OUT OF FOCUS

The Spring Festival is the day when all Chinese people go home to reunite, but Chen Zhenhua has no plans to go home this New Year. A month ago, 35-year-old Chen Zhenhua took a 20-hour train from his hometown Jining, Shandong Province, and went south to Dongguan city to work as a blind masseur.

The massage industry in China's coastal areas is relatively developed. That is the reason why Chen Zhenhua chose to come to Guangdong province. On the one hand, he can get a higher salary; on the other hand, he could also accumulate experience in a large massage parlor. Before coming to Guangdong, Chen Zhenhua invested 20,000 yuan (around 3000 dollars) in his hometown and opened a 40-square-meter shop with two classmates in the short-term class.

"I didn't expect to make more money. I mainly want to accumulate experience. If I want to go to a better massage shop without a good technique, I can't do it." Chen Zhenhua said.

The shop has been running for about a year and a half. Although they charged fees very lowly and the service was thoughtful, but the arrival of the northern winter restricted people's movement and there they can barely make a living.

If you don’t face reality and accept reality, you will be knocked down by reality."Chen said.

Chen Zhenhua was a cheerful person who had practiced martial arts since childhood. Before that, he worked as an armed escort at the Zhenyuan Guard Center in Beijing. In 2013, he was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease, uveitis, Behcet's syndrome, which caused eyeball and retinal adhesions turning him blind. Since then, his temperament has changed dramatically. He has been lying in bed all day long. His parents would shout at him for a few times before he got up. After eating, he pushed the dishes back to the table and went to sleep, day after day. The time lasted for about a year.

"I had thought of death many times but I don’t have the courage to die that why I choose to live." Chen said.

When Chen Zhenhua recalled that his depressed days, he was very calm. "In fact, I can't say that I have completely got rid of that time. I occasionally recall those days when I can see. I derived somewhere to travel, chatted with my friends. It is quite imaginary and quite nostalgic, but the reality has changed, so I only miss it occasionally. If you don’t face reality and accept reality, you will be knocked down by reality."

"If you are responsible for the guests, the guests will naturally be nice to you."Chen said.

During the first month of coming to Dongguan, Chen Zhenhua did not appear to be uncomfortable. During the two years of working at blind massage center, he gradually recovered his optimism. He gets along with his workmates and guests very well. The business in the Chinese New Year is indeed much better than usual. Almost every day, he starts to work from the afternoon, until the late of the evening, sometimes even one or two o’clock, the most tiring day, he would not rest, and continue to work for eight and a half hours.

“Sometimes the guest can see that you are very tired, and ask to do it simply, but I also take it seriously. The process of doing massage is actually a process of making friends with guests.”

Around the Spring Lantern Festival, he got the first month’s salary of 4,520 yuan in Dongguan, plus the lucky money and tip given by the guests during the Spring Festival, which was almost 5,000 yuan(750 dollars).

Speaking of the future, Chen Zhenhua has no plans to change jobs now. He wants to accumulate experience first. If he can do massage when he gets older, he will go back to his hometown to open his own massage shop.

According to the "Statistical Bulletin on the Development of China's Disabled Persons in 2017" published by the government, the employment sector said that "the blind massage business is developing steadily and the massage organization continues to grow." From the data available, this kind of rhetoric has hardly been changed since this century. The blind massage industry showed a booming scene. There are 120,000 blind people in China who stay beside the massage bed like Chen Zhenhua. Xiaolin who is one among the 120,000 people working in this industry.

Unlike Chen Zhenhua, during the Chinese New Year, Xiaolin, who worked in a massage shop Chengdu, Sichuan, went north to his hometown of Guangyuan City for a half-month. In addition to visiting his family, he also planned to learn more programming knowledge in his spare time."I don't ask for that I have to follow my preferences or it must be suitable for me. Whose life is perfect? I just want more choices. The working time is a little shorter. There is a little space for activities." In the eyes of some people, the usual working hours and a small worktable are the goals that Xiaolin is now fighting for.

