bullying in East Asia is a big problem if that's what you think then this video is for you it's easy to understand why this is the dominant perception I mean when you have news headlines like Korea struggles to save students from bullying kids get violent China school bullying epidemic and why bullying in Japanese schools is especially traumatic it says a lot about how serious the problem is but whilst bullying in East Asia is a big problem 90% of you have the wrong idea to explain why we went wrong let's establish what we do know first bullying is a topic that is frequently discussed in East Asia and is often featured in popular media HIIT Korean Revenge drama the glory was one of these Works Making Waves with its brutal depiction of bullying featuring scenes like the main character getting burnt with a hair color despite the heavy subject topic the show gained incredible popularity and place the issue of bullying in South Korea under a Global Spotlight but it's not just the glory and Korea there are many shows in East Asia that have a focus on bullying like Li Leaf better days class of pigs and also in different mediums like and Manas these Works have brought International attention to the issue of bullying in East Asia but it also leaves us with a distinct impression of the issue that bullying in East Asia is really bad and that likely East Asia has one of the worst rates of bullying in the world in this video I'm going to challenge that statement above because something is off about the way we perceive bullying in East Asia to start off let's first actually understand what bullying is like that and why has bullying become such a big deal in East Asia compared to the rest of the world [Music] let me start off by asking you a simple question can you give me an example of bullying you can quickly pause here if you need more time but I'm asking this because there are three types of bullying and it'll be interesting to see which type your example falls under ready the first type of bullying is physical bullying like pushing or shoving the second is verbal bullying which are either words said directly to someone or rumors being spread behind someone's back and the third type is Rel bullying like ignoring someone so which type did your example fall under I thought this would be interesting because different cultures are likely to think about different types of bullying in the west bullying is often thought of as a very physical thing whilst in the East more people might conjure up an example that's verbal or relational and we can see this difference in the definitions of the word bullying in each culture let's search up what these words and definitions are opera shows bullying as when people repeatedly and intentionally use words or actions against some someone or a group of people to cause distress to their well-being woods and vula add that there is also an unequal power relationship between the bully and the victim I think this sounds pretty aligned with what most of us think bullying is I'm going to use Arya Opera's AI tool to now help me find what the Chinese Japanese and Korean terms most similar to bullying are Arya is saying that it's Bing and W which is also what I have in my notes but I had to read five papers to get there I don't think I'll ever get used to how easy some things are now and Opera excels at making things things easy for example when I'm researching I always end up with way too many tabs open and somehow even though this gets on my nerves I can't bring myself to close any of these tabs until I'm finished writing everything it must be some sort of Unwritten Law at this stage but this is where Opera's tab Island feature comes in super clutch now I don't annoy myself and I still have all my reference papers I also adore the force dark mode feature if you get it you get it and since I'm on YouTube all the time with a short attention span I love how opera automatically minimizes my YouTube window when I open up a new opa's battery saver mode is also out here saving my life and I'm only being slightly dramatic my 2017 MacBook Pro is on its last leg but I just can't justify upgrading it because oppra is optimizing its battery a bit too well thanks oppra I guess if you want to try out all these features yourself use my link here I'd highly recommend giving Opa a shot thank you Opa for sponsoring this video and now let's bring it back to comparing the definitions of bullying because this is actually a very important point where we can see some big cultural differences in Korea and Japan the closest terms wangal and IIM carry group connotations for the act of bullying breaking down the Korean term wangal it's made up of Wong meaning King and TM meaning exclusion so put together it's literally king of exclusion in Japanese the closest term is it which is defined by Morita as aggressive behavior where someone in a dominant position intentionally causes damage during group interactions this group emphasis wasn't really evident in our English definition and actually it's also absent from the Chinese one the Chinese terms Chu and Bing both refer to bullying but we'll go with chu in this video as most academic studies use this word in their research instead of emphasizing group dynamics tful stresses an imbalance of power and is an act that embarrasses or intimidates others already from these definitions we can see what kind of bullying behavior is most dominant in these countries group bullying or exclusion seems to be a very big thing in Korea