

Yet we live in a country that "works" in the midst of chaotic conditions elsewhere. Visitors constantly are enraptured by the politeness and honesty of the Japanese people, the safe streets, the general cleanliness, the voices so rarely raised in anger.