The 26-year-old boy suffered a medical accident during his childhood, which caused blindness. Like many visually impaired children, they seem to have only one way to go after blindness, enter the blind school to learn massage, and enter the massage parlor after graduation.

During the day in the blind school, Xiaolin also learned some computer knowledge. His programming hobby began from that time, but there is no programming training institution for blind people. Therefore, he must self-learn it. When he goes to work in the shop he would take the spare time to learn Java knowledge when he is free.

"There are some people who are suitable for it and there must be some people who are not." Xiaolin said.

"The massage itself is not good or bad. It is one kind of occupation. Like other occupation, there are some people who are compatible with it and there are some people who are not." Xiaolin said.

According to a research non-interventional study of a blind massage shop in Beijing for half a month, the research that there are two problems in blind masseurs: First, the work pressure is high. 87% of them work more than 12 hours a day and are open all year round. Second, income is meager. 61% of them earn less than 3,000 yuan a month, which transfers into hourly wage that is well below the Beijing minimum wage of 9.89 yuan per hour.

“If the visually impaired person wants to find a programming job, the skill that he mastered must be excellent otherwise he won’t be hired by any company.” Xiaolin is not very satisfied with his study.

Visually impaired programmers are not invisible in China, but Xiaolin has also discovered a fact that is not easy to be discovered in the report. Those programmers are basically the people who get acquired blindness after being educated or have low vision.

"The advantage of those who get acquired blindness is that they have received a better education and have a better understanding ability.”Xiaolin said，The difference in the level of education, in a visually impaired group, the phenomenon of differentiation has already appeared. In 2010, the total number of disabled people in China were 85.02 million, and the gross enrollment rate of higher education was less than 1%. In contrast, the gross enrollment rate of higher education in the entire Chinese society is 40%.

A lot of things can not be achieved just with a passion, especially the educational conditions." Xiaolin said. Not long ago, he began to pay attention to job search information and found that at least the college recruitment requirements are college degrees.

Although in recent years, the national policy has allowed visually impaired people to participate in the college entrance examination, because of the differences in the learning environment, the results of visually impaired people taking college entrance exams are not very satisfactory. In 2018, only 2 visually impaired students participated in the college entrance examination.

After the Spring Festival, Xiaolin returned to the massage shop in Chengdu, and he did not have enough confidence with his programming learning.

“The blind massage industry is able to successfully accommodate many visually impaired people, but with the development of the times, the corresponding policies should do more. Maybe because I live in the information age, I have more ideas.”

After Xiaolin returned this information, he has not spoken for a long time.

"Sorry, I just worked for another one hour." Xiaolin said after one hour.

In the morning from Monday to Friday, on subway line Batong in Beijing, several visually impaired people stand side by side with a blind cane. Like everyone else, they need to take more than an hour's drive every day to Protection&Ease Interactive Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Baoyi Company) on the third floor of Chaoyang district Vocational Rehabilitation Center For Disabled people and start their daily work.

The founder of the company, Cao Jun, proudly referred to this as the landscape of Baoyi Company. The first question Cao Jun asks on the first day of each employee’s arrival is whether you could travel independently, “No matter to go to work or take meals, visually impaired Employees must complete independently.”

In some people's eyes, this kind of discourse is very cruel, but Cao Jun thinks this is what they must do, and the company's employees have no complaints about this.

These visually impaired employees working in the company have different birthplaces, resumes, and ideas. In the final analysis, they all share the same purpose: to live the same life as a normal person.

"Massage is just a means for me to make a living."Cao said.

Cao Jun was diagnosed with congenital cataract at birth, limited to the medical conditions of the 70s. Cao Jun was completely out of light. Under the concept that the teacher constantly instills “study massage well and take massage as your job after you grow up.”Cao Jun, like most visually impaired people, embarked on the road of massaging.

