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

The Paralympics, which recently concluded, cannot be called a festival of sports for people with disabilities.

Of the 22 sports, only three have classes for people with intellectual disabilities: athletics, swimming, and table tennis. In the winter, this number drops to zero.

In other words, it would be more accurate to call the Paralympics a festival of sports for the “physically disabled.”

Well, it’s not like people with intellectual disabilities can’t participate, and if they have a combined physical disability and intellectual disability, they can participate. It’s confusing.

I only found out about this recently, when I happened to be spending summer vacation with some children with intellectual disabilities.

When we play together, many things happen. In fact, there are many things. Pretty words don’t work. The idea that we can understand each other by talking is just an empty theory.

But that’s why it became an unforgettable summer.

It could be a trip, a trip back home, or a cram school camp.
Have you ever met a girl by chance and become friends with her for just one summer? You felt that every little thing in common was fate. Believing that you would meet again next year, you waved goodbye.

I was reminded of that excitement again. I never expected that at this age, I would have memories that smell like summer grass.

M (11 years old)’s train experience

M, a fifth-grader, attends a local elementary school. He is taking separate programs for Japanese and math, and uses a day care center after school and on weekends.

M expressed his joy with his whole body. He shook his whole body and sang at full volume. I shouldn’t say it, but he was cute like a cicada.

“This is my first time riding a train! It’s so exciting!” He headbanged on the platform of an unmanned station. M’s roar echoed through the mountains.

That’s right. M and I went out to play on the train. It was a blue two-car train. It was a big adventure of just one stop.
Even though we were in a car-oriented area, the fact that he had never ridden a train until he was 11 years old shows how worried his parents must have been.

I thought I could make as much noise as I wanted. Just one kid, and that too for just one stop on the train, gets me excited. If anyone frowns at me, I want to go beyond frowning and give them a dirty look. Fortunately, I have a decent build. My wife says, “You’ve got a body like a Showa-era wrestler.” If I don’t use it as a shield here, where else will I use it? A wrestler’s worth is all about withstanding attacks.

But that was not to be the case. As soon as M got on, he looked around the train, and when he caught sight of a certain woman, he walked over to her.

Then he pointed to an empty seat and said, “You can sit here!” M! That woman was probably not even an old lady yet! M was innocently trying to cross the 38th parallel between the old lady and the old lady again. It was a situation that could not be avoided due to his build. I was on edge. “Oh. Thank you very much. What a kind girl.” Safe!!!

I was grateful for the lady’s kindness. This is what M wanted to do. Offering his seat to an elderly person. Behaving like an adult. Surely M had not thought of raising his voice inside the train. When we got off the train. M’s hands were hot as we held hands. I put the elastic band of my straw hat back around M’s chin.

High-five with O (6 years old)

O is 6 years old, but he barely speaks a word. He utters a few words here and there. Otherwise, it’s more like babbling. He’s still in diapers. He goes to a special needs school, not an elementary school.

He eats well, sleeps well, and runs well. He uses the full range of motion of his still short arms and legs, and runs at the speed of a Choro-Q.

That day, he had gone to a local temple on some business.
O pried open the sliding door to the main hall, threw off his sandals, and made a bullet-like dash. He slipped through the gaps in the Buddhist altar fittings and began running laps at the speed of a running home run. “It’s dangerous! Don’t run!” His father, who was with him, tried to stop him, but the words echoed in vain off the ceiling.

The hall was filled with statues of Buddha and wooden figures of monks. Every hand gesture was with the palm facing in the direction of the crowd, as if to say,
“Hey.” There was no way O could miss that. He shifted down from fourth to first gear and began high-fiving each and every person. He did it lightly, politely, and friendly. He even had the air of a home run hitter returning to the bench.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” the old monk said to O’s father, who was running after him in a hurry. “Hya-ha. Be careful not to fall. Buddha won’t get angry over something like that. He’ll be happy if you give him a high-five. No kids will come. Here, abotabi.” Abotabi means, “Eat a bun.” O took the abo held out to him by a driftwood-like arm and gobbled it down with the speed of a bread-eating contest.

The moment when my father and I had finished our errands and were praying to Buddha.

O stopped dead in his tracks. He sat down in his father’s seiza position, clasped his small hands together, and closed his eyes. It was

the first silence he’d experienced since coming to the temple. The sound of the electric fan and O’s breathing created a steady rhythm.

O sat upright on his own, even putting his hands together.
His father couldn’t believe it. “Wow!” he said, turning to me with a smile that was just like O’s.

But I was thinking of something else. Touching the Buddha’s palm. Putting my hands together. Maybe they are actually related. I wonder if O realizes that he is touching the essence of Buddhism. No way. But he is a holy man.

