A Society Without Ties

Name: A Society Without Ties
ISBN: 9787532764266

NHK节目组 / 高培明Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaJun 2018

4.2

Word count: 126K words
Chapters: 17
ISBN: 9787532764266

Report an error Find this book

Summary

Grief Society is a collection of work by veteran NHK television reporters. The interview theme is "lonely deaths in modern society." Advanced age, low birth rates, unemployment, non-marriage, and urbanization have created a group of people who, while alive, have no one to contact them; they have no work, no spouse, no children, and do not return to their hometowns. When they die, no one knows; even if discovered, no one claims their bodies, and often even their names are unknown. Their lives are summed up in a few words on a notice seeking claimants for their remains, and they are called "unconnected deaths"; the society they live in will gradually change from a "connected society" into a "grief society." In Japan, 32,000 people each year embark on the path of "unconnected death." Among them are salaried workers who never once arrived late or took leave in 20 years at the company but became street vagrants overnight; solo travelers; women who never married their whole lives; empty-nest elderly whose children live far away; and young people who make friends only online. Social ties are becoming increasingly fragile, and even 30- to 40-year-olds in ordinary families feel the shadow of dying alone. The NHK special program production team compiled the reporters' actual interview notes into this book after the program aired, presenting before readers the tragic final scenes of people in contemporary society who receive no attention, and calling for social vigilance and reflection. Because only later, when the identities of these unconnected deaths gradually became clear, did we realize that they had almost all once been people like us.

Editor's review

Grief Society is not a work of fiction but a weighty social investigation report, produced rigorously by a team of veteran NHK television reporters after in-depth interviews. It calmly records a reality we are unwilling to face but that is growing more common: as traditional family, community, and workplace ties gradually disintegrate, more and more people fall into isolation with "no social ties, no blood ties, no place ties" and ultimately die alone, becoming unclaimed "unconnected deaths." The book's value goes far beyond revealing the phenomenon; through individual, finely observed life stories, it forces readers to examine structural problems in modern society—how high mobility, individualization, and population aging have quietly reshaped relationships among people. In the editor's view, the reading experience of this book is shocking and sobering. It offers no simple solutions, but its profound record is itself a rescue of society's collective memory and a concern for the future possibilities of every individual. It reminds us that while pursuing efficiency and development, maintaining the social "ties" that bind people is profoundly important.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers deeply concerned with social issues and the conditions of modern life
People engaged in or studying sociology, social work, public policy, or related fields
Urban readers who feel socially isolated and worry about their own future care in old age
Readers who enjoy documentary literature and want to understand macro social change through individual cases

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking light entertainment or purely literary reading
Readers expecting the book to provide clear, immediately actionable solutions

Reading tips

Read with a calm but attentive mindset. The cases may evoke a sense of heaviness, but that very realism is the source of the book's power.
You may compare and reflect in light of your own social and cultural environment. The Japanese phenomena in the book have their particularities, but they also reflect universal dilemmas of modernization.
After reading, consider discussing the topic with family and friends. The book itself is an occasion to foster connection and reflect on the meaning of "ties."

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

版权信息
序言
引子 “无依无靠者”与日俱增的日本
第一章追踪“在途死亡者”
[专栏] 悄然普及的“直送火葬”
第二章日趋脆弱的家庭纽带
第三章单身时代
[专栏] 靠儿老人
第四章职场缘断绝之后
第五章吟唱“单身情歌”的女人
[专栏] 共同坟墓
第六章年轻群体中蔓延的“无缘死”恐惧
[专栏] 年富力强的“家里蹲
第七章为了纽带的恢复
第八章消失的高龄者
第九章从“无缘社会”走向“结缘社会”
代结语

FAQ

Is the content of this book too pessimistic and oppressive?

The book's tone is documentary and calm. It confronts severe social problems directly and will indeed be shocking, but its purpose is not to portray despair. By revealing problems, it aims to awaken social attention and reflection; in essence, it is a constructive warning.

Is this the content of an NHK television program? How does it differ from the program?

The book is based on interviews from NHK's television documentary program of the same name, Grief Society, but it has been expanded into a deeper, more systematic written account. The book offers richer detail, fuller background, and longer follow-up than the television program, with more information and more profound reflection.

What special significance does this book have for Chinese readers?

Despite different national conditions, Chinese society is also undergoing rapid urbanization, population mobility, changes in family structure, and population aging. The book's discussion of weakening ties between individuals and communities has forward-looking reference value and can help us observe and consider similar challenges earlier.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

NHK节目组 Author

The NHK Program Team is a program-production unit of Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) that publishes under a collective byline. Public information is limited, and no systematic record of its specific members or founding history is available. Judging from the three works in the catalog, the team focuses on documentary writing about social realities in Japan, addressing issues such as solitary death, poverty, and family breakdown; its works are classified under social science and documentary literature. "The Unrelated Society" (Muenshakai) is one of its representative outputs, and its works also appear in the Japanese field-observation special collection and the 2020 large boxed set of translated documentaries. Overall, drawing on television interviews and field investigations, the team presents the circumstances of marginalized groups in plain prose, offering Chinese readers relatively detailed first-hand material for understanding contemporary Japanese social problems and possessing a certain documentary and reading value.

高培明 Author

Public information about Gao Peiming is limited, and his writing and translation work centers mainly on Japanese society and historical subjects. Judging from the works in the collection, he has contributed to documentary compilations such as the special translation series Observations on Japan, and has also translated works on Japanese society and thought, including Unrelated Society and The Theory of Degradation, showing a sustained interest in contemporary Japanese social issues. At the same time, he has written historical works such as Three Kingdoms (Part Four: Liu Bei Enters Sichuan) and Three Kingdoms (Part Five: The Northern Expedition), retelling the Three Kingdoms story in accessible narrative form; titles such as Throw Away Your Books and Go into the Streets and Bubble reflect a broader range of literary and social observation. His works span social-science documentary writing, foreign literature, and prose, combining translation with popular writing.