Musuta Kusaka's Everyday Journey with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Japan

My family and I went to an event called Diversity Park 2022 in Shinjuku
. It was incredibly fun.

There were many attractions that made us feel the diversity, but there was a lot more to it than that.
I’ll write down what my family participated in and enjoyed in a menu-like format.
・Romancecar driver on a handbike
・Handbike test ride experience
・Wheelchair VR circuit
・Wheelchair racer test ride
・Skiing on real snow x 2
・Romancecar driver’s seat VR experience x 2
・Slack-in experience
・Making your own original badge
・Nail art
・Western astrology and spiritual tarot
・Performance by NPO SUPLIFE
・Magic show by one-armed magician HAKU
・Super authentic Caipirinha (alcohol) from a shop called Serious Caipirinha
・Authentic sausages wrapped in buckwheat crepes from a shop called Kreutzer
・Vietnamese meatballs from Nikken Sogyo
・Shinjuku local beer “Shinjuku Pale Ale” from YYG BREWING
・Hot dogs from Cafe BUNBUN
・Fluffy shaved ice from a luckyfood company
.

We had lots of fun, ate and drank!

It was such a great experience that I’m going to write about it here , focusing mainly on the diversity content .
If it is held again next year, it would be a great idea for a family outing!

Nishi-Shinjuku on a clear autumn day. A different space appears in the office district. It’s perfect for the diverse city of Shinjuku!

Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo. The event venue was Shinjuku Central Park, located right after getting off the Oedo Line subway’s “Tocho-mae” station.

As soon as you exit the station, you’ll know that
it’s happening there
, as it’s a very grand setting. The turnout was excellent.
It’s safe to say it was a huge success.
My daughter, seeing it, also made a dash for it.

Flags like these were hanging all over the place.

All around the venue, people were mass-producing and releasing soap bubbles.
“Wow!”
“Wow!”
Families cheered every time.

They stood out against the deep blue autumn sky.
This alone was out of the ordinary.
The rainbow colors of the soap bubbles seemed to symbolize this event.

The event was divided into three areas, and this was one of them, the main zone.

A lush, open space between the buildings. A spacious court.
It feels so good! It’s so refreshing!
In fact, there were always a lot of people there enjoying it.

A spacious space where you can experience authentic parasports. The instructors are kind and polite so that even beginners can enjoy themselves.

This is the wheelchair tennis trial court. Many people were participating.
It looked like a lot of fun.
It was a pretty hard sport, and it was hard to operate the wheelchair.
It seems to be a bit difficult for small children, as I had the impression that there were mostly junior high school students and above when I went.

This is wheelchair basketball.
Basketball players were giving them a thorough lesson.
Of course, there were some who looked like wheelchair basketball players.

Because participants are allowed to control their wheelchairs with both hands, there were many elementary school students participating.
In fact, when I saw it, it was full of kids.
And they were running around, controlling their wheelchairs incredibly well.

In wheelchair basketball, you have to throw the ball using the strength of your upper body (or even just your arms)
and make a shot.
“No way!”
Everyone seemed to be having fun trying it out.

A look at the boccia trial court.
What was surprising was the number of young people participating. High school and university students, perhaps.
Both the participants and the instructors were young.
(I guess I shouldn’t say “surprising” though.)

If blonde young people start playing it,
it won’t be long before it joins the ranks of major sports! This is it!

It goes without saying that it is these curious and sensitive young people who will shape the future of universal sports.
This was a scene that symbolized the event.

That’s what I went there for! The experience of skiing on real snow!

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t been able to take my daughter on many trips. Sorry.
I lied.
I’ve never taken her on a trip.

“You can experience skiing on real snow. For free. And it’s in Shinjuku!” I
thought there was no way I wasn’t going to go, so I participated in this event, and
it was a huge success.

The instructor was polite and supported us well.
My daughter also seemed to enjoy it.
“I want to ski again
. “
It looks like our first trip will be to a snowy mountain.

After adolescence, when I was not sophisticated at all, I have a feeling that the day when I can make my daughter and I “Take me skiing 2022” come true is not far away.

There is a wide range of ski sizes available, including children’s sizes.
The skis are so short! When I asked someone at the venue,
“When did skis become so short?” , they replied, “There are no skis longer than a person’s height anymore.”