Leaving the main hall behind, we were enveloped in the summer light and heat. It was hard on my pupils, which were starting to get farsighted. O no longer ran, but begged his father to hold him and waved over his shoulder. Bye-bye to the Buddhas.

It looked like Amida Buddha was smiling and waving back.

Riddle by T (12 years old)

T just snatches things. Books, sweets, dolls. Before I can say “Lend me,” “Give it,” or “Let me use it,” his arms are outstretched and he keeps snatching them until I give up. When it comes to smartphones or game consoles, it develops into a deadly tug-of-war with the risk of breaking them. “Hey!” Mom yells, but he won’t let go. What’s more, he won’t give his things to anyone. “I’m not lending them to you. You’ll break them.” He doesn’t like being alone, but he monopolizes his toys. Kusakan, just watch over him. That was the way T played.

Because he’s always like that, he doesn’t seem to be doing well at the elementary school he goes to or at the day care center. Every time he goes up a grade, he loses friends. Even though it’s a branch school with only two classes.

Maybe his imagination is developing slowly. Or maybe he still has the possessiveness of a toddler. That’s what I thought at first, but it was wrong. As I listened to him, T said, “Because everyone does that.” He couldn’t put on a smile.

My child doesn’t realize that he is being bullied. His mother said that, but I’m sure that’s wrong.

Because he has an intellectual disability, he often can’t keep up with his friends’ pace. He is often overtaken, snatched away, or avoided.

T was just trying to survive in his own way. The reality is that it revolves around bullying. The rules of the society in which T lives. T has done nothing wrong, he hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s too much to be scolded like that.

So I made a suggestion to T. “Don’t stop the quiz! Let’s play a game.” There was no such game. All I saw was a brand new riddle book in T’s room.

The rules were simple. We would give each other riddles from this book. There was only one book, so we took turns. The goal was to see how long we could rally and improve our records. “Boring!” “Listen to the end .” If you get the answer wrong, you stop. And for “snatch,” you also made a mistake. That was the end of the record, and we had to start again from zero.

“The trick is to signal, ‘Can I borrow it?’ Like passing it in dodgeball.” “I’m not good at dodgeball.” “It’s okay. It’s not a ball, it’s a book. If someone takes my book roughly, I’ll be upset.” “That’s not something to get angry about,”
T said. I explained to him, “It’s not something to get angry about. It’s something to be upset about. Actually, if someone is being rough, it’s okay for T to get upset too.”
He just said, “Well, go along with it,” and cut the conversation short. Still with a feeling that it would be boring even if I listened to the end, the game began.

Winning or losing. Or something that someone has decided for the convenience of someone else, something that is good or bad. Rules aren’t there for such trivial things. And they certainly aren’t there for you to feel frustrated. Rules are there so that you can have fun with someone. Of course, you are a part of that. I wanted you to feel that. It’s like a parting gift from an uncle.

And so T showed off his hidden talent.

“Pan is Pan, but what kind of bread can’t be eaten?” “Sompo Japan!”
(A. Frying pan)
“What did the arrogant grasshopper do?” “He died!”
(A. Bragging)
“What is the biggest salty puddle on Earth?” “Tears!”
(A. The sea)
“What can move forward but never go backward?” “A loan!”
(A. Time)
The influence of his parents is strong. I burst out laughing, and Mum wrinkled her eyes and said, “That’s a comedy show.”

A bead of sweat under his nose. T was proud of his laughter. He shoved the book into my chest and said,
“I’ll pass! There are a lot of things I don’t understand, so give me something easy!” T also noticed that his head seemed to move a little differently than the other kids.
If there was one thing he hadn’t noticed, it was that the world he saw was a wonderful place. I wonder if our laughter helped T to realize something.

T never snatched the book until the end, and it was often me who stopped recording because I got the answer wrong.

Three children I met this summer. One of the reasons there is no class for intellectually disabled people in the Paralympics is that there was once someone who pretended to be intellectually disabled. Who could imitate those kids?

Of course, not all kids are like the three of them. I know that. Would I have been able to laugh so much if they had severe behavioral disorders? I’m a little, no, quite insecure.

So I don’t intend to say that disabilities are individuality.
But it’s because they were who they were that that time was so beautiful. The wind blowing their bangs through the car window. The glittering golden canopy. The possibilities of a book. The scenery of the summer I spent with the three of them was much more vivid than last year.

After that, M tried to ride the local bus, O was the same as before, and T started playing games with his friends. I was surprised to find that there were people my age who could understand the meaning of that answer.

I feel sad that I haven’t heard anyone say that they miss the old man. To be honest, I’m not sure if we really became friends. So let’s go see him again next year. Maybe we should go see him at the end of the year instead of next year.

Today, I noticed that I can no longer hear the cicadas. I wonder what kind of scenery will unfold in winter.

(End)