If you are in Japan for an extended period of time and have even a passing interest in disability issues, there is one phrase you are likely to hear often. That phrase is ¡°barrier-free.¡±
The buzzword is key to how Japan is trying to sell itself as being ¡°pro-disability.¡± Railway stations like to point out that they are barrier-free, meaning that they are accessible to people with disabilities, and NHK¡¯s education channel produces a show called ¡°NHK Baribara¡± (short for ¡°barrier-free variety¡°) about the lives of people with disabilities across the archipelago.
The poet Robert Frost once wrote that ¡°Good fences make good neighbors.¡± Frost was issuing a warning; he was trying to suggest that barriers are a bad idea. I really want to just embrace Frost¡¯s good intentions, his desire to break down barriers, but certain experiences as a person with a disability prompt me to ask the question: Are barriers always a bad idea?
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