Six years. In Japan, we hand a six-year-old a backpack built to survive all six years of elementary school. It is called a randoseru. Stiff leather. Hand-stitched. Often made by craftsmen. Frequently strong enough to outlast the child who carries it. Parents save for it. Grandparents save for it. It can cost as much as a nice suit. Then we send it out. The rain. The falls. The overstuffed textbooks. And it just keeps going. Six years on one small back. By graduation it is scuffed. Faded. Shaped by one childhood. A lot of families cannot bring themselves to throw it away.