Ako Kawada suicide - mother speaks out
Some of you might remember an article I wrote a couple of months ago about Japan’s suicide rate, and how freelance TV announcer Ako Kawada was the most famous recent one. Well it seems that Kawada’s mother has now come out criticising her daughter’s last relationships, and one in particular. Japan Today has the following article, before my usual critique:
Kawada’s last relationships before suicide draw mother’s criticism
The suicide by freelance announcer Ako Kawada, 29, in May came as a great shock to media insiders and television viewers. While it was reported at the time that Kawada had been suffering from depression, some insiders suggest that problems in her relationships with her two boyfriends might have been contributing factors.
Kawada’s mother recently talked to Shukan Post about her daughter’s relationships with the two men. One was Kawada’s boss, Mr A, and the other was American peace activist Matt Taylor.
Kawada’s mother recalls: “Our family appreciated Mr A’s support at her funeral, although some people criticized him. However, we don’t feel like that toward Mr Taylor. He met her on the day she committed suicide. Apparently, she had talked of suicide before and he knew everything about that. I wonder why he wouldn’t have told us. I just can’t understand it.”
Taylor directed a film on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, a project in which Kawada helped. At the press preview, Taylor said: “She was a very pure person. We cried together several times when watching the film. I am proud that her name will forever be part of the credits.” However, this has caused some resentment that he is making use of Kawada’s name to get extra publicity for the documentary.
“We don’t want him to use Ako’s name to promote his film,” said Kawada’s mother. “We don’t even want her name to be part of the credits.”
Commenting on the reaction by Kawada’s family, Taylor told Shukan Post: “I promised her that her name would be in the credits. In the American film industry, it is common for film producers to put the names of people involved in the film and loved ones who passed away, in the credits. I think her mother would understand this if she had an opportunity to see my film.”
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First of all, you have to ask yourself why this TV boss has not been named, whereas Taylor has been. This is assuming he is not trying to rival Mr T and that Mr A isn’t his real name! But there are a number of possible reasons. Firstly, that Taylor has been talking through the press whereas this TV boss has been saying nothing or making any comments privately and through proxy statements. You could say it’s because if he is mentioned (especially as he apparently is married) it might make some people angry at him and not the foreigner here.
Next, there is a misunderstanding (I believe in translation) in the article. It states that Taylor “met her on the day she committed suicide” which could lead you to believe that they met for the first time on the day she killed herself. This is obviously not the case as they had worked together on this production. Just wanted to clear that up so there is no confusion. The mother also states that he knew everything about her suicide and that she had talked to him about it. Now this is possible but I sincerely doubt it. She may have given signs that she was unhappy and depressed with things that were happening around her, but for her to openly talk about killing herself and, as it sounds like, giving details about her plan… I just don’t buy it. I only have limited experience in this field, but people who are really intent on killing themselves don’t tell other people: “I’m going to kill myself, and this is how I will do it…” because if they do that there’s a chance they could be stopped. The only people who will do that are people who just say it for attention and who are wanting to be saved, or those who are talking to another they will commit suicide with.
Now I’m not saying the relationship with Mr A (Kawada’s potential boss) was wrong or anything that wasn’t out of love, but it’s something that should be looked at too. Although large Japanese workplaces have codes of conduct as to who is allowed to be seeing who (with regards to conflicts of interest), they seem to be loosely followed from what I can gather.
What is tough to comprehend at the moment is the the cause of the level of animosity between Kawada’s mother and Taylor, wanting to remove her name from the film credits. The only people who will have heard of Kawada anyway will be those from Japan and it is as if she is saying she does not want Taylor to be able to show commemoration and remembrance of Kawada in any way. If the movie is shown outside Japan then Kawada’s name with have no impact whatsoever in the credits. Now the skeptic in me (and you know it’s a pretty cynical one) says this. The mother has 2 people who have been having “relationships” (whatever that means here) with her daughter and it is probably best that she is seen to be favouring one. You have the Japanese media boss who attended and offered support at the funeral, possible financially. Alternatively, you have the American (i.e. foreign) peace activist who saw her on the last day before she committed suicide, and who wants to show her name in a film she helped him to make. So does she favour the Japanese respected businessman who offered support at the funeral, or the foreign revolutionary who her daughter confided in rather than the mother herself? Does the mother feel that if Mr A had heard anything about her daughter contemplating suicide, he would have rushed over to tell her? Hope you can see where I’m coming from here, and I think the Kawada’s mother is merely looking for a scapegoat, and she’s lucky that one seems to have materialised.
