HANDICAP? WHAT HANDICAP?
Media star, top-selling author and social campaigner,
Ototake Hirotada doesn't recognize obstacles
By Murakami Mutsuko / Toyko
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OTOTAKE HIROTADA IS A handsome, fun-loving senior student at Tokyo's Waseda
University. An avid sportsman with a confessed weakness for expensive
Margaret Howell designer shirts, he is in many ways just like countless
other young men on university campuses across Japan - except that he is
a best-selling author and one of the hottest media personalities in the
country. Oh, and he has stumps in place of arms and legs.
"Being handicapped is a little inconvenient, but it doesn't make me unhappy
," Ototake says, smiling from his electric-powered wheelchair. "My physical
disabilities are simply my unique traits. I live my life normally, just like
anyone else." Fine words, but hardly the complete story. From the day he was born
limbless in 1976, Ototake's life has been anything but routine. For a start, his
architect father made his young wife wait one month before seeing her baby for
the first time. When that day came, she beamed with happiness and exclaimed:
"He's so cute!"
That reaction set the pattern. Ototake seems to have gone from one success to
another - during his early days in school, through his teenage years and now
s a young man who appears certain to be about to make his mark on the world
around him. It is all related in his autobiography, Gotai Fumanzoku (Not In
Perfect Shape), a boisterous and moving account of how the human spirit can
overcome even the most challenging handicaps.
Gotai Fumanzoku, published last October, shot to the top of the best-seller
list, and stayed there for weeks. It has now sold nearly 4 million copies
and helped make its author one of the best-known names in the country. The
book has been translated into Korean and Chinese, and an English-language
edition is being prepared. When that happens, Ototake's mailman, who has
already delivered 10,000 fan letters, will probably need an assistant.
"I don't understand why so many people have read the book," Ototake says,
chuckling. "I just wrote it so that people would understand the handicapped
better through my case."
They no doubt have, but Japan is still not known for being especially friendly
to the disabled. Few public buildings or other facilities cater to people in
wheelchairs. Lowered roadside curbs, ramps and special aids such as handrails
in toilets are new concepts. As in every city in the world, staircases can be a
formidable obstacle. The difference in Japan is that few people seem willing to
step forward and help. Anybody looking even a little bit out of the ordinary
is more likely to receive a long, uncaring stare than a helping hand. That makes
Ototake's experience - and his cheery demeanor - all the more remarkable.
To hear him tell it, having no arms or legs has been no more of a problem than
being unable to speak Swahili. And there is no trace of bitterness about the
fact that specialists still do not know why he was born the way he was. He says
he was a star in kindergarten for having an electric-powered wheelchair. By the
time he started primary school, he had grown tiny arms and legs, but with no
fingers or toes. Even so, his teachers were still unsure if he would be able to
cope in a regular class. He quickly won everyone over with his special skills.
He wrote with a pencil stuck between his cheek and arm. He ate using a special
spoon attached to the plate. He cut paper by holding scissors in his mouth and
operating them with his arm. And he could walk and sometimes even run after a
fashion.
At first, Ototake's classmates pestered him with questions, but it was not long
before they began to accept him as one of their own - with a dispensation here
and an accommodation there. That included changing the rules of baseball. Ototake
would try to hit the ball by spinning around. If he made contact, a colleague
would run for him. If the ball flew over the in-fielders, it counted as a home
run. Over the years, his friends grew sufficiently at ease in his company to come
up with a host of ways of ensuring he could join in their activities, at school and
elsewhere.
Ototake says he had a great time at high school, where he became something of a
strategist for his American football team, analyzing the tactics of opposition
teams on a computer. He served as chairman of the school festival committee, and
won a seat on the executive committee of the student council. On Valentine's Day,
he was always the one who received the most chocolates from female admirers.
Ototake's story belies the general image of the handicapped in Japan as figures of
shame or deserving of sympathy beyond their needs. In his own way, he has mastered
most of his daily routines. He commutes to the campus in his wheelchair, sheltered
when it rains with an umbrella tucked between his shoulder and neck. Lately, he has
taken up scuba diving and is increasingly fascinated with curling - the northern
European game that is a little like ten-pin bowling, only on ice. For the moment,
though, he can't work out how he can play it.
Shortly after entering university, Ototake became a leading spokesman and activist
for the disabled. One of his campaigns was to make the campus more "barrier-free."
As a result, a university building completed a year ago was fitted with elevators
and a special toilet. That achievement was just the beginning. After Gotai Fumanzoku
appeared, Ototake developed into a media specialist on the problems of the
handicapped, and is in increasing demand as a public speaker. In April he was
invited to testify before a special parliamentary committee on issues affecting
the young. He stressed the importance of people recognizing in childhood that
everybody has the right to be different.
Ototake has a contract with a TV news show to report not just on issues affecting
the handicapped but on such topics as schoolyard bullying. Each time he appears,
the station is flooded with phone calls, fax messages and letters. "Ototake-san is
great at pointing out things that others sometimes don't see," says producer
Takahashi Hiroshige. "And he is a fine communicator."
For Ototake, being a TV personality has come as something of a shock. He says he
had always wanted to see a wheelchair-bound weather forecaster or a handicapped
passer-by in a televised drama. That way, he reasoned, the public would be more
likely to see the disabled as a normal part of society. "But I never thought for a
moment that I would be on TV myself."
Inagaki Hiroki, an official of the National Federation of Physically Handicapped
People, with a membership of about 2 million, praises Ototake for the way he has
raised public awareness. "Changes are already being felt, notably at school level,
because of the way he has participated actively in society," Inagaki says. Many
teachers and education councils are more prepared to integrate handicapped
youngsters into regular classes. "In a couple of years, improvements will be
very visible in many places, I am sure," he says.
And what will Ototake be like in a few years' time? Unsurprisingly, his ambitions are as
normal as the next person's. "I would like to be married and have kids."
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