咱們平時說的“宅男、宅女”可能充其量就是周末假日不愛出門的人，但是在日本，有那么一群年輕人，他們因為某種原因把自己關在家里，可以幾個月甚至幾年都不出門。這樣的群體叫做“蟄居族”。

As many as a million young people in Japan are thought to remain holed up in their homes - sometimes for decades at a time. They had become "withdrawn" or hikikomori.

日本有多大100萬的年輕人窩在家中，有時一窩就是幾十年。他們這是成了自閉癥或“蟄居族”。

In Japan, hikikomori, a term that's also used to describe the young people who withdraw, is a word that everyone knows.

在日本，蟄居族（hikikomori）這個詞人盡皆知，該詞也用來形容那些脫離社會、有些自閉的年輕人。

They want to go out in the world, they want to make friends or lovers, but they can't.

他們想要出去融入外面的世界，想要交朋友或者談戀愛，但是他們做不到。

These young people were often from middle-class families, they were almost always male, and the average age for their withdrawal was 15.

這些年輕人通常都來自中產家庭，大部分都是男性，而且開始自閉的平均年齡為15歲。

Symptoms vary between patients. For some, violent outbursts alternate with infantile behavior such as pawing at the mother's body. Other patients might be obsessive, paranoid and depressed.

蟄居族的癥狀因人而異。一些人會交替出現暴力行為和幼稚行為，比如撫摸母親的身體。還有一些人可能會有強迫癥、偏執或抑郁癥。

The trigger for a boy retreating to his bedroom might be comparatively slight - poor grades or a broken heart, for example - but the withdrawal itself can become a source of trauma. And powerful social forces can conspire to keep him there.

促使一個男孩把自己關在房間里的原因可能并不嚴重——例如，成績不好或被人傷了心——但“蟄居”這個行為本身可以成為一個創傷來源。而強大的社會力量可能會火上澆油，讓他繼續閉門不出。

One such force is sekentei, a person's reputation in the community and the pressure he or she feels to impress others. The longer hikikomori remain apart from society, the more aware they become of their social failure. They lose whatever self-esteem and confidence they had and the prospect of leaving home becomes ever more terrifying.(Source: BBC)

“世間體”（sekentei）就是這樣的力量之一，指的是一個人在社會各界中的聲譽以及想要要給別人留下深刻印象的壓力。“蟄居族”遠離社會的時間越長，他們就越會意識到自己在社會中的失敗。他們失去了曾經擁有的自尊和自信，而走出家門的前景也變得更加可怕。

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（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

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