At the foot of Mount Fuji, in the Chubu region of Japan, a lush and expansive forest named Aokigahara sits dauntingly. Local residents are told from an early age to avoid it altogether, as its sheer volume leaves little question that a curious youngster will be unable to find his or her way out of thickets that have become synonymous with a dark mythology.
Though the area has served as a respite for the peaceful elderly suicides of yore, today it has devolved into the country's ultimate destination of despondent citizens suffering under the pressures of Japan's notoriously driven and achievement-based culture. Aokigahara is now the site of 50 to 100 suicides each year.
Earlier this year, VBS contacted Azusa Hayono, a geologist who for more than 30 years has patrolled Aokigahara studying the land, serving as an environmental conservationist and stumbling upon the not infrequent dead body. A sweet, conscientious and demure man, it is strange to consider the amount of solitary carnage he has encountered. He's come to act as a sort of counselor to the many people he finds contemplating death along Aokigahara's pathways.
Read More:http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/02/vbs.suicide.forest/index.html
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