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Kokoro no Furusato — Where Japanese regions and the Japanese heart meet

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By Adam Fulford for Bilateral magazine

I have friends with unusual abilities. Some can easily chat when they’re standing 50 meters apart, with no assistance from any form of electronic device; others can mix a drink to order in pitch darkness, with no need for any form of artificial light.

I got to know these people in Hachijojima, an island about a 45-minute flight from Haneda, Tokyo. When seen from the air, Hachijojima has a figure-of-eight gourd shape. Viewed from the ground, it is dominated by two volcanic cones rising on either side of the flat strip where the plane lands. A picturesque, weatherswept island with a backdrop of beautiful birdsong, Hachijojima is made of lava, covered in lush greenery and home to friendly weasels.

A five-minute bus ride from the airport brings you to the Sokodo Campsite, set beside a small bluff overlooking the black rocks of the shore. Out at sea, a fishing boat is chasing after a flashing flock of flying fish, ingredients for a local delicacy: kusaya — salt-dried, fermented fish. Kusaya smell awful but they usually taste great, especially when washed down with the local imo-jochu (a distilled spirit made from sweet potato).

Now it’s time to pitch tent. How do you put one of these things up? The person on your right doesn’t respond to your question. You realise she can’t hear you. The person on your left is deftly putting together the frame of a camp bed, and you notice that he can’t see. Someone else, in a wheelchair, is explaining how an inflatable mattress should be placed in a larger tent where she will be sleeping that night.

Universal Camp in Hachijojima is an annual event attended by around 120 people; about a third of them are formally recognised as disabled. A participant may have limited movement, sight or hearing, a combination of such challenges, perhaps an internal disability as a result of an operation, or maybe an intellectual or emotional difficulty.

Not every participant carries an official Disabled Person’s Handbook (Shogaisha Techo), a document issued by regional authorities around Japan, but over the course of three days in Hachijojima it becomes pretty clear to everyone that no one is fully abled and there are times when we all need help.

How often do you see a deaf person in conversation with a blind person? At the Hachijojima event, that sort of thing happens all the time. Most participants are eager to communicate, are confident that their efforts to do so will succeed somehow or other, and know that assistance is at hand if needed.

Drawing on a decade of experience, the organizers offer various effective ways to facilitate the exchange of information. Some activities are quite heavily organized, including several rounds of “Diversity Communication” on themes such as light, dark, movement and culture. Others are less formal, including a fun night of dining, dancing and music with islanders. And some are simply open to all, such as evening drinks and morning walks.

In each of these situations, the same questions keep popping up. Should I offer to help her? Should I assume everything is okay unless he asks for help? Should I ask for help myself? Should I tell the others what I’ve noticed, or should I see if they notice it for themselves? Is what I’ve noticed even worth mentioning?

It often is. It may only be when you’re blindfolded and sitting at a bar run by people who can’t see (but who can unfailingly identify the contents of drink cans by feel, thanks to subtle design differences), that you realise how important your eyes are for helping you understand who can hear what you are saying. The next day you notice how important eyes are to two deaf people signing to each other halfway across a football pitch.

Seeing life from different perspectives in the here and now is not only a good workout for the mind, it may also increase awareness that diverse values and abilities exist all around us in “ordinary” life.

If you like the idea of a "kokoro no furusato," a place where your heart feels at home, try visiting Hachijojima this year on 12-14 September. For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/uevent.jp) or email info@u-event.jp.

What Japan’s regions might do for the nation’s health

Participants in the Universal Camp in Hachijojima think about ways to make society more accessible to all. The objective is for everyone to play an active role for as long as they wish, whether they are in a wheelchair, or can’t see, or can’t hear, and so on.

Increasingly, this objective has practical implications in the Japanese countryside, where the average age keeps rising and the number of young people keeps dwindling. Many elderly people in remote communities will drive an hour or more to go shopping. What happens when one day they find they can no longer walk to the car? Or they realise they can’t see the road ahead? Or they can no longer grip the wheel? Or press the brake?

The insights and ideas taken away from places like Hachijojima by corporate trainees and other participants may help to shape an even more accessible society in Japan’s regions.

Meanwhile, Japan’s regions may themselves have a role to play in shaping the nation’s health. This, at least, is the view of neuroscientist Dr. Kazuhiro Sakurada of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., an expert on preemptive healthcare.

Dr. Sakurada identifies three especially severe health challenges for Japan: developmental disorders among children, depression and chronic fatigue among adults, and dementia-related obstacles to independence among the elderly. In his view, urban life demands too much time spent in stressful artificial circumstances, and not enough engagement with the cycles of nature, which can lead to a more balanced mental representation of reality.

Next time, I will look more closely at various ways in which the work of scientists like Dr. Sakurada may contribute to the future of regional Japan.

© Japan Today

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As a deaf person, I'll book a spot for next year. Definitely sounds like fun! Gotta love the picture, too, as a former hang-gliding instructor. Try that, without hearing. Of course, without sight, it's a no-no! But we won't go there!

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I think I may have run into a contingent of this group during my last visit to Japan. At a bar.

Boy, could they drink.

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I was this documentary which I thought was about surfing until I realise that it was about a blind surfer. I was blow away.

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