AT JAPAN'S SUICIDE CLIFFS HE HAS SAVED OVER 600 LIVES
Almost no one jumps on rainy days.
They jump when the sun returns and the masses step outside, reminding them of their misery. They jump during financial crises and in the early spring, when Japanese schools open and the pressures of life converge.
Yukio Shige's routine, though, is the same regardless of the weather.
Nearly every day, he clambers across the high basalt columns of the
Tojinbo cliffs, the Sea of Japan thrashing 80 feet below. He peers into binoculars, seeking hunched figures on distant rocks, ready to talk them down.
In 15 years, he's walked 609 people back from the edge.
"The way I save people, it's like I'm seeing a friend," said Shige, 73, a retired policeman with a floppy fishing hat and a gentle demeanor. "It's not exciting or
anything. I'm like, 'Hey, how are you doing?' These people are asking for help. They're just waiting for someone to speak with them."
Japan's suicide rate is among the highest in the developed world. In 2016, there were 17.3 suicides for every 100,000 people, second only to South Korea among major industrialized nations (the U.S. figure is 13.5). As in most places, the majority of victims are men. The most common method is hanging,
unlike in the U.S., where it is firearms. Among people age 15 to 39 in Japan, suicide is the leading cause of death — claiming more lives than cancer and accidents combined.
Those statistics are a marked improvement, thanks to a strengthening economy and prevention efforts by the government. About 22,000 people killed themselves in Japan in 2016, the lowest number in 22 years, down from about 33,000 a year in the late 1990s following
an economic crash.
Outside of Japan, media depictions of suicide in the country frequently involve concepts of honor and disgrace, from 12th century samurai who committed seppuku — a ritualized form of self-disembowelment — to World War II kamikaze pilots who deliberately crashed into Allied ships...READ MORE
![Ephesians 2:8-10 [adapted] God gave you freedom to live and to love by His grace, through your faith. And it is not of your own doing, it is not a reward for the good things you have done. Rather, it is purely a gift from God. You
are God’s finest creation.](https://hostedimages-cdn.aweber-static.com/ODc4Njc0/optimized/7b8db2910d9d469691a7627677155357.png)
