(A reader asked about "宅" in Fanba, the translation Q&A section, here comes the answer from Zhang Xin, a columnist from Chinadaily website.)

I’ve seen a good equivalent in English for people who never leave their rooms, and they’re called, quietly aptly of course, shut-ins - people who shut themselves indoors all the time - either to play computer games, watching videos or due to some psychological problems.

And here’s an example, from the New York Times, about young Japanese shut-ins (Shutting Themselves In, January 15, 2006):

When he finally left his room one April afternoon last year, he had spent half of his life as a shut-in. Like Takeshi and Shuichi, Y.S. suffered from a problem known in Japan as hikikomori, which translates as "withdrawal" and refers to a person sequestered in his room for six months or longer with no social life beyond his home. (The word is a noun that describes both the problem and the person suffering from it and is also an adjective, like "alcoholic.") Some hikikomori do occasionally emerge from their rooms for meals with their parents, late-night runs to convenience stores or, in Takeshi's case, once-a-month trips to buy CD's. And though female hikikomori exist and may be undercounted, experts estimate that about 80 percent of the hikikomori are male, some as young as 13 or 14 and some who live in their rooms for 15 years or more.

Go to Zhang Xin's column

About the author

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

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