and Japan but not so much in the west and China a popular EXP ation as to why group buing behavior is so prominent in Korea and Japan is because of cultural differences although this isn't a perfect Theory as it doesn't explain China but the theory goes East Asian societies are what we call collectivist meaning people from strong bonds with the groups they're in like family groups or friendship groups collectivist cultures also see higher levels of Conformity making it a bad thing to stand out so when we apply these traits to bullying anything that marks you as different could also Mark you as a potential Target and there's actually a Japanese saying for this the nail that sticks out gets hammered down okay so we introduced the different terms of bullying in each country and what these terms mean now I want to dig into how bullying first became a cause for concern in East Asia this is important if we want to understand why we always seem to hear about bullying in East Asia in the news all the time to do this we'll need to trace it back to the cases that first caught mainstream attention and I'm going to give a Content warning here I won't be going into a lot of detail because these cases do feature victims who ended up unal living themselves as a result of the bullying this is quite a heavy topic so if this content is tricking for you you can still watch this video just skip ahead to this Tim stamp where we break down why bullying is in particular a big deal in East Asia the term imim became known after a series of school violence cases in the 1980s and there were three waves of imim incidents that caused Great moral panic in society the 1986 case the 1994 case and the string of cases in 2006 and 7 where each time victims had un alived themselves due to being bullied each time newsbroke of these tragedies societal unas and moral Panic escalated these cases of bullying were truly horrible and shocking I'll give you some brief details of these cases as I don't want the focus of this video to be true crime but I do want to illustrate to you the gravity of these bullying scandals that had Japan shaken the 1986 case involved the victim's classmates and teachers ganging up on him and even holding a mock funeral as they all wrote messages on a card and left flowers on his desk taunting him to end his life which he tragically did in the end the 1994 case involved the victim suffering bodily injuries on top of having 1 million yen being extorted from him then subsequent it related tragedies in 2006 and 7 meant the issue of bullying frequented and stayed in the headlines in each of these three waves Japanese media pinned the blame on local education committees and school teachers for their neg neig as a result of this growing societal pressure and unease the Japanese government introduced The Bullying prevention promotion act in 2013 making it a mandatory responsibility for schools to prevent bullying and to report any incidents that occur whilst media coverage of it took over Japan during this time concerns of bullying also spread to Korea and sped Korean researchers to look into this issue themselves bullying also became a focus for researchers in China in the 1990s and was looked at seriously as a major social concern what I want to highlight here by looking at these cases is first the gravity of these incidents the cases that had caught national attention as we saw were cruel and ended in tragedy the second thing I want to emphasize is how people reacted each time these cases made the news it was met with Collective moral panic in society where tensions kept escalating as these cases continued even now you can see how big a deal bullying is with how East Asians react to bullying scandals if a celebrity or Idol is caught up in one that history of bullying will often end their career compare this to the west where this reaction is not as common or as big of a deal understanding this difference in reaction between the East and the West is crucial and it all starts with how we view ourselves and our role in society what I am referring to here is a difference between interdependent and independent controls of self an interdependent control of self is when people see themselves as inherently connected to others so the people around you form a part of your identity and who who you are this is more typical of East Asian cultures on the other hand an independent conol of self is where your identity is made up of your thoughts your beliefs and your values and the people around you they're their own person just like how you're your own person this type of thinking is more typical of the West how does this relate to social issues like bullying nisbit proposes that societies that are more interdependent will see societal problems stemming from social relationships whereas independent cultures would prescribe social issues as a result of the individual this is really fascinating and this difference is demonstrated in Mars and pay's comparisons of how Chinese and US News sites would report the exact same murders take the lugang homicide case for example lugang was a Chinese physics student who studied in Iowa and shot several students his advisor bystanders and then himself after he lost an award competition and blamed his advisor for his unsuccessful appeal Chinese news sites in reporting this incident highlight the breakdown of relationships citing lugang did not get along with his advisor that he had a rivalry with one of the students he' shot and that he was likely