Sekiya Sonoda
Honorary Member of the Japanese Society for the Study of Human Welfare and Culture

1. The Impact of the ban on the Three Taboos (dense, enclosed spaces and close contact to each other), and Restriction of movement on Recreation

It goes without saying that the corona pandemic that began in 2020 has had a tremendous impact on the entirety of society and national life. This, of course, also seriously impeded recreational life, but also, the ban on the Three taboos and movement acted to stop recreation completely.

Recreation in the welfare field, as mentioned last time, has been widely practiced by gathering in a meeting room to play games, sing, and to generally have fun together. These are exactly the activities that can be said to be typical examples of dense, enclosed, close-contact activities, so it is no longer possible to do them at all.

The other type of recreation, travel-type activities that take people away from their daily lives and transport them to other places, which were also widely enjoyed, has been completely banned. Recreation became a dead-end situation.

The ban made us keenly aware of the importance of the activities that had previously been taken for granted, such as The Three taboos and Restricted movement, which until now we had not been particularly conscious of until the ban in activating our daily life. Our daily joy was derived from getting together with like-minded friends and experiencing the contact between mind and body, through words, conversations, and joint actions. In addition, we were able to accomplish physical and mental refreshments by having outings, even in the neighbourhood, breaking the monotony of the same daily routine. Now that all these activities were banned, we were just at a total loss as to what to do. How should we spend our free time? What should replace the recreational benefits of exchanges and movements?

While this was a serious problem for the general public, it was an even more difficult challenge for individuals with disabilities. Especially for those living together in residential facilities - which was exactly the same for the elderly living in elderly facilities – needless to say, the restrictions on gatherings and movement were a great hindrance. Physically living very close to each other but not being able to interact sufficiently and being crammed into a living environment that was never spacious enough to begin with, was as painful as contracting the coronavirus.

2. The Rediscovery of Home leisure and Independent Recreation

During the corona pandemic, many workers were also unable to go to work and were forced to stay home. Schools and daycare centers were closed, and children were also forced to stay home all day. Even working or studying from home would have lots of free time for leisure activities. Since these people could not go anywhere, they had no choice but to consume their leisure time in their homes, and many people depended on watching TV, interacting with their smartphones, playing games, reading, listening to music, and enjoying videos. The same was true for individuals with disabilities, of course, who had to focus on finding their own leisure time activities that did not require interaction with others. In other words, Individuals with disabilities had to pursue so-called “home leisure.”

What emerged was the rediscovery of the "individuality of recreation.” Since having fun together is no longer possible, we have no choice but to pursue "having fun alone”, and in order to have fun alone, the above-mentioned Internet dependence is not the only way. We began to pursue enjoyment using our respective hobbies and tastes, such as doing research about a topic of our interest, writing, composing poems, songs and haiku*, painting, playing musical instruments, enjoying knitting and handicrafts, devoting ourselves to plastic modeling and weekend carpentry, gardening, or indulging in meditation alone. Originally, Japanese culture was characterized by the development of a diverse world of hobbies represented by the tea ceremony and flower arrangement, which were widely spread not only among the intellectual class but also among the public. It is considered common sense for a full-fledged member of society to have at least one hobby that he/she can boast about, which is why the hobby section is included in the resume in addition to educational and employment history. Hobbies and activities as an individual's recreation have been emphasized as an indispensable theme for understanding the person, and it can be said that the value of this has been reconsidered during the corona pandemic.

haiku*: It is the shortest form of Japanese poetry, written in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern.

3. The Flourishing of Online Leisure

Another rapidly growing trend over the past two years or so has been online interaction. Mutual communication via PCs, which was originally born as a tool for telecommuting, has come to be used not only for work but also for leisure. Being able to see the other person's face on the computer screen makes it possible to enjoy casual chat without worrying about corona infections. Software such as Zoom, which allows multiple participants to participate and interact with each other at the same time, has quickly become widespread. The use of Zoom to talk with family and friends far away, or to have an online drinking party where each person prepares drinks and enjoys chatting while drinking on their own has also become popular.

There is a breakout room in the Zoom program. It is a very convenient way to divide large numbers of participants into small groups so that discussions can be held only within that groups. Participants are free to come and go between the overall meeting and the small groups. Then the whole group can come together to report back to each after small discussions are complete and another small group can be formed to discuss the issue again without limit. It was very gratifying to be able to bring back online the small groups that were banned due to the Three taboos.  Of course, we cannot go so far as to actually “be with each other” as we do in real meetings, however, at least we can communicate with each other while reading each other's facial expressions.

The spread of online communication has also had a profound impact on recreational life. We have been exploring new recreational activities that make use of this method. For example, we have an online travel program. This is a program that uses Zoom to gather participants, and the guide combines various images to show participants tourist spots. More and more people have used the application Google Street View, which is provided online and allows a person to see the actual landscape of a place on the map. We tried to apply this to a program of strolling in Hibiya Park. Participants move around the park, guided by the voice of the guide. They listen to the guide’s explanation as they feel as if they are in the park themselves. The old state of the park is also shown in the archival footage, so participants can take a virtual trip through time and space. We believe there is great potential for enriching the recreational lives of individuals with disabilities through these methods.

4. New Recreational Challenges

Although the ban on the Three taboos and Movement restrictions certainly greatly hindered conventional recreational activities, it can be said that the great potential of recreational activities has come to the forefront, which could be said to be the effect of the corona pandemic. Maybe the recreation we've been promoting has been too limited and narrow. Recreation in the daily lives of individuals with disabilities, in particular, is most important in terms of something more appealing and profound with the use of new IT technology. After the corona pandemic passes (though we have no idea at this point when that will be), we must not go back to the same old thing but use the pandemic as a beginning point to create recreation that is more human and more profound than anything that has been done before. Otherwise, our experience with corona would be meaningless.