Women's rights in Japan

Many westerners seem to think that women in Japan are discriminated against. When my wife and I went on a trip to Ireland for our honeymoon, my wife had just quit her work. Some Irish people heard that and thought my wife had been forced to quit her job by her company as sexual discrimination although my wife had quit her job on her own will. Some other westerners point out the labor force participation rate (labor force population / population over fifteen years old) of Japanese women is low; Japan: 48.2%, the USA: 60.2% and Sweden: 75.5%. They say Japanese women are forced to be housewives against their will.

Certainly, you can sometimes see examples that women are located in status lower than men in Japan. For instance, in a train, a couple is standing, and there is only one empty seat. If a couple is over seventy years old, a wife gives the seat to her husband and he sits down there taking it for granted. In January 2007, Japanese Minister for Work and Pension said, "Women are machines to produce children." and he seems to not be obliged to resign from the Cabinet even for his stupid words. A few years ago, the Tokyo governor said, "It's both wasteful and sinful for women to live beyond menopause... such useless human beings are extremely harmful to the whole planet" He was sued for these words, but still works as the governor.

However, the Japanese man's school of thought regarding women rights depends on their generation. All the shamed people described above are over seventy years old. In my opinion, some of them still look down on women (Of course, many men over seventy have a proper mind of equality regarding human rights, but unfortunately, some men don't.)

How about younger generations? I have talked with some families who lived at the same company dormitory house my wife and I lived at 6 years ago. There were two couples who were nearly 50 years old at the time, a couple and my wife and I were 28 and 30 years old. We talked about taking garbage out in the morning. Couples of 30 years old think that it is a work for men or women, both are OK. If a husband goes out of the house first, he should take garbage out. If a wife goes out first, she should take. I take it for granted. But wives in their 50s didn't think so. They said, "If our husbands take the garbage out, we are considered bad wives, because such chores belonged to housewives. So we should take the garbage out in spite of husbands going out of the houses first." We, couples in their 30s, were astonished to hear that. We just don't have such a thought.

Like this, there is a big generation gap in thinking about women's rights, but it is getting better, I think. In my childhood, I have heard many words of disdain for women from people of my parents generation. I never have heard such words from my friends of the same generation. We are in the last generation that high school curriculums are different between girls and boys (Girls had to complete domestic science, but boys didn't have to.). Since 1994, boys also have to complete domestic science. Many people are disagreeably surprised at and angrily at ashamed politicians who say words against women's rights now.

As above, in my opinion, Japanese people's school of thought regarding sexual equality is getting better, although behind western countries. The question then is why do Japanese women tend to be housewives and not like their western counterparts?

I asked a friend of mine who is a housewife whether she and her housewife friends (about 10 ladies) wanted to be housewives or were forced to be. Her answer was all of them wanted to be housewives.

Her reasoning for this was as follows: 1. Their husbands can earn enough money to survive without partners' earnings. 2. The works they did was simple - not challenging, so they couldn't find a proper reason to continue with their works. 3. They feel the time they spend with their children is precious.

Do Japanese companies really give challenging work to women employees? In my opinion, some companies do so, but nowadays, most companies make some layers of employee's responsibility depending on their status, not on gender. Proper employees are in charge of works of heavy responsibility and decision making, temporary employees are given not so challenging work. This system has become popular in the middle of 90s in Japan. (Before that, many companies in Japan set employee's responsibility depending on their gender.)

However, even in the environment that companies give challenging work to women employees, we can still see many examples of women employees quitting their jobs when they get married. For instance, the company I work for used to be a government corporation (means there are little gender discriminations since the era of older Japanese companies), there are many administrative women. Thus, it seems that the company has a better working system for women, but in reality, many women employees quit the company when they get married. Women employees who started a job at the same time and same area of me were ten, all of them got married, and only three ladies still work for the company, maybe seven of them are housewives.

Why do many women employees quit their jobs when they get married? Maybe the first reason is their working time and men's ability to do the housework and cooking. Japanese company employees tend to work overtime (For example, I take 200 to 300 overtime hours in a year, but it is not so much among my friends who work for other companies). In addition to this, many Japanese men cannot cook well. So women in Japan who are married and work bear a heavy burden. If she and her husband have a small child or children without help from their parents, that burden becomes heavier. Of course, in Japan, there are many child-care centers but not enough and some parents think that they should take care of small children by themselves or by help from their parents for good growth of their children. (Maybe for that, the babysitter system is very rare in Japan. At least, all my family, friends and co-workers never used that system.)

