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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Every year, tens of thousands of people in Japan go missing on purpose to get a second shot at life.</li><li>The South China Morning Post spoke to two men who have disappeared from their old lives.</li></ul><p>A slum in the Japanese port city of Osaka has a mysterious reputation — it's where people go when they don't want to be found. </p><p>The Kamagasaki slum is filled with "jouhatsu-sha," or "evaporated people," who upped and left their lives in other parts of Japan, a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-IOS_GK0T-GK1C&amp;mibextid=1YhcI9R&amp;v=170517199172082" target="_blank" rel="noopener">South China Morning Post</a> documentary released on March 19 revealed. </p><p>Many of the slum's residents are people who have wandered there and resettled from other places, the SCMP reported. These people have chosen to literally vanish from their lives elsewhere, cutting themselves off from family and friends to start anew. </p><p>In 2021, around 80,000 people were reported missing in Japan, per <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1035046/japan-missing-person-cases-number/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Statista</a>. Many of them chose to disappear because of debt, to escape their obligations and responsibilities, or just to press the reset button on their lives, per the SCMP. </p><p>One such "evaporated" person is Masashi Tanaka, 49, who said he chose to disappear after being abused by his mother. On the day the documentary was filmed, he had just been released from prison after serving time for drug charges. </p><p>He said that after he went to prison the first time, his mother told him: "You're already dead to me. Don't write to me again." Tanaka chose to go to Kamagasaki after that, where he lives alone.</p><p>Kamagasaki, also known as Airin Chiku, is an area in Osaka where people can get cheap accommodation and low-income jobs as day laborers. Hotels can be found at rates as low as $15 per night, and people stand at the side of the street hoping to get hired for odd jobs, per the SCMP.</p><p>The slum is Japan's largest "yoseba," a place where prospective employers can find day laborers, per <a href="https://www.hurights.or.jp/archives/focus/section3/2019/03/kamagasaki-renewing-an-urban-poor-community.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">human rights group Hurights Osaka</a>. A 2008 investigation by The Guardian estimated that there were around 25,000 people living in the slum. Tokyo, too, is home to a similar slum — <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/14/the-tokyo-neighbourhood-where-people-come-to-disappear" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sanya, where many day laborers live and hang around on the streets, waiting for work</a>. </p><p>Many people living in the Kamagasaki slum have changed their names to maintain their anonymity, per the SCMP. </p><p>And it is easy to maintain anonymity and hide in plain sight in Japan, per a report by the BBC in 2020. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200903-the-companies-that-help-people-vanish" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sociologist Hiroki Nakamori told the BBC</a> that because privacy is highly valued in Japan, missing people can withdraw money from ATMs without detection.</p><p>"Police will not intervene unless there's another reason, like a crime or an accident. All the family can do is pay a lot for a private detective. Or just wait. That's all," Nakamori told the BBC.</p><p>A man named Kodama, 64, told the SCMP that he ran away from home at the age of 27 with "very little money," just enough for a train ticket.</p><p>He had been laid off from his job, and traveled to Osaka where he was told that he would be able to find work. Kodama said he has not seen his family in over 35 years.</p><p>"If I went back, it would be awkward for everyone. So I'm going to leave and live on my own," Kodama told the SCMP.</p><p>He added: "I was sick of the world. But I didn't have the courage to die."</p>

Inside a slum that's become the Bermuda Triangle of Japan, where people go to disappear

