I said half jokingly to my travel mates that China was not ADA compliant, but there's a lot of truth in that. At the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City we saw a few individuals in wheelchairs. There was a crude sort of wheelchair ramp leading up to the Temple of Heaven, but a wheelchair-bound person would need a team of helpers to get him/her safely up and back as the angle was so steep. At the Forbidden City, time after time, an elderly lady in a wheelchair had to get up and walk across one of the numerous thresholds (which I previously posted about) while her male companion lifted the wheelchair over to the other side where she would seat herself again. On one occasion Jason kindly helped a man lift his elder relative seated in the wheelchair over a threshold. He was rewarded with many smiles and nods from both men. We saw stairs navigated in the same manner.
Frankly we did not encounter many disabled Chinese citizens in our travels. Sometimes we would see individuals with limb deformities or mental disabilities begging at major tourist sites. We kept noticing signs in Beijing for "Blind Massage," which puzzled us. Alice told us that this was one of the occupations that people with visual impairments were encouraged to enter and it was one where they excelled. The thought was that because a person's sense of sight was compromised, he/she might have the other senses heightened, particularly that of touch. For this reason (and not because a blind massage therapist wouldn't judge the client's physical shape, which I thought would be a real bonus), blind massage was quite popular.
For more on disability in China, see the newspaper articles on this topic in my "China Daily Articles" post.
Peggy
3 comments:
Having never been to China, I haven't experienced the culture firsthand. I do, however, have one theory as to some reasons why the tourist sites are not very accommodating toward people with disabilities. For one, the country's tourist attractions are probably ancient and therefore built well before any considerations for the handicapped were made. Secondly, the country which has long held a reputation for limiting family sizes would likely have less surviving handicapped citizens. Many of the "unwanted" family members would probably never make it to adulthood.
On a different note, my wife is a licensed massage therapist. She is not blind, but she has commented that it helps her to close her eyes and "zen out" when giving a massage. It helps her focus on what her hands are doing rather that what her eyes see. I would love to get a "blind massage" to see if it really makes a difference!
The above comment was posted by Alvin Nelson, a student in Dr. Vitulli's AED501-701 summer 2012 course.
Thanks for your comments Alvin. I think you have some valid points. I should mention that while I focused on access to tourist sites in my post, I don't recall having seen accommodations for disabled individuals in any of the other "everyday" places we toured either.
I appreciate you sharing your wife's comment about being better able to focus (no pun intended) on massage when her eyes were closed. Support from a professional for the theory that shutting down one sense helps heighten the others. - Peggy
Post a Comment