In 1995, under the vigorous implementation of national policies, the golden age of blind massage was in the ascendant, coupled with the careful management and service of Cao Jun. In 13 years, Cao Jun had eight chains massage shop from a small shop of only 15 square meters. Although the business is getting bigger and bigger, Cao Jun is not happy. Like many visually impaired people, he does not like massage; just use it as a means of earning a living.

According to the "Statistical Bulletin on the Development of China's Disabled Persons in 2017" published by the government, the employment sector said that "the blind massage business is developing steadily and the massage institutions continue to grow." From the data available, this kind of rhetoric has hardly been seen since this century.

"I am blind, I know what the needs of the visually impaired are." Cao said.

Before the advent of smartphones, the life of the visually impaired persons was very monotonous. Most visually impaired people used the radio as a companion, and the radio is like a mobile phone to everyone now.  At that time, Cao Jun was also eager to call, send text messages, and surf the Internet, but after waiting for a long time, there was no such product, so he also had the dream of starting a business to start a screen reading software. After talking with the visually impaired friends around him, everyone’s support also strengthened his determination.

In 2008, Cao Jun sold all the massage shops and chose what he thought he needed to do most, setting up a blind technology company.

"This is the most wonderful voice in the world."Cao said.

Despite his dreams, the reality still gave him a shot. The first difficulty facing the establishment of the company was the inability to recruit programmers.

Some people thought that this idea was simply a fantasy. Some people thought that following with visually impaired people, there was no future, and some people said that the screen reading software is too abstract, and they had no ability to finish it. In contact with 17 programmers, Cao Jun always got all kinds of congestion. This kind of experience made Cao Jun shake and he was disheartened.

"If you can make such software, all visually impaired people will remember you."When he found the eighteenth programmer, Cao Jun, had exhausted all his options. Three months later, when the programmer took the mobile phone and let Cao Jun test it. When the mobile phone sent back the feedback, Cao Jun excitedly left in tears and said: "This is the most beautiful voice in the world."

"I am blind myself. I want to place more visually impaired people to work." Cao said.

These things were filmed by CCTV, into a movie "You are my eye," and the reputation of the first visually impaired technology company is getting louder and louder. However, Cao Jun is still more inclined to call his company "Visually impaired People’s Dream Works." When talking about the positioning of his company, Cao Jun believed that the current company is a business and a social organization as well as a public welfare property. He said that the problem facing the company now is how to make more visually impaired people integrate into society.

“Baoyi Listening” is a screen reading product that allows visually impaired people to use their mobile phones through gesture control and voice playback, helping countless visually impaired people to live an information-free life. At the same time, Cao Jun also employs a large number of visually impaired employees to add an option for their career choices. During the 11 years since the establishment of the company, more than 190 visually impaired employees have worked here.

These visually impaired employees working in the company have different birthplaces, resumes, and ideas. In the final analysis, they all share the same purpose: to live the same life as a discerning person.

Cai Lei is one of the first batches of users to use Baoyi Listening, who is familiar with the products and is often active in the BBS, which led him to come to Baoyi to work as an operator.

The year when the retina fell off, was the turning point of the life of 9-year-old Yunnan rural boy Cai Lei. Since graduating from a high school for the blind, he has been a member of the masseurs in Yunnan and Guangdong. At the age of 30, he traveled far and wide and came to Baoyi Company for a relatively open working environment.

Cai Lei has been working at Baoyi for four years. He is very satisfied with the current job. He feels that although the income is less, at least it seems to be a normal job. Objectively speaking, he does not hate the massage as a career choice. The reason why he left the massage industry is that if he is older, his body cannot be bearable. "When doing massage, there is basically no concept of going to work and getting off work. Speaking it more seriously, massage shop is equivalent to putting a group of people together, waiting for work. Not only a rest problem.