Finally, I will leave you with a blog entry from Miss Kawada which was made on May 12th 2008, exactly 2 weeks before she committed suicide. It should be noted that following her suicide, all blog entries on her site from December 2006 onwards were deleted. The blog entry read:
“母の日に私は悪魔になってしまいました。もともとそうだったのかもしれません。産んでくれた母に、生きている意味を聞いてしまいました。母の涙が 私の涙がとまりません。母の涙が耳の奥で響いているのです”
Now I know many of you can’t read Japanese, so an English translation would read something like:
“On Mothers’ Day, I became a devil. Maybe I was one all along. To the mother who bore me, I asked what the point of living is. My mother’s tears and mine would not stop. My mother’s tears are echoing deep in my ears.”
Whatever was meant in that pretty chilling entry, it could put a new light on things. As always, these are just my thoughts on the subject.
or Discuss this Article
Think you’re putting too much on a Foreign/Japan tilt into this one. The mother is looking for an outlet for her emotion, Mr Taylor seems to be it. What she is suggesting is that if there were any signs, and she believes there might have been, then Taylor should have said something. Like you said it wouldn’t have been a signed confession, more like something that wasn’t quite “normal”. By not attending the funeral as well (no indication he did), then that also reflects negatively and can add to any ill feeling the mother is having.
It may be an unfair assumption and speaking to the media doesn’t help but removing the foreign/japan slant the behaviour of the mother doesn’t seem out of the ordinary (haven’t seen the article in question though). If anything the last few paragraphs might suggest the mother is feeling some guilt herself if the diary entry is true.
Your suicide comment was a little of the mark, the majority of depression/mental ill health suicides are “cries for help” so to speak. The final step to escape whatever problems they have, given the chance they would not pick that option. Unfortunately, as you mentioned in the previous article on Kawada, there is little support structure in place for mental ill health in Japan.
nade - Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts on this subject. I don’t think the mother’s behaviour is so out of the ordinary; she may feel some guilt and so wants to put the blame on another party in order that she doesn’t feel so much guilt. And Taylor made a suitable scapegoat.
Please keep checking back over the weekend, as I have some more interesting (and exclusive) information about this story. It will provide some facts and give a lot of meat around the story’s bones.
To say that people did not know Ako in the United States Is rediculous to me, perhaps someone did not do their homework completely. Ako lived in Michigan for a while, and even came back to visit. Maybe not all of the United States knew or even heard of her, but there are many who have. I KNEW HER SHE WAS MY FRIEND>
But she is primarily a domestic celebrity is what I am getting at. Let’s take Katie Couric for example. Pretty well known as CBS news anchor. If I go and ask if Japanese people know here, I’m going to get a bunch of blank faces and “dare?” being asked to me. So I would say that people in Japan do not know of her. Now, maybe Katie Couric had a friend in high school who was Japanese and who now lives back in Japan would say “Well I know her, so she’s not unknown”.
Similarly, if you walked around Michigan asking random people on the street what they thought of Ako Kawada, you would get a similarly confused response as to who she is on the whole.
So Rachel, what did you make of the story?
First off I do understand your respose very well and may have jumped the gun, but I’m feeling a little sensitive to the whole thing still and want people to know that she touched many people’s lives not just mine here.
Well, honestly I’ve been looking for more info, so the article for me has shed some light. In the last conversations Ako and I had she did mention the American man. I’m just looking for some insight.
Rachel - fair enough. I understand the sadness at your loss and would not try to belittle the impact Miss Kawada had on anyone around her. Am glad this article and the follow-up one I posted have managed to shed some light on things.
If anything gets mentioned in the Japanese media (although articles in the Shukan Post need to be taken with a small mine’s worth of salt), then I’ll report it here. Probably alongside my usual cynical critique of the story.
Thanks for taking the time to visit my site and make comments.