Journal ArticleYoshiko wouldn't reveal her son's name, because of fears that her neighbors in a suburb of Tokyo might find out. Three years ago, a classmate taunted her seventeen-year-old son with anonymous hate letters and abusive graffiti about him in the schoolyard. After that, he went into the family's kitchen, shut the door, and refused to leave and he hasn't left the room since then or allowed anyone in. The family eventually decided to build a new kitchen and Yoshiko takes meals to her son's door three times a day. There is a toilet next to the kitchen, but the boy has bathed only twice each year (adapted from a story by Phil Rees, BBC News, Sunday, October 20, 2002)