How about the companies' side? Do they appreciate women's abilities appropriately? An article about that appeared in April 1st 2007 issue of The Nikkei (Japanese newspaper). It said that big companies are preparing a system to hire and keep excellent women employees. For example, Nissan plans to raise the proportion of women administrators from 3% of all administrators to 5% by 2008. Toshiba is preparing a system that women who retired from raising children can be rehabilitated. These systems might be behind western countries, but I appreciate these trials of Japanese companies.

On the other hand, Japanese housewives can receive their pension even though they don't pay a pension fee. They can say that Japanese housewives are accorded precedence for economical respect.

I think these are the main reasons that women employees tend to quit their jobs when they get married.

To conclude, Japanese women were discriminated against, but now it is getting better (depending on the generation). Meanwhile, for the economical respect, work problem, and child care system, many women selected to be housewives.

I enjoy the fact that women and men can select their own lives without fool discriminations, conventions and social problem. Therefore, my first thing to do... seems to learn how to cook.


P.S. My feeling about gender discrimination is one in an urban area. In Japanese rural areas, there may still remain discriminations, unfortunately.

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The End of Poverty

I have private English language lesson, every two weeks, for two hours. During a conversation at this lesson about a topic of the world's development gap, I commented on the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond as my most impressive book and explained the contents of the book. My teacher then recommended "The End of Poverty" by Jeffery Sachs. I was strongly interested in the book because not only was the introduction written by Bono of U2, but I felt reliance in my teacher. I got this book as soon as possible.

I haven't read this book completely, but I think it will be "the best book I have read in 2007" even though it is just January now. the reason I feel so is as follows:

1. Subject of this book
They say that people should help poor people. Of course, I agree for some time I have been interested in people from very poor countries, for example, Africa. I know that there are many poor people all over the world, even in developed countries. However, I think that there is a vast difference between most poor people in developed countries and poor people in very under developed countries. The point is "they can live and develop by themselves or not". "The End of Poverty" concentrates on these kinds of people.

2. "Calm optimism"
The subtitle of the book is "How we can make it happen in our lifetime". Yes, this book isn't for people who keep grieving the world's problem, but for people who have the will to change it better.
This book has many data and chart (fortunately, they are easy to understand even for people who feel allergic to mathematics like me). They sometimes show tragic present state, sometimes a bright possibility. Jeffery Sachs emphasizes that we can change the world in our lifetime in both cases. Such "calm optimism" is the reason I love this book.

3. Exciting case studies
This book is not just only data, theory, and proposal. Dr. Sachs is an active, practical economist. His career as a consultant for some countries economical politics is broad, beginning in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, etc. These case studies are excellent; both as interesting documentaries and a friendly political economic textbook. I have no knowledge of political economic, but I can feel excited by Dr. Sachs's adventure.

4. New viewpoints and information
I am learning many viewpoints and information on this issue of the world's poverty. I will write about them in detail in my next entry, but the most surprising hopeful information I have learned is that "the wealth of the world isn't constant." Dr. Sachs says that the world economy is developing entirely, not dependent on only depriving the third world's wealth by developed countries. I think it is the fundamental fact of believing in the phrase "change the world", because if the world's wealth is constant, the only solution to make poverty history is to decrease population. We human beings can develop together all over the world –unfortunately, we cannot vanish economic differences among many countries immediately but I think it is very big and good news.

What kind of people are those? An example of Malawi people is introduced in this book. People cultivate crops, but there aren't enough to sell to other people because the amounts are very small, even for family members. To make matters worse, even if they can product enough amounts of crops, they have no road or car to sell them to market.

Reasons of cultivating production shortage are two; The first is the low technique of agriculture. People have less chance of higher education, cannot afford effective fertilizers. The second is epidemic. AIDS massacres adults, malaria kills all ages, even though we have a method to cure both diseases. Such epidemics make desperate cases; Because of dying all sons and daughters, a grandmother is left to raise as many as 15 grandchildren. Under conditions like these, people cannot live and develop by themselves.