According to the China Disabled Persons' Federation (CDPF), only 9 million of China's 85 million disabled citizens are working. They are generally labeled as incompatible, experiencing psychological and physical isolation, living in an isolated environment from an early age, and being sent to a special school. Many people still think that home is the only place to accommodate them.

“If we have ten visually impaired interviewees, two of them can stay here is a good enough.” Cao said.

The education level of the visually impaired is generally low is not a new phenomenon. The top school for visually impaired students, Beijing Union University has more than 150 visually impaired students a year. Compared with China, the visually impaired population at the end of 2010 already reached 12.63 million. As an operator, Cai Lei occasionally encounters a phone call that lasts for more than an hour to ask some simple operational questions.

The 24-year-old Zhu Qiang, who just starts his work here, is about to face such a challenge. After graduating from the Luoyang School of The Blind, he did an internship at a massage shop for half a year. In order to give himself a choice for employment, he came to Baoyi Company a week ago. But he quickly adapted to the work environment, and he was grateful for the computer knowledge he had learned at the blind school, although he felt that what he learned is not enough.

Speaking of this, Cao Jun is also quite helpless. Although Baoyi company is the only company in Beijing that can provide job training for visually impaired people, many of the visually impaired employees who never learn how to operate the computer or how to type. As a company, it cannot afford high training costs.

“Try your best to live like a discerning person, there will be more opportunities in the future.” Cao said.

At least for now, many companies have a full understanding of the concept of information accessibility. During the 11 years, Baoyi Company had cooperation projects with Qualcomm, Tencent, Xiaomi, Microsoft and other companies. Bill Gates told Cao Jun: What he does now is a great job!

However, in China, it is still a long way to achieve integrated employment. Although the government has introduced a number of policies to encourage enterprises to accept the employment of disabled people. However, Zhou Haibin, the ILO's GBDN-China branch coordinator, said in an interview that the current "affiliation" has become the biggest "competitor" for the disabled to integrated employment.

Cao Jun, who has worked hard in the business world for more than ten years, has also seen the phenomenon of allowing blind people to keep the gates and other enterprises to accommodate visually impaired people in order to cope with the policies. Moreover, many companies do not have any understanding of the visually impaired people. The operator Wang Xue had worked in a music house and she said that the atmosphere was harmonious. But the colleague’s unintentional words spurred Wang Xue, he said: “You actually change the battery.”

Cao Jun’s greatest hope is to enable more visually impaired people to “see” the society through the power of science and technology, and let more people in the society know the visually impaired in the new era. He said: "We always call for diversified employment and give the visually impaired some tolerance. But if society gives you the opportunity and the tolerance, but you have no way to accept it, it is also useless.

"Although we can't see anything, we have a keen brain and sensitive ears. Don't trap ourselves in a small massage industry. You must push yourself forward. To put it bluntly, try your best to live like a discerning person, there will be more opportunities in the future.”

If you turn on the radio on February 17th, maybe you would listen to such a show. In this program, Anchors are sharing the food they good at, “touch it like…”, “when you smell…” and “taste it like…”, they described each process in detail, because this program is dedicated to visually impaired audiences.

But many visually impaired audiences don't know that the four anchors on the other end of the radio are also visually impaired. Li Yanshuang is one of them.

"Being an anchorwoman is not only my dream, but it is also a common dream for many visually impaired friends." Li said.

Li Yanshuang was diagnosed with ocular hypoplasia at birth, and her world was blurred. Reading is not only a luxury for her but for many Chinese visually impaired people. In addition to the small number of published Braille books on the market, and if you want to make one ordinary novel into a braille version, the height of the braille version is eight times than the Chinese version. So most visually impaired people would like to have their own radios around them. The radio is their books, their toys, and their partners.

In the eyes of some visually impaired people, Li Yanshuang’s life has fulfilled the dreams of them, but in the middle of the process, few people can have the same feeling, in others’ eyes, she always seems very restless.

