More than 1 million tickets to the Beijing Paralympics were sold before the grand opening last Saturday.
While the crowds roar their approval of these remarkable athletes, some people are candid enough to admit that they feel awkward watching the events. Some television hosts, too, seem uneasy or even condescending.
They would do well to listen to Andy Lau, the Hong Kong film/music star and honored ambassador to the Beijing Paralympics: "Just go. They are great!"
The spectators' uneasiness is part of a psychological barrier that prevents many people, and society as a whole, from treating people with disabilities as equals.
This barrier is deep-rooted. For centuries, China was a poor country with backward medical facilities. Families bore the brunt of caring for children with physical or mental disabilities.
I learned this first-hand when I was 10 years old. While China was embroiled in the early and most chaotic years of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), I was a carefree, only child.
That year, my younger brother was born. When he was 7 days old, the doctors told my parents that he was suffering from a fatal blood disease. It was already too late to save him; the prognosis was cerebral palsy and an early death.
My parents did not give up, however. They searched everywhere for a cure. I remember accompanying my grandmother on countless trips to different hospitals, where my brother was subjected to injections and different styles of acupuncture. Even as a young girl, I was aware that my parents were spending every cent they had on medications.
Finally, when my brother was 3, my grandmother was hospitalized with an intestinal obstruction, a result of severe fatigue from taking care of my brother day in and day out. With my mother out of town and my father in hospital looking after my grandmother, I baby-sat my bed-ridden brother for three full days.
My family finally gave up the fight and sent my brother away to live in an institution. I visited him there several times and saw children with various disabilities getting only rudimentary care.
Later, when I was a student at the University of Hawaii, I realized that my brother might have had a chance at a better life. I met a disabled student browsing through the newspapers in the library. The way he talked and walked reminded me of my brother.
I remembered my brother's caretaker, a nanny, talking with pride about how he tried to talk and express himself in other ways. He developed a good sense for music and had a strong emotional bond with his nanny.
During my visits overseas, I often see people with disabilities engaged in the same professions as their "able-bodied" colleagues. I have developed a special admiration for a good friend of mine, Sonia Gunderson, who, despite being stricken with polio as a child, spent the past year doing research on Inuit communities throughout the Canadian Arctic.
There are many families like mine, and many neighbors and friends who share the sense of helplessness we felt.
The burden of caring for a disabled family member gives rise to a psychological barrier that prevents us from treating people with disabilities as equals and providing them with the opportunities they deserve.
Care for the disabled has improved since I was a girl, but we still have a long way to go. The government should continue to provide funds for medical research, as well as job training programs and barrier-free environments. People with disabilities need better rehabilitation schemes, high-tech prosthetic devices, and better wheelchairs to enable them to aim high in life and work alongside their "able-bodied" colleagues.
The Beijing Paralympics has shown us what these remarkable people can do, if given a chance. We owe them that chance.
E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 09/11/2008 page8)
