Great news from Japan

[Malone]

At last, a happy news item:

BBC News - Concern as Japans 2014 birth rate falls to record low

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by Article

Various reasons have been cited for the population decline, including: The rising cost of childbirth and child-raising The increasing number of women in the workforce The later average age of marriage The increasing number of unmarried people Changes in the housing environment and in social customs

While all of these factors undoubtedly make for lengthier hand-wringing articles, the truth is that the pull-out method is entirely the cause of these figures.

Once someone didn't pull out and he was forced to become a farmer in Tohoku after going on the run to dodge child support payments. After this happened in 1998, the entire country adopted the pull-out method. If someone mentions not pulling out, the entire office will begin to subtly ostracize them.

[Justin Isis]

The キャラ弁鬱 or "character lunch despair" factor also comes into account. This is defined roughly as a generalized spiritual malaise or indifference/nausea that arises in young women when considering the thought of having to make aesthetically pleasing boxed lunches for possible future children (for example, splitting a miniature hot dog so that it resembles an octopus, or putting swirls of ketchup on an omelette so that it looks like a face). Japanese children are known for having almost impossibly high standards when it comes to both the nutritional balance and spatial arrangement of food in their boxed lunches, and are known to cry or in some cases attempt suicide if their lunches are deemed to be of an inferior aesthetic standard to those of their peers.

A recent study showed that 47% of unmarried women polled and 53% of married women without children couldn't work up the motivation to do anything other than make a peanut butter sandwich and put it in a paper bag, due to extreme spiritual malaise and the arguably untranslatable concept of 超めんどい ("too much trouble").

"Sloppy Lunches" is a pejorative term that senior Liberal Democratic Party members have been known to throw around when discussing the phenomenon, and its impact on morning after pill use.

[ramonoski]

Justin, I get the impression that at this rate you'll end up publishing your own non-fiction philosophical treatise, Pulling-Out Against the Human Race or somesuch.

"If the current trend continues, the population could decrease by 30 million to a mere 97 million by 2050 the government warns."

wow, that's a scary thought.

For some reason this brings back a childhood memory. One night I went out behind the garage where we kept our trash so I could take it out to the curb for pick-up the following morning. Much to my disgust, I found that the trash bags were crawling with maggots. I couldn't tell how many maggots. I just knew that they were disgusting and that there were far too many of them.
The End.

Perhaps Japan should look to China for guidance. They have never had a problem with breeding. Quite the opposite, in fact. Maybe its that whole feng shui lunchbox thing.