Li recalled when she was in elementary school. She was born in the rural area of Hebei. There was no blind school around. Back then no primary schools was willing to enroll her. In the second year, Li Yanshuang finally realized his dream of studying. But this seems to have become a nightmare for the two class teachers. The two classes in the school were not willing to ask me.

"Keep learning than others, only to learn well, all would be well." Li said.

In the third grade, her school became a pilot program of helping visually impaired public welfare projects, and she was fortunate enough to be selected as one subject of this project. Although the teacher did not have studied special education for a long time, he did have this experience. Li became his first student. Under the guidance of the teacher, her study gradually improved and became one of the best students in the school. Later, she went to the Beijing Blind School. Li Yanshuang is also one of the best students.

"I don't regret it at all." Li said.

Li Yanshuang chose to go to an ordinary high school to learn cultural knowledge in a questioning and opposition voice. Although she was forced to study massage at Beijing Union University under pressure. Many classmates from the Beijing Blind School have questioned her. They are all doing massage, they have three years of experience, but she has to go to college, that they thought it was a choice to waste time and money. However, Li Yanshuang never regretted her decision. She thought that she had learned a lot of things that others had not learned in the past three years.

When she graduated from the college, she accidentally heard that her classmates were doing broadcasting in an NGO, and that when broadcasting dreams came to her mind. Both family and friends believe that the visually impaired person is not suitable for doing this job. They tried to stop her and let her do the massage. But she started learning from nothing, and she has been in the field of radio for more than ten years.

“If we have more choices from the beginning, we have more opportunities to choose the industry we like.” Li said.

He turned into blindness when he was a child and now he is a junior in piano tuning major. He has received education from a blind school as many visually impaired students. Later, he achieved excellent grades and entered Beijing Union University.

Beijing Union University's School of Special Education is first Chinese college who can enroll both the disabled students and healthy students. However, it has only been established for just 19 years. It has 6 majors but only 2 majors are for visually impaired students. If you arrive at Beijing Puhuangyu Subway Station, you can find this school very easily. The school looks very old and there are dilapidated alleys on both sides of the school, and the streets leading to the gates are also surrounded by vehicles of nearby residents.

Some visually impaired students also respond to the problem of barrier-free facilities in schools. However, some people say that universities are the bridges connecting society. If everything is done now, what if there are no barrier-free facilities in the society?

Youmo thinks this view is incorrect. " This sentence has logic error, there should be barrier-free facilities in the society everywhere the school's barrier-free facilities should be better."

Like other universities in China, the school also offers career planning courses in the first and third grades, but Youmo believes that such courses are only helpful if students already have a clear understanding of their career plans.

“It’s difficult for students with healthy eyes, let alone our visually impaired students.” Youmo said.

Considering his age, he gave up his idea of the postgraduate study. Although the undergraduate degree is already highly educated in the visually impaired group, in contrast, the employment of undergraduates in the society is less and less dominant. Although many companies say they don’t have employment discrimination, they are still reluctant to recruit visually impaired people. After graduation, he has felt the pressure of employment.

Youmo wanted to be a teacher from his childhood. He wanted to work for the education industry after graduation, but the reality discouraged him. As of 2019, there was no policy in China to allow visually impaired people to join the teacher qualification test.

Youmo is born with a good voice. He thinks that if he has a good chance, he also wants to work as an anchor, editor, and in other occupations. However, as a non-professional student, he has a visual impairment, it is really difficult for him to seek an internship. During the university, he manages a WeChat public platform with some of his classmates.

“There must be some visually impaired students who take the challenge.” Youmo said.

Until now, although China's visually impaired people have more diversified employment chances. But many visually impaired students who graduated from elementary school or junior high school still choose the massage as the main employment.

But for the visually impaired college students who born in the 1990s or 2000s, some of them want to pursue a career not only to have a good material foundation but also they want to choose a career they like. Many people are not willing to return to the massage industry after graduation.
"There must be some visually impaired students to take the challenge, otherwise there will be no breakthrough in the diversified employment.”