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There are a vast amount of reasons people do it, as well as a vast amount of ways to go about it. Physical, or psychological, they both can leave deep scars, that may take years to heal, and often effect(sometimes even disturb) the person being bullied. In Japan, one common reason, is because of something that makes the person stand out(social status, hair color, nationality, anything that doesn't make them blend with the crowd), and the fact that most schools do nothing about it, leaves little to no consequence to those that do it.

What I want to know is, what do the people here, think of bullying?

I'm sort of bad at recognizing it, because in my school, luckily, the stupid kids aren't that intimidating...just fathead idiots (pardon my oh-so-mature word choice). But whenever I see it, eerrrgghghh! scream

That's really sad. To tell the truth, I think Japan may be drastically advanced in terms of technology and improvements, and they have a much stronger culture than America will ever have (for several different reasons), but they still have a long way to go in terms of humanities (racism, conformity, etc).

Well firstly, the subject would need to be brought to their attention, in some way, or fashion. There needs to be a way to show how much this stuff's hurting the people, without bashing them over the head with it*unless that becomes necessary* But mostly, I think Japan will eventually have to drop their purist stance on race, if acceptance is to be a feasible goal.

A thread title that caught my eye RIGHT AWAY!

Bullying is always something I had to deal with all the way threw my grade school years. See, back then, like, my proportions is used to be... "off". Always had this thing where the size and shape of my head seemed to stand out from the rest of my body. I was always known as the skinny kid with the big a** head and I'd catch a lot of bullshit for it. People (I didn't even know mind you) would come up and something out of NOWHERE like smack me in the back of the head as if trying to purposely get me upset. I'd always been slow to anger so they'd persist until I eventually blew up and hit them back giving them an excuse to lay my face to the floor. See, to understand THIS level of ignorance you'd have to know exactly where it is I live... xp

Anyhow, it got its worst when I reached middle school and started to withdraw and brood more. I would actually get so pissed off that I would do things in retaliation to getting constantly ******** with and not even remember a damn thing I did at the point where I would lose it. Even one time in 7th grade I almost put this one guy's eye out I hated him so much!

Personally I blame my build on my momz coz she never really fed me and my brother "real" food a lot and we would never get any bigger. She'd always get us dumb s**t we could ready ourselves, like Ramen noodle or freezer food. Never really homecooked food that would actually put pounds on us and make us grow out. That's why we're so skinny.

I'm more content as a person nowadays. It actually started to slow down when I became a senior, but I was still real sensitive from the many years before and would take any slight insult personally when really the other classmates just liked to clown and joke on each other a lot and it was all innocent fun. I graduated and got more confident and even work out (kind of addicted actually xD), but all those years of unjust bullying really shorted me on my confidence level and I don't really trust or befriend people a lot. All in all, I think I'm a stronger person for having to deal with all that s**t. I'm FIERCELY independent and very stubborn when I'm losing! I'm much more determined and more ballsy about backing myself up! pirate

The thing is that it already is being brought to their attentions - at least a couple times a week there is a lecture on it in homeroom or a new flyer tacked up on the wall. Suicides because of bullying are told about on television all the time, and yet it doesn't get into their heads that it does hurt people - as I said they make a joke of it.

Race isn't the problem so much as individualism in general, I think. The quiet kids, or the kids with "off" proportions, or the kids who "study too much," that sort of thing. I'm most certainly a foreigner (blonde hair, blue eyes, the works), but they all like me and treat me well enough. So the racism is not so severe, at least not in larger cities (which is where all the foreigners live), but ijime is. I'm asking if there're any ideas of getting them to understand the psychological effects (physical is obvious) of bullying, other than what is already being done, since that isn't working very well.

Hmm, well I suppose bringing in someone who has been affected by it would be necessary, in that case. To showcase how mentally crippling that kind of thing can be.

I'll tell ya why: becoz some people in the world naturally look like victims! When somebody looks like they wouldn't be able to defend themselves people try them to see what'll happen and if that person fails to fight back right then and there it's a rap! But let a person stand out in a very notible way, but be abnormally huge with a really intimidating physique and I betcha nobody would ever mess with 'em! They'd be too preoccupied with trying NOT to cross that zone with the person and hoping they can make friends with 'em before they mess around and get their asses kicked. People are just cowards like that...

I HATE bullies, i was bulied for a while and because of it passive agressive behavior has settled in me, or something like that. I can't stand hearing about people that get bullied. its something that should stop its horrible crying