New viewpoints and information that "The End of Poverty" brings to me

1. Solutions for economic crisis of developing countries are very similar to clinical medicine.
Dr. Sachs says the reasons for failures while helping developing countries are due to a lack of fundamental viewpoints as follows;

1) The human body (economy) is composed of complex system. There is not only one failure. In addition to, one failure tends to cause other failures.

2) An individual diagnosis is important because of the complex system. Doctors know that fever symptoms have many causes. There are many diagnoses for that, so doctors have a checklist to diagnose precisely.

3) All medical treatments are family treatments. If a doctor treats a child properly, only a diagnosis isn't enough. He / she needs to understand the child's family environment.

4) Observation and feedback are necessary. A good doctor knows each diagnosis is not the final answer but hypothesis. If he / she finds out a failure, he /she changes their treatment flexibly.

5) The doctor is considered specialist personnel.
I was a consultant for call centers to construct or to diagnose them. These five points convince me very much. I find it difficult to believe that the IMF or other organization didn't have such a basic method, because of this, it has been a tremendous tragedy for the world. They are the doctors of the country and its many people.

2. The reason for Africa's poverty
They guess many reasons for Africa's poverty. The two biggest of these reasons are "History of Western countries plunder" and "corruptions of politicians" But both of these are wrong, says Dr. Sachs. Some countries, which have had harsh periods of westerners' plundering, are developing. A good example is Vietnam. According to the research by Transparency International, some African countries are less corrupt than some Asian countries. However, as to economic development, Asian countries are higher than African countries. If these opinions are correct, what is the true reason for Africa's poverty?

The answers, according to Dr. Sachs, are epidemics, droughts and distance from the world's market. Tremendous people have died from AIDS and malaria in Africa. Most of the African people live in rural areas, which have few infrastructure systems. It means they are vulnerable to droughts and have difficulty participating in market – no available transportation. These answers are easy to understand and convince me, as a reader of "Guns, Germs and Steel", whose theme is geographical features have made the world's development gap, not biological gap of human races.

3. The reason for the different results between China and the East European / Russian countries
Dr. Sachs, as an economical politics consultant, managed to plan successful economics growths of Bolivia and Poland, but failed in Russia. (He wrote it in this book frankly, it made a favorable impression on me.)
I had a question in association with this case. Why did Russia (the Soviet Union) fail in and China succeed in developing economics? Both were similar socialist countries. This book has a clear answer about this:

1) The Soviet Union had a huge amount of external debt but China didn't.

2) China had long coastlines that supported an economic development dependent on exporting. However, the Soviet Union and East European countries didn't have such long coastlines, therefore they also didn't have an advantage to access international trading at low costs.

3) China had co-operators who lived in overseas countries and made Chinese communities. They played the roles of overseas investors and became role models. On the other hand, generally, the Soviet Union didn't have such overseas communities.
4) The Soviet Union encountered a steep decline of producing oil at the starting point of their innovation, but China didn't.

5) The Soviet Union proceeded with their own industrialization that depended on original technologies that were not compatible with the West (the USA, EU and Japan). However, China's technologies still stayed at a low level, so she introduced machines and processes to the West easily.

I feel it is an irony that the Soviet's industrialization annoyed their development. To change the subject, personally, I think Stalin's only good deal was the propulsion of Soviet's industrializations. Now that I found out the propulsion was not profitable, what was Stalin's good works?
4. How can we make extreme poverty end?

Dr. Sachs' answer to this question is also clear. He said that wealthy countries should support extreme poverty with countries 0.7% GNP. (Of course, it is important to know not only "how much" but also "how". This entry focuses on "how much". For your information, Sachs said this about "how" - the first priorities to invest in are roads, electric power, transportation, soil, drinkable water, sanitary accommodations and disease control.) If wealthy countries proceed this program till 2015, the cost to support extreme poverty countries will decrease.

How much is lack? The USA has the largest amount of lack for 0.7% GNP, 38 billion dollars. Japan has lack for 13 billion dollars, about 100 dollars per person. For this situation, Dr. Sachs proposed a new tax system for collecting more money from billionaires.

In this book, he wrote nothing like "we shall begin to act for making poverty history personally" Instead, he proposed readers to move governments to support poor countries. I found out that realistic solutions to exterminate extreme poverty are by politics, which is more powerful than people's acts.