homesick American Media on the other hand pointed to lugang as a Darkly Disturbed man someone with a bad temper and a person with a Sinister Edge to them very different perspectives some of you might be thinking that we're probably only seeing these differences in reporting because this case is about a Chinese man so there could be some biases while Morris and Pang also examined Chinese and American Media reports for a very similar case the case case of Thomas McKane McKane worked at the post office and he had recently been dismissed after his appeal was unsuccessful he shot his supervisor co-workers bystanders and then himself in mck's case again Chinese reporters highlighted situational factors how being fired was a big and stressful change in his life and reported on his relationships stating that the supervisor was his enemy how did American Media cover this they stressed personal attributes about mcelvain he was mentally unstable he repeatedly threatened violence he had a short fuse so how does this translate to bullying when news of bullying breaks out in East Asian cultures because East Asian societies are more interdependent the bully actions reflect a bigger issue in society a moral failing on multiple levels for example why are we seeing dysfunctional classmate relationships where they turn on each other why are there negligent teacher student relationships why are school authorities not properly guiding students both potential victims and would be bullies in preventing this situation by contrast bullying in a western Society is often explained as a result of the individual the bully was psychologically troubled the bully had a predisposition for violence and the incident is understood by society as a result of individual faults this is why we see bigger reactions in East Asia whenever cases of bullying are reported in the media bullies are not seen as a bad egg but a sign of collective moral failing this is different from the west where countries like Australia have lab with the issue of bullying as individual pathological Behavior this attribution of individual fault is also frequently expressed in incidents of school shootings in the United States therefore as a result of cultural differences we might look at the same event and process it as different kinds of issues this can help us understand why bullying is seen as a bigger deal in East Asia compared to everywhere else because Bullying happens everywhere right not just in East Asia that being said I know some of you are already thinking well bullying could also be a bigger deal in East Asia because it could genuinely be worse there so let's look into it what is bullying actually like in East Asia how do students feel about this and how does this compare to the [Music] worst at the beginning of the video we mentioned how in the west bullying is more associated with physical attacks whilst in the East bullying is more commonly thought of as verbal or relational now we're going to really look into why this difference exists let's start off with a comparison on bullying in Japan versus bullying in England drawing upon the study by Keta and Smith Their findings show a few very interesting differences first e in Japan was commonly occurred in the classroom and the bullies were people the victim were friends with or knew very well whereas in England bullying had occurred mostly on the playground and victims did not know the bullies well or at all why were there such differences first the education system is structured very differently in Japan than in England Japan uses a closed class system so you have one teacher who is responsible for the whole class and teaches all of your subjects compare this to English secondary schools where there is a subject teacher system teachers specialize in a subject and based on the electives you choose you get mixed into different classes therefore the Japanese education system which is more siloed results in each class forming their own little ecosystem since you're spending every moment with the same people bullying through being excluded becomes way more devastating and because of the high levels of conformity in Japanese culture the victim will most likely differ depending on what the majority is like in the class in a class of low Achievers the high achiever might be targeted in a class where people are all fans of an idol group the one person who isn't interested and therefore naturally has nothing to add into conversations would be singled out and picked on this unique combination of cultural and structural factors explains why Japanese students responded that victims would know their bullies well because they're probably all from the same class in addition since social exclusion is a dominant form of bullying in Japan it makes sense that bullies are often Friends of the victim because how else would you be able to exclude someone unless you both belong to the same group in comparison being excluded as an English student is still tough but it becomes more barable given the dynamic environment of the education system there where classes are constantly getting mixed around depending on your subjects so one subject might be really rough if you're being excluded but other subjects featuring different students could be fine in fact we can see how impactful exclusion and our environment is by looking at the recommended coping strategy students put forward in each bullying scenario in the case of social exclusion the most popular choice by far amongst