It seems that you can also try out wheelchair skiing at this experience venue.
There are machines prepared for you.

These are wheelchair skis made of a single board.
How do you ride them? And not just that, how do you ski them?
What kind of training does it take to be able to do that?
Why did this machine need to be so sophisticated?
Watching competitive wheelchair skis while feeling the snow close by was a mysterious vehicle that far exceeded imagination.

Wheelchair experience. Pedalling in both VR and reality!

Another attraction we were looking forward to was this.
It is an attraction that connects VR and a wheelchair, and allows you to have fun experiencing a wheelchair.

There is a game on a certain game console that uses AR technology to make the room look like a course and lets you run a radio-controlled car with a camera, and this is an application of that.
Let’s control a radio-controlled car with a wheelchair and run it on a real course! It’s something that no child can’t have fun with.

This is the radio-controlled car with a camera. It rolls around with aplomb.

And this is the actual course. The cars are driven along the guide.
From the sidelines, it just looks like a radio-controlled car race.

Here is the screen my daughter was looking at.
When you push the wheelchair, the character on the screen also goes full throttle.
It runs through the actual course.
VR that lets you become the character, AR synthesis (mushrooms and the like appear), and the weight of pushing the wheelchair.

I was so excited that I was pushing my wheelchair like crazy.
It was a unique and exciting experience that could only be had here.

So ,
as a parent, I naturally wanted my child to experience the real thing. What
was great about this event was that it offered both an entry point for parasports and a full-scale experience.

This is it.

It’s a wheelchair racing machine. They actually let me run it on the premises.

It’s heavy when you actually run it!
There’s a big difference between VR, where you just pedal on rollers, and running on the road with your weight on it.
Even this is modified to make it easier for amateurs to sit on.
I tried it out, but I could only go up to about 10km/h. I heard
that athletes can reach speeds of 30km/h.
It was crazy in every way.

The brakes are only on the front wheels, so you have to stretch your arms out to stop the bike.

My daughter said
it was scary
.

Yes. It’s faster than I thought it would be.
Or rather, it feels really fast.

Not all wheelchair users ride such high-speed machines (obviously).
But I didn’t want them to see it as something to be sorry for or difficult. First of all, we should

respect people who walk in a different way than we do.
I wanted them to know that, but it seems that it was a pretty tough experience.

You can also try out a hand bike. Pedalling hard, it rides smoothly. It’s exhilarating!

The first thing I saw was a handbike, a bicycle-type wheelchair that you pedal with your arms.

If a racing wheelchair is a “machine,” then this one could be called a “mecha.”
The cockpit-like feel makes it hard not to get excited!

When I, an adult, tried riding in it, it looked like this from the driver’s seat. Oh, yeah
… It’s narrow. My feet get in the way. Oh, I see.
It’s not necessarily for people with thick feet to ride in it.
Or rather, there’s a chance that people without feet could ride in it.
After all, it’s good to try on other people’s shoes.

So. When you pedal the hand bike, it generates electricity.
The electricity generated makes a Plarail-like Romance Car move.
The more I pedaled, the better it ran.
I found myself mindlessly pedaling away . The person at the booth praised me, saying,
“You’re good, Dad!” , and I came back to my senses. It was that much fun!

Of course, I was able to actually ride it and ride it.
It was a very smooth ride.
Because it is a tricycle, there is no need to worry about falling over.

My daughter completed the five weeks in no time.
“Hmm, (my) bike is fine
.” That
‘s good and honest!

A short break. I was happy because I wasn’t expecting much. Plenty of food and drinks (or rather alcohol)

I didn’t have high expectations, or rather, I didn’t have any expectations at all, when it came to food and drink.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t really care that much about it.

But hey, it was quite fulfilling.

This was especially delicious. It was a Caipirinha.
It was a very authentic and strong cocktail.
It had a refreshing aroma and was easy to drink. But don’t be careless. It had a high alcohol content.
By the time you realize it, you’re full. My wife

and I shared a glass, and it was quite filling.
Actually, it’s been a while since I shared a drink with my wife.
That alone was a benefit of this event. Thank you.

There were many food stalls, including food trucks and booths.