The power of this book
I wrote a lot about this book. The biggest impression was that I could realize make extreme poverty end, which was something that weighed on my mind. Dr. Sachs provides hope and a solution to this problem through his calm optimism. I think we will be proud of our generation if it will be the generation to make extreme poverty history.

For that, I have applied to donate money to the UNHCR. Next, I feel the need to watch politicians and reflect on it for the purpose of voting or for signatures. I am an ordinary man who manages to support my family and myself. This book made me solve the problems of poverty.
That is the power of this book.

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The Singapore's way of developing human resources

(This entry is continued from "Singapore - their Housing Development policy".)

In my opinion, the most important reason for Singapore's development is their strong policy of human resources. The government is keen to choose elites even children who are under 10 years old, so people are very concerned about their children's educational qualifications. In my opinion, the fact that Lee Luan Yew, the ex-prime minister and the founder of New Singapore, is an admirer of so-called eugenics, in other words, "Like father, like son." plays a key role in this trend.

In 1983, he dropped a verbal bomb on two TV programs as follows: "If college-educated man want well-educated sons / daughters like him, it would be stupid to marry a low-educated woman." He also quoted from a study from Minnesota. The study showed that twins have a lot in common - even if they grow up in different countries. 80% of their trends are the same - vocabularies, IQs, habits, tastes of food and friends, characteristics and personalities. He said, "In other words, 80% of person's ability is decided by nature, 20% of that is a result of foster." This topic caused massive controversy. In the following year, Mr. Lee's political party's votes decreased 12%. Mr. Lee predicted these consequences in advance. Why?

He was anxious about Singapore's future when he read a statistics report in 1980: It showed that college-educated women of Singapore tended not to marry and not have children. The reason for this was that Singaporean men didn't want to marry with a woman with the same level of education. Half of college-educated people were women and two thirds of them didn't marry. No matter what ethnic group, college-educated men like to marry with women whose education level lower than theirs, the rate of marriage between college-educated men and college-educated women was 38% in Singapore. Mr. Lee thought this was a serious problem.


But Mr. Lee wasn't a man who worried about the "serious" scene, he was a man who was active. He and his partner created a national society club for college-educated men and women. This proved fruitful: the rate of marriage between college-educated men and college-educated women increased to 63% in 1997 from 38% in 1983.

In my opinion, I don't agree with his thinking "80% of human ability is decided by nature". I think the environment a child grows up in is very important. The book, "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, says "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." In addition to that, I am not an admirer of the opinion placing educational background above anything else.

However, I don't hesitate to admire Mr. Lee's quick response and enthusiasm for developing Singapore. His strong leadership and clear decision made many excellent results. Now, his son, Mr. Lee Hsien Loong is the Prime Minister of Singapore. He is also a smart leader. Lee Kuan Yew, his wife and his son all received the No.1 position in Cambridge University. At least with the Lee family, Mr. Lee's opinion seems to be true - "If college-educated man wants well-educated sons / daughters like him, it would be stupid to marry a low-educated woman."

Learning world history

My wife and I bought a series of sixteen comics for learning world history again. They are mainly published for high school students who are learning world history. My wife didn't like the subject in high school, but now she admits the importance of the subject and wants to study it again, as fun as possible. On the other hand, I liked world history very much and got the No.1 result in my grade a few times, but I have forgotten some parts of the subject and have lost comprehensive understandings. We searched for the comic series on the Internet auction and have now got them.

I can say that the comics are good works - comprehensive, keeping ethnic equality, authentically re-creating pictures, (For instance, in* the chapter of the Middle Ages of Europe, pigs are described like wild boars. It is true that pigs weren't as we know them today.) My wife and I enjoyed them and I recall studying world history in high school.

At that time, Japanese World history curriculum had three characteristics that I don't think they were appropriate. First, it was attached too much importance to Europe and China. Yes, our history and culture are much influenced by these areas, but I feel it was too much emphasis. To my eyes, (not based on statistics) the ratio of study of Europe to China to Middle East to the others is 40 to 40 to 15 to 5.

