2011 Youth In Asia Passage

RAFFLES INSTITUTION
2011 YEAR 6 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION

GENERAL PAPER
PAPER 2
8806/02

Wednesday 31 August 2011 1 hour 30 minutes

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INSERT

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

This insert contains the passage for Paper 2.

This question paper consists of 3 printed pages, including this page.
Hannah Beech discusses the challenges facing youth in contemporary Japan.

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As Japan has floundered for two decades since its economic bubble burst — a post-industrial, high-tech society that had resigned itself to a slow, inexorable decline after the boom years of the 1980s — its young people have languished. The over-indulged and underemployed cohort has given rise to a dictionary's worth of sociological neologisms: freeters, young Japanese who choose part-time, dead-end, low-paid work instead of striving for more fulfilling careers; hikikomori, anxious youth who have completely withdrawn from society, even locking themselves in their bedrooms for years at a time; herbivores, grazing, passive young men who care more about their looks than their careers; and parasite singles, young adults who, even if they have good jobs, live at home to avoid paying rent and rely on their parents for food and laundry so they can use their disposable income for frivolous purchases.

But as their nation tries to cope with the costliest