Why Korean parents choose to be locked up in jail cells

The only connection between each small room in the Happiness Factory and the outside world is the feeding hole on the door.

No mobile phones or laptops are allowed in the cells, which are no bigger than a shop cupboard and residents inside have only bare walls for company.

The residents may be wearing blue prison uniforms, but they are not prisoners—they come to the center of South Korea for the “confinement experience.”

Most people here have a child who is completely disconnected from society and have come to experience firsthand what it feels like to be disconnected from the world.

Reclusive young people like the children of these residents are known as hikikomori, a term coined in Japan in the 1990s to describe severe social withdrawal among teenagers and young adults.

Last year, a survey of 15,000 people aged 19 to 34 by South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare found that more than 5% of respondents were self-isolating.

If this is representative of South Korea’s wider population, that means about 540,000 people are in the same situation.

Since April, parents have been participating in a 13-week parent education program funded and run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including the Korea Youth Foundation and Blue Whale Rehabilitation Center.

The purpose of the program is to teach people how to communicate better with their children.

The program involves three days at a facility in Hongcheon County, Gangwon Province, where participants spend time in a room that replicates a solitary confinement cell.

Hopefully, quarantine will give parents a deeper understanding of their children.

Kim Young-hae’s son has isolated himself in his bedroom for three years.

But since being incarcerated for a period of time, Ms. Jin (pseudonym) has gained some understanding of the “emotional prison” of her 24-year-old self.

“I keep thinking about what I did wrong…it hurts to think about it,” the 50-year-old said.

“But when I started reflecting, I had some clarity.”

Ms. King said her son had always been talented and she and his father had high expectations for him.

But he was often sick, struggled to maintain friendships, and eventually developed an eating disorder that made school difficult.

When her son started college, he seemed to do well for one semester, but one day, he dropped out entirely.

It broke her heart to see him lock himself in his room and eat without caring about personal hygiene.

Although anxiety, difficulties with family and friends, and the disappointment of not being accepted into a top college may have affected her son, he was unwilling to talk to her about the real problems.

When Ms. Kim came to the Happiness Factory, she read notes written by other lonely young people.

“Reading those notes made me realize, ‘Ah, he’s protecting himself with silence because no one understands him,'” she said.

Park Han-sil (pseudonym) came here for her 26-year-old son, who cut off all contact with the outside world seven years ago.

After running away from home several times, he now rarely leaves his room.

Ms. Park took him to a counselor and to a doctor, but her son refused to take the mental health medications he was prescribed and became addicted to playing video games.

Although Ms. Park still has difficulty contacting her son, she has begun to use the isolation plan to better understand his feelings.

“I realized it was important to accept your child’s life without forcing him to accept a certain model,” she said.

Research from South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare shows that there are multiple factors that lead to isolation among young people.

According to the ministry’s survey of people aged 19 to 34, the most common reasons are:

• Difficulty finding a job (24.1%)
• Interpersonal problems (23.5%)
• Family problems (12.4%)
• Health problems (12.4%)

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and last year the government announced a five-year plan to address the problem.

Ministers have announced state funding for mental health checks for people aged 20 to 34 every two years.

In Japan, the first wave of self-isolation among young people in the 1990s led to middle-aged people relying on their aging parents.

Relying solely on pensions to support adult children has led some older people to fall into poverty and depression.

Jeong Go-woon, a professor in the Department of Sociology at Kyung Hee University, said South Korean society’s expectations of achieving major life milestones at a specific time have exacerbated young people’s anxiety, especially during a period of economic stagnation and low employment rates.

The idea that a child’s success is a parent’s success leads to a quagmire of isolation for the entire family.

Many parents view their children’s struggles as failures in their upbringing, leading to feelings of guilt.

“In Korea, parents often express their love and feelings through actual actions and roles rather than verbal expressions,” Professor Jung said.

“Parents working hard to provide school fees for their children is a classic example of Confucian culture that emphasizes responsibility.”

This cultural emphasis on hard work may reflect South Korea’s rapid economic growth in the second half of the 21st century, when it became one of the world’s major economies.

However, according to World Inequality Database, Wealth inequality in the country has worsened over the past three decades.

Jin Yulan, director of Blue Whale Rehabilitation Center, said the view that young people in self-isolation is a “family problem” means many parents also end up cutting themselves off from those around them.

Some people are so afraid of being judged that they cannot even talk about their situation with close family members.

“Their inability to bring the problem to light leads to the parents themselves becoming isolated,” Ms. King said.

“Typically, they stop attending family gatherings during the holidays.”

Parents who come to Happy Factory for help are still eagerly waiting for the day when their children can return to normal life.

Ms. Kim’s eyes filled with tears when asked what she would say to her son if he were released from quarantine.

“You’ve been through so much,” she said, her voice shaking.

“It’s difficult, isn’t it?

“I’ll be watching you.”

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can find sources of help at BBC Mobile.