Second, learning to pass the examinations of both high school's regular tests and universities' entrance examinations was by rote very tedious. (It seems that these conditions still remain.) Questions on these tests were like history-maniac's quiz. For example: "What is the main religion of the country in which Auschwitz Concentration Camp of Nazi?" Answer: Catholic (from a basic level exam - the preliminary standard college entrance exam) "In the beginning of the 20th century, at a concert hall in Paris, a tune was released. Listening to the beginning part of music, the audience laughed it to scorn, got angry, and fought. What is the title of the tune?" Answer: The Rite of Spring (by Stravinsky) (from an entrance exam of a high level) I'm not surprised that many students hate these subjects.

Third, teachers and students tend to omit contemporary or 20th century history. In my opinion, contemporary history is the most important part of world history, because the purpose of learning history is to know the past mistakes and to not relive them. The contemporary history section was the last part of the curriculum and not adequate long. In addition, this period was also the period of the most critical exam, the college entrance exam. For above reasons, teachers find it difficult to teach contemporary history and students accepted that.

As mentioned above, the world history program has some problems. However, I like the subject. The source of my curiosity and indispensable fundament of understanding the contemporary world is that the dynamism of world history - the prosperity and decline of many groups and how it affected. I realize then why I enjoy the world history comic series.

Singapore - their Housing Development policy

A friend of mine wrote an article about Singapore on his blog after traveling there. His stay was short, only 10 hours during transit, but his impression was good. The reasons why he was impressed are as follows: the nation is clean, well-disciplined, good natured people, and coexistence several religions. My impression of this nation is similar to his. I went to Singapore in Oct. 2001. I enjoyed the people's high energy and a feeling of safety but they were not impolite and bold.

As you know, Singapore is very small (632.6 square km: less than half of Greater London, two-thirds of New York City) and is very poor in natural resources - even water is imported. I wonder how such a "weak" country has developed and has surpassed (now almost equal) the GDP per person of the U.K. which is the suzerain of the country. After I read several books and webpages, I began to think the source of Singapore development is based on their excellent policy, in particular, of the first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. He and his partner's political actions are usually praised, but sometimes blamed as "development dictatorship" from limited freedom of press and expression, and so on. However, I am convinced that excellent brains and clear decisions mainly contributed to be survival and development of Singapore. (Now I am reading the autobiography of Lee Kwan Yew "The Singapore Story". It contains about 1,000 pages so I have not been able to finish reading it.)

At the comments and responses on my friend's blog, I am interested in their housing policy. Since achieving autonomy in 1959, the Singapore government held up their housing development as one of the highest priorities because of the low level of its citizen's lives (the jobless rate: 13.5%, living at poverty level: one forth of the population) and the people's ethnic groups, which might be a source of conflicts. HDB, a.k.a. the Housing Development Board was established in 1960 to solve these problems. I take more interest in the latter problem than the former.

HDB has two main programs for the problem of ethnic group concentration. The first, "Ethnic group mix program" is to make the ratio of ethnic residents as many as the ratio of ethnic groups all over Singapore. The tour guide who I traveled Singapore with said that HDB even locates each room of residents mixed in ethnic ratio, for instance, Chinese, Malayan, Indians and others... But I couldn't confirm this topic in any books or on websites I've read.

The second one is "Moving to a new flat" program, in the 1970s, the government was forced to expropriate some ethnic zones by law, with monetary compensation of 10,000 Singapore Dollars) and moved residents to HDB flats. These two programs resolved ethnic groups and reset them up as "Singaporean", the base of a multiracial nation.



HDB flats (Oct. 2001)

Now, most of Singaporean people (87% of all) dwell in the flats, which are provided by HDB. Such a drastic political action is more difficult for Japan which has a population of over 120 million. Singapore only has 3 million. Nevertheless, the policy of Singapore may be good model for Japan, a country whose population is mostly made up of elderly people (about one third of all citizens is people over 65 years old.). Foreign workers are needed to come into the country to help, thus creating a more diverse atmosphere.

(For the continuation of this entry, please access to "The Singapore's way of developing human resources")

Japanese feelings about their Emperor

A friend of mine who is French gave me a celebration message for the arrival of Japanese Imperial family's son. I was happy he is interested in the big news of my country. I also felt moderate pleasure of this news. I think there is magic in a new life.

However, Japanese people have different feelings for the Imperial family. Generally, it depends on generation and age. It seems that people over seventy years old respect the Imperial family. If you are under sixty year old, some people love the family, some people don't respect that much. Under forty years old, people don't have a strong interest for them.