English students at 77% was to find new friends compared to 11% of Japanese students suggesting the same Most Japanese students thought taking direct action would be the best choice and 16% of Japanese students actually chose the option to reflect on themselves which none of the English students chose taking direct action and confronting those excluding you might have been the recommended choice for Japanese students given this seeing the same classmates day in and day out that being said one in seven students choosing self-reflection as the victim I think that really speaks volumes on the culture and the emphasis on Conformity remember in interdependent cultures your identity is tied to other people so if people around you are all shunning you that's going to have a big impact on how you see yourself in addition Keta and Smith propos that in a classroom setting once students are in a group they lose their individual identity and just become one with the group so getting kicked out of that group makes the victim feel like they've lost their whole identity so far this has been a lot of discussion on what bullying is like the types of bullying that occur having cultural breakdowns looking at education systems but here's where things get spicy I want to highlight a finding by G and others when they compared Chinese students to English students they found that Chinese students felt more negatively towards bullying that there was a lower percentage of bullies amongst Chinese students and that Chinese students had greater willingness to act and intervene if they witnessed bullying compared to the English counterparts compared to England Chinese students actually seem more opposed to bullying hm Bergeron and Schneider in the 2005 paper on peer directed aggression States cultures characterized by collectivist values high moral discipline and emphasized values that are heavily confusion showed lower levels of aggression these are traits shared by East Asian countries but the public perception of bullying in these cultures could not be more different it's understandable in a sense because East Asia does have its history of tragic bullying cases and there are so many cultural exports like movies and Manas being based on bullying however when we say bullying in East Asia is a big problem especially in the west the unsaid assumption that's tacked onto this statement is the comparison of East Asia's bullying issue being one of the worst if not the worst amongst developed countries in the last part of this video I want to challenge that view because as G and others findings hinted East Asian countries actually have one of the lowest rates of bullying in the [Music] world I need to make it really clear here that challenging this perception of bullying does not mean I'm saying bullying is not a big deal in East Asia I'm not trying to invalidate anyone's personal experiences with bullying in East Asia nor sugarcoat what the reality is I do want to explore though how a perception of bullying in East Asia may be disproportionate to the amount of actual cases there here I'll draw upon the phenomenal work of rap ey on katsu's 2020 paper as they investigated this issue they come through International reports like the Tims and Pisa surveys to find data that proves quite literally the opposite of this prevailing assumption since their work reference 2015 data have just comb through the latest 2022 piece of reports to give you guys a more updated view one of the first graphs presented on bullying other countries sorted in order of percentage of students who reported being frequently bullied on one end you have countries where students reported the worst rates of frequent bullying Philippines Jamaica Morocco brune Jordan then on the other side of it you have the countries with the lowest rates of bullying and number one and number two for the lowest percentage of students being frequently bullied in the world is Korea and Japan for reference this is the oecd average and the United States is one spot after the average Canada is here and UK and Australia are here even if Korea and Japan were near the oecd average I think that's still would have been a shock to many people in itself but the fact that Korea and Japan rank the lowest in the world for the percentage of students reporting being frequently bullied that could not be a further departure from the impression most of us hold of these countries I was able to find more data on bullying in the pza 2018 report and this one also included a few representative areas making up the China sample being Beijing Shanghai jansu and Jang again we can see a similar Trend here Korea has the lowest percentage of students reported being bullied a few times a month out of all the countries Japan comes in Sixth and China represented by the four respective cities and provinces comes in at 9th again for reference this is where Canada United States and Australia are at in fact in this report Pizza States comparing 2018 data to 2015 the general Trend across oecd countries was that the percentage of students that were bullied at least a few times a month had increased but the opposite Trend happened in East Asia rates of bullying had decreased now some of you might be thinking this sounds wrong don't worry I was in the same river denial for the longest time too Piza and Tims are both very reputable international studies and I'll have these reports all Linked In the description below so if we can trust this data then why do we not think of Japan Korea