SHENZHEN — At 8 am every morning, workers arrive at a car wash on Meilin Road in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Guangdong province, and begin a routine that is part work and part performance.

To lively music, they spray water, lather each car and wipe it down in a carefully timed sequence they have turned into a game, drawing customers who pause to watch. Over the past decade, they have washed more than 100,000 cars.

What sets the shop apart is not the service itself but the people delivering it. The workers are part of a group known in Chinese as "Xi Han Er", a colloquial term used here for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The shop's name, founder Cao Jun said, reflects the idea behind the project, where "Xi" means cherishing, "Han" refers to being slow or clumsy, and "Er" evokes a sense of childlike innocence that lasts a lifetime.

Many of the workers live with developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, autism, Down syndrome, or cerebral palsy. They are adults, with an average age of 26, though their cognitive abilities are broadly comparable to those of a 7-year-old.

For Cao, the goal was never just to run a car wash, but to create a place where people with cognitive disabilities could earn a living with their own hands and gain a sense of dignity through work. Since opening the first Xi Han Er car wash in Shenzhen in 2015, he has spent nearly 10 years refining a system of assessments, training and carefully segmented tasks that has enabled workers long shut out of the labor market to hold steady jobs.

The project addresses a wider problem. China has around 12 million people living with such conditions, and people with intellectual disabilities remain among the hardest to employ. Data from the country's second national sample survey on disability put their actual employment rate at below 10 percent.

At the Shenzhen car wash, the gains are modest but tangible. Cao said the shop has no shortage of customers, drawing most of them from neighborhoods within 2 or 3 kilometers, with many returning repeatedly. On review platforms, customers describe the workers as diligent and warm, and say the quality is on par with other car washes at similar price ranges. Some have even dubbed it the "Haidilao of car washes", a nod to the Chinese restaurant chain famous for its attentive service.

For the workers, that kind of recognition matters. Cao said his own son, one of the car wash's earliest employees, has changed from a young man too shy to speak to strangers into one who now greets customers and chats with ease.

Full-time employees receive at least Shenzhen's monthly minimum wage, and on payday, they often celebrate by buying soft drinks for one another, a small ritual that reflects the pride of earning their own money.

Success in Shenzhen soon drew notice far beyond the city. Parents of people with cognitive disabilities from across China began asking Cao whether the model might work for their own children.

In response, a growth care center, the Shenzhen Xi Han Er Home, was established and started sharing the operating model nationwide free of charge. Cao said the center provides its vocational-assessment methods, training system and task-based division of labor to others hoping to replicate it. His ambition is to help open 1,000 such stores and, in the process, support 10,000 families.

The model has already begun to spread. By the end of last year, 63 Xi Han Er car washes had opened across China, providing stable jobs for nearly 700 workers with intellectual disabilities. The stores have appeared not only in provincial capitals such as Nanjing, Jiangsu province, and Hefei, Anhui province, but also in distant regions like the Xinjiang Uygur and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions.

What started as a local experiment has increasingly become part of a wider pattern. In Xingguo county in East China's Jiangxi province, Liu Guixiang, chairwoman of the Taoli Group and a recipient of the 12th China Charity Awards, has spent more than 20 years in special and vocational education for people with disabilities.

After establishing rehabilitation and education institutions for disabled children, she opened a secondary vocational school in 2020 to give older students practical skills and a path into adult life. Then, in the winter of 2023, drawing on the Shenzhen example, she opened a Xi Han Er car wash in Xingguo, where young people with intellectual disabilities learn car-washing skills while hearing-impaired youths serve customers hand-brewed coffee.

"Teaching job skills to those with intellectual disabilities is incredibly hard," Liu said. "It's not a matter of showing them something dozens of times. In many cases, it takes hundreds or even thousands of repetitions before they really learn it."

Other cities are experimenting with variations on the same idea. In Zhejiang province's Wenzhou, a bakery-and-coffee chain called Starstart has created a supportive workplace for autistic young people, fondly nicknamed "children of the stars" who have grown up. Since opening its first store in 2019, it has expanded to eight outlets, with two more in the pipeline, and now employs 18 autistic youths alongside several job coaches.

In Hangzhou, a care center founded by parents combines social integration education with sheltered employment, operating a small grocery store, a car wash and a tea shop. In Hangzhou and Shaoxing, the Love Noodles outlets and related employment programs have helped nearly 50 people with intellectual disabilities find stable work.

In Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia, an autism-friendly coffee shop, a nail salon run by hearing-impaired workers and a Xi Han Er car wash in Qingshuihe county all reflect a growing trend to transform support for disabled people into real employment opportunities.

"Even with physical challenges, we can still create value through our own efforts," said 26-year-old Guo Shaobo with a smile, carefully scrubbing the wheel rim.

The effort has also gained policy backing. In May 2022, the China Disabled Persons' Federation issued a document supporting the nationwide expansion of the Xi Han Er car wash project. In December 2024, it followed up with another notice specifically urging the program's further rollout. The China Association of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities and Their Relatives has likewise endorsed broader employment initiatives for people with intellectual disabilities.

Cao said he hopes the Xi Han Er can serve as a bridge to society for people with intellectual disabilities. "Through such a semi-sheltered workplace, they can begin to step into the world beyond home and school, and find a rhythm of life more connected to the society around them," he said.

Xinhua