Even though, all of my co-workers talked about this in the morning and lunchtime of the news-release day. In addition, all over Japan and all generations, some people have a strong opinion that the Imperial family is noble, precious and proud of Japan. Therefore, all the mass-media in Japan never criticize the Imperial family like my country is under a gag rule. If a famous man criticizes the family in the press, the Imperial family-fans bash the man strongly and without mercy, sometimes by violent methods.

On the other hand, the family is the subject of some people's criticism. There are two points to this issue. One is that the Imperial family system is against the human-equality principle. The other (more controversial than the former) is about the former Emperor (Hirohito - Showa Emperor)'s responsibility of the Pacific War (World War II). Before WWII, the Emperor is also the top of military hierarchy. In reality, military generals controlled Japanese Army. But the Emperor could make a final decision. Most Japanese people think that Showa Emperor's "Holy decision to stop the war" made the end of the War. On the other hand, it is also the fact that the delay of his decision made many victims, for example, atomic bombs tragedies. In the war, over two million Japanese and millions of foreigners were killed. Nevertheless the Showa Emperor wasn't executed or imprisoned. He lived his life as the Emperor after the war till he died in 1989. Some people blame the Showa emperor for his improper action, such as responsibility, for the War.

My opinion about the two points above is as follows:
I think that it cannot be compatible between the Imperial system and the principle of human equality. The victims are not ordinary citizens but the Imperial family itself because they don't have the basic human rights – the right to vote and to choose their occupations. At these points, their freedom is limited. Therefore, I think that the Japanese Imperial system may be abolished.

I also think the Showa Emperor had the war responsibility. They say the Showa Emperor was a modest gentleman, loved peace and hated wars. I agree their opinion partly. However, in my opinion, the supreme commander should have taken his responsibility for the tragic result of the Pacific War. It is his work and duty.

Though I said above, I personally feel that (according to the mass media) all of the Imperial family members are very modest, graceful and decent people. Above all, the beginning of a new life is delightful case for me and many people, no matter that their background is controversial.

From "Collapse" - Martha's Vineyard Island

I read Jared Diamond's "Collapse" everyday. Every part of the book is cool and interesting. Not only its main contents: history, geography, archaeology and biology of many countries and areas in the world but also its sub topics. I learn much information from such sub topics of this book as follows:

Main and sub topics
Diamond contends some reasons why ancient people destroyed their environments and their societies collapsed. One reason, in particular, is a society that relies on another specific society ends the trade relation. He gave us an example of Pitcairn Island in Polynesia. When the island was "found" by westerners in 1790, there were no people on the island, but some ruins showed them ancient human habitation. Why did the islanders vanish? The answer is that Pitcarn was totally depended on the nearby Mangareva island for trade. A massive increase in the population of Mangareva island eventually led to the destruction of the island environment, thus, ending its trade with Pitcarn island and other island. Pitcairn Island is so small and has little natural resources except fine stones for stone tools. For example, it is hard to catch fish because the surrounding sea bottom falls of steeply. Thus, people couldn't live without trade. That's the main topic of the chapter.

As for sub topic, it is the sentence about the small world like Pitcairn Island: "If the small population did ignore incest taboos, the resulting inbreeding may have caused congenital physical anomalies to proliferate, as exemplified by deafness on Martha's Vineyard Island of Massachusetts or on the remote Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha."
I didn't know of Martha's Vineyard Island and Tristan da Cunha. I felt they were interesting so I searched and visited some websites.


Martha's Vineyard Island
The story of this island began in the mid-1600s. Many puritans went to this island from Weald, Kent in England, which was famous for many deafness caused by a genetic mutation. In 1854, according to a survey, the United States national average was one deaf person in 5728, but in Martha's Vineyard it was one in 155. Because the gene for deafness was recessive, such a large number of deaf people meant their parents must have had a common ancestor.

In 1881, a scholar studied deaf people in Martha's Vineyard Island and concluded that the deafness was caused by genes. So he recommended that deaf men don't marry with deaf women in the view of eugenics. His name is Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

But the people of the island were well adapted to such a situation. People had original sign language and all residents, whether normal or deaf, could use it. The last person who could use this language died in 1952 and the language vanished, but this case is still appreciated as a successful barrier-free approach.