Meeting Hanada Shuncho: In Search of Disability in Things Japanese

By Kenny Fries

Fifteen years ago, when I first arrived in Japan, I didn’t know anything about disability in Japanese culture. I didn’t see many people with disabilities on the streets of Tokyo. Disability was not very public. I was told most people with disabilities were hidden away, a combination of lack of access and family shame. However, as I began to discover, disability has been an important, one might even say crucial, part of Japanese culture for a very long time.
When I arrived in Tokyo, I was told by a disability studies colleague about the work of Hanada Shuncho. Hanada-sensei had written about the centrality of disability to Japanese culture, especially the disability of Ebisu, one of the shichifukjin, the seven lucky gods. My colleague referred me to a website called “Ebisu Mandala,” but when I loaded the page all I received was an error message.
During my first stay in Japan, I had difficulty finding what I was looking for. But when I returned three years later things had changed. Not only were more people talking about including students with disabilities in “mainstream” schools but I also saw more people with disabilities on the streets of Tokyo.
And I finally met with Hanada-sensei. By the time of our meeting I had found more disability in things Japanese, especially the blind biwa hoshi.

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Disability History Beyond Borders: The Story of Ryoichi Ishii and Takinogawa Gakuen in Japan

By Yoshiya Makita

In the countryside, an hour’s train ride away from the noisy central districts of Tokyo, the buildings of Takinogawa Gakuen stand in solitude, surrounded as they are by deep forest and tiny streams. As a social welfare center, Takinogawa Gakuen provides services to people with mental disabilities. The small institution has a long history. Visitors learn with a sense of surprise that this first institution of its kind, which was established in Japan more than a hundred years ago, continues its mission on the western outskirts of the metropolis.

In the past ten years, the field of disability history has been expanding hugely to include various areas of research from diverse perspectives. No historian can now ignore the critical importance of disability, which influences one’s social life, at the intersection with other social attributes such as race, gender, and class. To this current state of the field, the story of Takinogawa Gakuen and its founder Ryoichi Ishii will add another new viewpoint: a transnational perspective on the history of disabilities. What it means to be disabled varies with location. But historical inquiries reveal that different institutions of disability in various localities have often developed through transnational exchange of ideas and practices beyond borders.

Portrait of Ryoichi Ishii (Courtesy of Takinogawa Gakuen)

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