MUSIC
April 3, 2017
Steady fall in
suicides offers
glimmer of
hope in Japan
Continued from page 4
bad news.
The number of suicides
in Japan jumped sharply in
1998 to more than 30,000
and remained at that very
elevated level for more
than a decade. It was a year
when Japan’s economy fell
into recession, and bank-
ruptcies and unemploy-
ment soared. The suicide
rate rose to about 26 per
100,000 people.
The only silver lining
was that suicides didn’t
increase again after a deep
recession in 2008-2009.
Then in 2010, the decline
started and has been
steady ever since, bringing
the number back to
pre-1998 levels.
A closer look at the data
shows that the main fac-
tors driving both the rise to
more than 30,000 and the
drop back to close to 20,000
were health issues and
financial problems. The
decline has been the
sharpest for people be-
tween 50 and 59 years old.
Experts say the steps
taken since 2006 have been
effective in addressing the
socio-economic problems
common among middle-
aged men. Prevention
efforts are shifting their
focus to the elderly and
young, whose suicide rates
have not come down as
much.
Even with the decline,
Japan’s suicide rate of 17.3
per 100,000 people in 2016
remains high compared to
most other countries. The
U.S. suicide rate is around
13 per 100,000, and the
United Kingdom is under
10.
Shimizu said Japan
should aim to get the
number of suicides down to
between 14,000 and 15,000
per year.
The still-high suicide
rate means Japan is a
difficult place to live, a
society that is not kind to
troubled people, said Dr.
Yutaka Motohashi, head of
the
government-funded
Japan Support Center for
Suicide Countermeasures.
“Suicide prevention is
not a job for experts and
special people supporting
the cause, but it’s for
everyone,” he said. “We can
be a little kinder and try to
reach out to others.”
BUY YOUR
TICKET!
The Asian Reporter
Foundation’s
19th Annual
Scholarship &
Awards banquet
will be held
April 20, 2017.
To obtain a ticket
order from, visit
<www.arfoundation.net>.
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 9
First Afghan women’s orchestra tries to change attitudes
By Karim Sharifi and Rahim Faiez
The Associated Press
ABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s
first — and only — all-female sym-
phony is trying to change attitudes in a
deeply conservative country where many see
music as immoral, especially for women.
The symphony’s two conductors show how
difficult that can be, but also how satisfying
success is.
One of them, Negin Khpolwak, was support-
ed by her father when she joined the Afghani-
stan National Institute of Music and then
became part of its girls’ orchestra, called Zohra.
But the rest of her family was deeply against it.
Her uncles cut off ties with her father.
“They told him he is not their brother
anymore,” said Khpolwak, now 20. “Even my
grandmother disowned my father.”
Khpolwak had learned about the music
institute at the orphanage in Kabul where she
spent most of her life. Her father sent her to the
orphanage because he was afraid for her safety
in their home province of Kunar in eastern
Afghanistan, an area where Taliban militants
are active.
The institute is one of the only schools in
Afghanistan where girls and boys share class-
rooms, and it draws its students from the ranks
of orphanages and street children, giving them
a chance at a new life. Khpolwak studied piano
and drums before becoming the orchestra’s
conductor.
More than 30 girls between 12 and 20 years
K
ORCHESTRATING ATTITUDES. Orchestra conductor Negin Khpolwak, center, rehearses with Afghanistan’s first
all-female symphony in Kabul. The musicians are trying to change attitudes in a deeply conservative country where many
see music as immoral, especially for women. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
old play in Zohra, which is named after a
goddess of music in Persian literature. In
January, the orchestra, which performs
traditional Afghan and western classical music,
had its first international tour, appearing at the
World Economic Forum in Davos and four other
cities in Switzerland and Germany.
“The formation of the orchestra is aimed at
sending a positive message to the community, to
send a positive message to the girls, to
encourage families and girls to join the music
scene of the country,” said Ahmad Naser
Sarmast, the institute’s founder and director.
Sarmast has experienced firsthand the
militants’ hatred of music. In 2014, a Taliban
suicide bomber blew himself up at a concert
Sarmast was attending. He was wounded and a
German man in the audience died.
The Zohra orchestra was created in 2014
when one of the institute’s students, a girl
named Meena, asked Sarmast if there could be
a group where girls could play together.
Sarmast leapt at the idea.
Since then, Meena has disappeared. Last
year, the seventh grader told the school she had
to attend her sister’s wedding in her family’s
village in eastern Nangarhar province. She
never returned, a sign of how tenuous people’s
situation is in a country where war rages,
communications are poor, and poverty is rife.
Sarmast said the school has not been in contact
with her, but he’s hopeful she’ll return to the
school and Zohra.
The orchestra’s other conductor, 18-year-old
Zarifa Adiba, faced resistance from her family
Continued on page 14
Find where you belong.
We’ll get you there by listening, learning and finding the loan
that helps you achieve your home ownership dreams.
bannerbank.com/home-loans