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Intermediate Japanese - Free Online Course
GOGATSU-BYŌ
五月病
"May sickness"
Japan is one of the world’s more stressful societies, and the stress is evenly distributed across age groups. Americans tend to idealize youth as a time of carefree experimentation. Not so in Japan. Japanese in their late teens and early twenties are as stressed out as many of their elders.
High school students endure a grueling series of entrance exams (known as shiken-jioku / 試験地獄, or “examination hell”). Good performance on these exams is essential in order to secure entry into the “right” university—which will in turn pave the way for employment at one of Japan’s top corporations or government ministries.
University students endure the stress of employment interviews. These interviews are stressful for university students in other countries, as well; but the pre-graduation interview carries special significance in Japan. Job-hopping is still a new—and uncertain—career strategy in the Japanese business world. Remaining with the same employer throughout one’s career is the preferred course of action. Therefore, success in one’s first round of job interviews is more or less essential.
All of this takes a toll on the mind and body; and some Japanese young people implode from the pressure. The physical and mental impact of the stress often appears in the month of May. May arrives a month after the start of the new school year, and a month after the traditional induction time at Japanese companies. (Japanese companies induct all new graduates into the company as a “class” every April.) In extreme situations, this leads to students dropping out of school, or new employees resigning from their jobs just a few months after beginning them.