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

Spring is for knitting. Spring is when one’s hairline slowly, steadily widens.

In other words, I’ve started going bald, so I’m knitting myself a hat.

It all started at the barber. “Kusaka-san,” my stylist said, “I have to tell you this as a professional. Around here… your hair has stopped growing.” He pointed at the crown of my head as he broke the news. Much obliged.

There are many ways for hair to thin. In my case, apparently age has reduced the firmness of my scalp, causing everything to collapse in a landslide. The density distribution of my follicles, he said, is becoming more like a kappa’s. Ruthless metaphor. Baldness can look cool if you go bald stylishly. I wish I had that kind.

Still, he said it was too early for a shaved head, so I had the sides clipped aggressively short—a classic barber style. Slick it down with pomade and conceal the damage: that was the plan. The plan failed. The wind was cold, the sun was hot. I could feel climate change directly through my scalp. If spring felt like this, who knew what shape my poor head would be in by autumn.

So I decided to knit myself a hat for weekends. Something I could wear for three seasons, made of cotton to absorb sweat. I also decided to choose colors I’d never chosen before. If I’m going to grow old, I might as well do it brightly. Pastels, for example.

At work, I’m a salesman or a team leader. At home, a husband or a father. I’ve never chosen clothes for reasons beyond role and function. As a result, my closet is lined with white, gray, black, and navy. But if my body is changing, maybe I can use that as an excuse to rethink how I dress. Adults get bad at thinking about themselves. Knitting seemed perfect: playful with color, and inexpensive.

In the end, I bought cotton yarn in blue, light blue, olive, yellow, yellow again, light gray, and purple. I really need to do something about my buffet-plate personality. They were all super bulky weight, so I could knit quickly in large stitches. Tokyo was already starting to flirt with 25°C days, so I wanted to finish in a hurry.

It was my first time using cotton yarn, and I was surprised. Maybe it depends on the type and quality of cotton, but mine was stiff. It had a definite “former plant” feeling to it—fibrous in a way acrylic and wool never are. If fluffy, smooth wool is whipped cream, then cotton is sweet bean paste: certainly soft, but tidy and matter-of-fact.

What surprised me most was how seasonal it felt. Its crisp, dry touch against my fingers was refreshing. If it had been wool or acrylic, it might have felt oppressively heavy in the spring warmth. The things my hands and skin found pleasant became more and more springlike, stitch by stitch, day by day. Usually the year races by: New Year’s over, and suddenly it’s cherry blossom season. But this time the new fiscal year felt like it was arriving more slowly than usual.

Until April 1st.

This year’s new hires arrived. My team got one too.

He was a fresh-faced young man who looked as if someone had dressed the spring breeze in a rookie business suit.

He didn’t seem nervous at all—completely natural. Smiling, personable, and his polite Japanese was flawless. Maybe part-time jobs and internships had prepared him. His jacket looked sharp, and even the way he set up his PC at his desk was smooth and practiced. Honestly, I was intimidated. He was already polished. Every year the younger generation joining us seems more capable, but this year I felt we might not even speak the same language.

Since I’m technically the team leader, I invited him out for tonkatsu lunch. “In university I researched physical AI,” he said with a smile. “I helped with a senior’s startup.” Smile. “I’ve been dancing with friends since middle school.” Smile. This was bad. He was beginning to look like Shohei Ohtani to me.

I panicked and felt I had to introduce myself somehow. “The other day my daughter and I went to see this anime called Milky Subway Local Stop Theater Line…” I’d meant to weave in some family details, but it just came out sounding like a report on an anime-obsessed parent-child outing. The amount of information was wildly unbalanced.

Then he said: “I watched the whole thing on YouTube too.” I think we’re going to get along.

From there we launched into a discussion of anime movies since last year—Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man, Conan. othing but monster hits. “I saw Conan twice.” “You’ve got broad tastes.” “I went to see Zootopia 2 too.” “With my daughter.” “I went too.” “It was great, right?” “A masterpiece.”

Then the smile disappeared from his face. Not in a bad way—just relaxed into his real expression. He frowned slightly, trying to remember a character’s name. It was oddly endearing. Maybe the reason he had looked so effortlessly composed was only because I’d been viewing him through my own inferiority complex. Sorry. Of course he’d been nervous.

Once he relaxed, he realized how hungry he was. That must have been it. He started eating enthusiastically. Unexpectedly, he ate like Obake no Q-Taro. He finished every shred of cabbage too. Impressive. You could practically see the love of whoever raised him. He probably knew nothing about our company.

Every likable young person overlaps in my mind with my daughter ten years from now. Come to think of it, he’s young enough to be my son. “Want more cabbage? Need more rice?” The way he stuck out his chin instead of saying yes was dazzling. His skin itself was dazzling. No, literally a little dazzling. He had the kind of glow that made you think of K-pop idols, like someone had adjusted the brightness settings on his face.

“Your skin is really nice. Is that just because you’re young?” Without thinking, I slipped into the same tone I use when complimenting my daughter at home. The moment I realized I’ve done it now, it was already too late.

Commenting on someone’s appearance—whether insulting or praising—is taboo. Mentioning age is taboo too. Compliance training 101. More importantly, making unsolicited remarks about someone’s looks is simply rude. This was a problem older than corporate policy.

Just as I blurted out, “Sorry!” he countered unexpectedly. “Toner and moisturizer,” he said, covering his mouth with his fist as he laughed. “Lots of people use them.”

The tonkatsu grease suddenly hit my stomach hard. So let me get this straight. While I was nearly freezing to death in the employment ice age, surviving only to have my scalp collapse in a follicular avalanche, wandering around in pastel colors……you were born screaming into the world, raised through dance culture, using toner and moisturizer, and choosing jobs freely in an era of labor shortages?

Nope. Impossible. There’s no way we’ll ever truly relate. The flow of time I live in and the speed of time in his era are simply too different. A sad theory of relativity. Frankly, I became scared. Somehow, young people had become frightening. At some point, tonkatsu had also become absurdly expensive.

When I got home and reported all this, my wife didn’t even look up from her phone. “Youth these days all use that stuff. It’s common sense.” “Toner and moisturizer aren’t the same thing?” “Completely different. Hydration and sealing it in.” “So if I put it on my head, will my firmness come back?” “Splash some pee on it for all I care. It’s nothing to be shocked about. You knit, don’t you?”

True enough. As a man who knits, I had no logical reason to be surprised by men’s cosmetics. Neither hobby belongs to men or women. Same thing.

And yet I couldn’t accept it so simply. I was sulking on some deeper, spacetime-transcending level.

I’m tired of thinking about baldness and age. Apparently I really like cotton. Even cheap yarn doesn’t itch. It feels good to the hand—or the skin—or the head. This middle-aged man will knit what he likes. I made two hats. Fine purple strands trailing delicately in the air.