and China as places with the lowest rates of bullying in the world why is our perception so different hm well could it be because bullying in East Asia was a lot worse a few decades ago and that reputation just stuck well there weren't many cross-cultural studies being conducted back then but mod say 1999 paper does quot a domestic study in Japan that compared bullying in four countries Japan United Kingdom Netherlands and Norway based on the students self-reporting it showed again Japan having the lowest percentage at 14% compared to 39% 27% and 21% respectively okay so it looks like even back then rates of bullying in Japan were low compared to these other countries but one Japanese scholar Yama does argue that bullying statistics in Japan can't be taken seriously because of the pact of Silence this being Japanese officials wanting to cover up the actual bullying figures and Japanese students not speaking up and telling their teachers they've been bullied because that will make their situation worse all right then well it's very valid that victims might be reluctant to report bullying at school for fear that it might get worse however in international studies like Tims and pizza all respondent data is kept Anonymous so students are unlikely to see any personal consequences come out from answering a survey question on how frequently they have been bullied in addition with large scale International Studies like these data is unlikely to be tampered with given the strict data handling procedures so what do we do with this data now well I can first tell you what we shouldn't do rapu and KATU highlight and criticize the accompanying commentary from the 2017 oecd report when the committee saw similar results East Asia had scored among the lowest in the world for bullying but in summarizing each region the oecd committee picks out the few parts that Japan and Korea were lacking in as a pretty damning example rapu and KATU highlight how the committee literally acknowledges ker being well below the oecd average for bullying but then they follow up with this in Korea students who participated in Pisa were significantly less likely than students in other countries to report that they are exposed to bullying International differences in such exposure might partly reflect cultural differences in students reluctance to report in a questionnaire that they have been a victim of bullying this statement is exactly what pushes is the narrative that the issue of bullying in East Asia is one of the worst in the world even when data literally suggests the contrary if you starts saying things like this is what our findings show but maybe it isn't all that accurate because of cultural differences leading to students not telling the truth then how are we supposed to trust this data rapy and KATU state that instead the oecd should have acknowledged the disparity between popular perceptions of East Asia and what the data shows giving a simple statement like despite dominant images East Asian schools do not appear here to have a major problem with bullying instead the oecd perpetuates The Stereotype and casts doubt onto the validity of its own findings I think the discussion that raple ey and KATU have started is a really interesting exploration on the gap between our perceived understanding of bullying in easia versus what the reality might actually be and I would love to see more research being done here does this mean that bullying is not serious in East Asia no it is still a big deal and I'm reiterating this point because we need to be sensitive about what victims have gone through and the last thing I'd want to do is to invalidate someone's actual experience but I do want to address this perception Gap bullying has always been a prevailing topic of concern in East Asian Society however I wonder if this concern born from the way a culture frames their problems Gets Lost in Translation bullying cases occur in the West too but we never hear much about it Western celebrities sometimes they even admit themselves to bullying or going through a main phase when they were younger and yet if they're a better person now now rarely is that admission a career Ender so there's a lot to think about with this video but to conclude bullying is still a big problem in East Asia but our perception of this issue in the west is disproportionate to the actual data we're seeing and almost masks the severity of bullying everywhere else it's not that no other country has bullying happening it's just that no other country is shining a spotlight on it for the world to see quite the Way East Asia has been East Asia has raised great awareness for the lifelong damaging consequences bullying can have and bullying is an issue that should be taken seriously by all of us everywhere thank you very much for watching until the end I really appreciate it I would encourage you guys to read up on the actual reports and to check out and interpret that data for yourself if my video today did change your perspective of bullying in East Asia please share this with a friend because I would love to spark more conversation on this disparity and let me know your thoughts in the comments while I'm off writing the next video you can find bonus commentary on patreon as well as me literally explaining memes and whatever other thoughts come to my mind a big thank you to my patrons for supporting me you guys rock thank you so much for watching again please subscribe if you enjoyed and I'll see you in the next one bye [Music]