<ul><li><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Guang Niu/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Luckily, we can change.</p></div><p></p></div></div><strong>In international tests, Chinese children consistently outperform Americans.</strong></li><li><strong>American Leonora Chu enrolled her young son in the Chinese public school system in Shanghai.</strong></li><li><strong>In her book about the experience, "Little Soldiers," she explores how culture influences this academic achievement gap.</strong></li><li><strong>It comes down to Chinese people displaying a psychological concept known as a "growth mindset" at school ... while Americans only display this mindset in sports.</strong></li></ul><p>For the most part, American children aren't great at math.</p><p>But Chinese children tend to be excellent.</p><p>Testing half a million students worldwide, the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/">Program for International Student Assessment</a> is one of the most widely cited measurements of global <keyword id="6355445" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="education">education</keyword>, and it's consistently found <a href="https://data.oecd.org/pisa/mathematics-performance-pisa.htm">Chinese students at the top of the academic pile</a> ... and Americans much nearer the bottom. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/on-the-world-stage-us-students-fall-behind/2016/12/05/610e1e10-b740-11e6-a677-b608fbb3aaf6_story.html?utm_term=.5096591dcefc">Some experts argue</a> that the PISA assessment, like any standardized tests, primarily measures a student's ability to take the test, not their knowledge, but hardly anyone disputes that the American education has some work to do when it comes to math. </p><p>In Leonora Chu's new book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MS13EO2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">"Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve," </a>she begins to unearth the cultural differences that lead to this gap - and it's not just about what happens at school.</p><p>Chu, a Chinese-American journalist raised by Chinese parents in Texas, moved to Shanghai with her American husband and toddler son in 2009. To immerse their son in the culture, she and her husband chose to enroll him in the Chinese public school system starting in preschool.</p><p>The differences she notices in her child's focus and discipline are dramatic, but she also notices cultural differences that influence how Chinese schools are run, and the reason its students test so well. Along with factors such as highly trained teachers and an emphasis on rote memorization before pursuing deeper understanding, the difference comes down to a belief that has begun slowly making its way across the US: Achievement is the result of hard work, not innate ability.</p><p>Chu explains this approach comes from "an intrinsic belief that anything is possible with hard work, with <em>chiku</em>, or 'eating bitter.' If there's a goal worth accomplishing, day-to-day life might be absolutely and miserably unpleasant for a spell," she writes. She continues:</p><p>Chu cites the research of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, author of "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-Success/dp/0345472322?tag=bisafetynet2-20">Mindset</a>," who is responsible for coining the terms <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-growth-mindset-leads-to-success-2014-8">"growth mindset" and "fixed mindset."</a> Chinese students are trained to have a growth mindset: If they aren't doing well, they'll work harder, and they'll be successful. American children tend to be trained to have a fixed mindset about academics: Their abilities are largely predetermined and static. If they aren't doing well, it's because they're not good at it. Oh well.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>SeventyFour/Shutterstock.com</span></p><p class="caption">American kids are taught to work hard on the field - but not in the classroom.</p></div><p></p></div></div>UCLA psychology professor James Stigler, said the American approach is problematic. Chu writes:</p><p>Stigler told Chu that because Chinese children are socialized "to put up with suffering and discomfort and all the things that are a really important part of learning," a Chinese teacher presenting students with a difficult problem can encourage them to work through it - and they will. </p><p>However, there's one place Americans display the growth mindset in spades: sports.</p><p>"It's all about getting better, getting better, working harder," Stigler told Chu. "In sports, we're okay with competition and struggle."</p><p>Plus, Chu writes, Americans are OK with being ranked on the football field or soccer pitch. Stigler told her that coming in ninth in an athletic competition doesn't cause a crisis of conscience for Americans - it just means they need to train harder, better, differently. "But in academics," he said, "you don't want to embarrass somebody by ranking them Number Thirty because 'It's not their fault.' In American academics, 'you either have it or you don't.'"</p><p>A growth mindset isn't all that foreign to American children - it just isn't applied in school.</p><p><em>"<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MS13EO2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Little Soldiers</a>" can be pre-ordered via Amazon. For the record, it's excellent and absolutely fascinating.</em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-mathematician-reveals-algorithms-make-justice-system-baised-worse-black-people-crime-police-2017-6">A Harvard mathematician reveals how algorithms are making police and the courts more biased</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Chinese children crush Americans in math thanks to a mindset that Americans only display in one place: sports

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Inside a slum that's become the Bermuda Triangle of Japan, where people go to disappear

Aditi Bharade

Chinese children crush Americans in math thanks to a mindset that Americans only display in one place: sports

Libby Kane

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