Since at least the Muromachi period, Japanese farmers and townspeople cultivated a way of life rooted in simplicity, seasonal beauty, and emotional balance.
From cherry blossoms in spring to autumn foliage, and later to popular travel culture in the Edo period, aesthetic appreciation was woven into daily life.
This essay contrasts that historical continuity with societies lacking such cultural foundations, examining the long-term impact on mental and social stability.

Date of Publication: May 13, 2017

At the very least, since the Muromachi period, Japanese farmers and townspeople lived in modest four-and-a-half–tatami-mat dwellings, admired cherry blossoms in spring, and enjoyed viewing autumn foliage.
By the Edo period, visiting famous places and historic sites had become a widespread pastime among ordinary people.
The works of Katsushika Hokusai and Andō Hiroshige—such as One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji and illustrated guides to celebrated locations—were not decorative fantasies, but cultural expressions deeply embedded in everyday life.

When one considers the contrast between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, the claim that roughly half of the Korean population suffers from mental illness becomes understandable without further explanation.
In a society lacking the emotional latitude to appreciate nature, devoid of a sense of life’s richness, and without even Buddhism as a spiritual refuge,
one is compelled to ask what form of inner peace could possibly have existed.

Extreme material poverty, extreme spiritual deprivation, and a historical trajectory of such conditions—
now compounded by fascism disguised as anti-Japanese education and an entrance-examination competition harsher than even the imperial civil service examinations—
create a society in which those who fail to enter a small number of conglomerates are immediately labeled as losers,
and even those who succeed are cast aside if they fail to rise by a certain age.

Under such conditions, it is entirely unsurprising that half the population would suffer from mental illness.
Yet Japanese television has conveyed almost none of this reality.