The buckwheat crepe wrapped around authentic sausages was so delicious. I ate two. Buckwheat crepes have a sweet aroma. Vietnamese

meatballs. Even though they’re called meatballs, they’re a mix of pork, shrimp, and other ingredients. The ethnic flavor was amazing. Thank you for the two bottles.

Shinjuku’s local beer “SHINJUKU Pale Ale” from YYG BREWING.
What! There’s local beer in Shinjuku! So, of course I had a drink.
It had a floral aroma and a light mouthfeel, and was very easy to drink.

They also
enjoyed hot dogs, fluffy shaved ice and other delicious treats, revealing that they were a greedy family.

It’s not just sports. There’s also a wide range of entertainment content.

This was an unexpected and addictive attraction.
It was an experience that allowed you to experience, in VR, what the Romancecar driver sees from the window. This
was the Odakyu Electric Railways booth.
My daughter kept screaming,
“Amazing!”
“Scary!”
“Ahhh! It’s dangerous!”

I wondered what I was looking at, and when I looked into the VR headset, it
looked like this.
Wow, this is impressive!
It’s no wonder that a 5-year-old was screaming and getting excited.

This is a performance by an NPO called SUPLIFE. They are
working to connect children with and without disabilities through entertainment such as singing and dancing.
On this day, children with and without Down’s syndrome danced to Miho’s song. The performance was great. Some children even jumped

on stage to sing and dance.
Maybe it was because of the alcohol. I felt a little teary-eyed. It seems that an event called ” Buddy Walk Tokyo
” will be held in Yoyogi, Tokyo in March next year . I’ll go and see it.

That day, my daughter first asked
“Dad, let me ride on your shoulders” and saw this magician’s magic. HAKU is a one-armed magician . He really doesn’t have a right arm. But his magic is amazing!

Children are very strict, so they are only interested in whether the magic is impressive or not, regardless of skill.
But my daughter was completely surprised when she saw
“Ah! I’ve become Mario! It’s Mario!” That’s what’s so great about HAKU. Artists who can rock children are truly amazing.

I wondered why.
This event was a nail experience.
Naturally, my precocious daughter ran to the booth and lined up.

Apparently, one of the nail artists was a wheelchair user,
and perhaps that was why she chose to participate in this event.

The manicurist was also very kind to my little daughter.
My daughter was staring intently at the manicurist and her fingertips.
This kind of excitement is very important.
My wife was next to her and kept asking, “Isn’t this really expensive? Isn’t it expensive?”, trying to make her appreciate the price.

I felt like I saw the depth of this event.
It’s not just about sports. It’s okay to have cultural attractions too!
The breadth of the scope allows for that.
It’s a really great event.

So, look at this.
The Diversity Park logo. It was made for this purpose.
It’s cute, isn’t it?
My daughter loves it.
Even at home, she still lives with it, protecting the index finger on her right hand.

We also created original badges.

Although it is not related to the event,
this one also seems to have been drawn with the Diversity Park logo.
However, the word “LEGO” is written on it…
Misunderstandings are also fun.

We visited many other booths and had a great time.
(My wife especially liked the Western Astrology & Spiritual Tarot, which she said was pretty accurate in just 15 minutes. It was amazing.)

Not only that, there were many things I couldn’t do due to lack of time
(especially the black soccer experience and canoeing…what a shame).

If the event is held again next year, I would like to invite my daughter’s friends as well.

It was such a great event. I sincerely hope that it will be held again in the future!
Shinjuku is great after all.

On the way home

This diversity-themed event
was bright, sparkly, fun and futuristic.

However, this event was held in Nishi-Shinjuku,
an area that was once one of the locations for the forced eviction of homeless people.
There are probably still people living in this park or on the streets. There

were people who looked like them on the sidewalk just a few dozen meters from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to Central Park.
“Dad, what are those people doing?”
“What’s that smell?”
If my daughter had asked me that, how would I have responded?
There’s no doubt that I unconsciously took my daughter out.

In the name of diversity, there are always people who are bright, sparkling, and
cannot be seen from the perspective of hope alone.
As a former resident of Nishi-Shinjuku, I thought that we should not forget these people either.

By the time I come back here next year, I want to be able to explain it to my daughter properly.
A correct and honest answer. Something that doesn’t sound like I’m cutting anyone off.
I headed home feeling like I had some homework to do as a parent.

That’s it. Thank you for reading to the end.