New York Times 4th November 2013 By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW Ni Zhen Ni Zhen, once consigned to training as a masseur because of his blindness, is now studying law.
Ni Zhen didn’t want to become a masseur, even though neighbors, educators and seemingly everyone else in his native Shandong Province urged him in that direction — because he is blind. “The whole environment was saying, ‘Blind people can only do massage,’ ” said Mr. Ni, 28. “But I wasn’t the slightest bit interested.” Music was the other career considered suitable for a blind person, but while attending schools for disabled people in the cities of Tai’an and Qingdao he dreamed of taking the “gaokao,” the all-important university entrance examinations, so he could choose his subject freely. Yet, “the local education department said, ‘We don’t have the ability to let blind people do the gaokao,’” he said. Mr. Ni seemed to bow to fate, taking a special examination for the blind and entering a five-year massage program. “I was rebellious because I didn’t like being forced to do something that I wasn’t into, and to have to spend so long doing it,” he said. It has taken years for Mr. Ni to find his way, but he has: via Britain, where he completed a master’s degree in education at Durham University, and Hong Kong, where he is now studying law at the University of Hong Kong. And he has a message for the world, summed up by the title of a 77-page, unpublished manifesto he has written about disability in China: “Untapped Talent.” Around the world, one in 10 people have some form of physical or mental disability. “They are the world’s largest minority,” according to United Nations Enable, the official website of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. China says it has 85 million disabled people, about 6.5 percent of the population. The reasons for the lower figure aren’t clear. For many, gaining access to treatment and jobs is a challenge. Poverty is a common companion. The World Bank estimates 20 percent of the world’s poorest are disabled. They face hurdles to getting a good education, reducing their chances of emerging from poverty. In China, too, disabled people are poorer than their able-bodied peers with a disposable income about half of the national average. They are “one of the most needy groups in China, with many living below the poverty line,” Zhang Haidi, the chairwoman of the China Disabled Persons Federation, was quoted by Xinhua, the state news agency, as saying at the federation’s recent annual meeting in Beijing. China has signed and ratified the United Nations convention, the goal of which is to shift perceptions of disabled people from “objects of charity” to “subjects with rights,” the United Nations website said. In 2008, China gave disabled citizens the right to attend mainstream schools. http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/disabled-chinese-struggle-for-a-good-education-and-acceptance/?_r=0 -- Avinash Shahi M.Phil Research Scholar Centre for The Study of Law and Governance Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
