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	TX: 11.09.08 - Social Impact of the Paralympics PRESENTER: PETER WHITE

	Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WHITE Well I've escaped for a few hours from the Paralympic bubble - from the banners and the bunting and the endless announcement of races - to find out perhaps how the Paralympics is playing amongst ordinary disabled people in Beijing. We've had endless debates about this but I haven't heard from many people who it will genuinely effect. I've come to see Jung Bowhau [phon.] who lives on the 22nd floor of this block of flats and I'm going to find out whether he thinks the Paralympics is going to make any difference to him. Nice to meet you. JUNG [Indistinct words] English in school. My English name is Daryl. WHITE Mr Jung prefers to talk to me in Mandarin, so with us is translator Stephen Hallett. Jung's flat is smallish but comfortable, he lives here with his wife. He has a job as a translator with the water authority, which he found for himself. In Britain we'd probably describe him as lower middle class. JUNG At about the age of six months I got polio. Before I went to primary school I had some recovery and I was able to move my upper body. WHITE So how did you get on at school with the other children? JUNG Well I don't know what experience children who are disabled have abroad but I think I was quite lucky because I was at school for 12 years and through all that time, from the first year of primary school to when I graduated from high school, if I had to go upstairs other students would carry me up and down. So I think actually I got a lot of attention from the other students and I was given a lot of assistance. WHITE And how would you describe the attitude to disability in Chinese society? JUNG My experience has been that China is a very kind and caring society and although in the old days, when I was a child, there wasn't any organised system for assisting disabled people the relationship between people is very close and so I could count on a lot of help from the people around me. WHITE You see there's been a lot of publicity in the West leading up to the Paralympics saying that China has been perhaps backward in providing for disabled people and that this is the opportunity to put that right, that doesn't really square with what you've just told me. JUNG Although personally I haven't experienced great prejudice I think generally there have been very few opportunities for disabled people to enter the workforce. Now that that's beginning to change and it's going to create more employment opportunities for them as well. WHITE The other thing that's being said is that there is a stigma about disability and that's cited in the sense that you don't see many disabled people out and about, people say that you haven't in the past seen many wheelchairs on the streets of Beijing. JUNG I'm somebody with quite a severe disability but for the last few decades I've just been going out regardless. I may well be that people with a more severe disability may have difficulty going out and in the past wheelchairs weren't readily available, so it would have been very difficult for people in that situation to go out. WHITE Jung hasn't watched any Paralympic sport yet although there is extensive coverage on Chinese TV, I suggest we watch some together. HALLETT What we're watching at the moment is China and Holland of wheelchair tennis, at the moment the score is one to one. WHITE Have you seen wheelchair tennis before? JUNG I've only watched non disabled tennis before, this is the first time I've seen wheelchair tennis. I think it's really good fun and I really enjoy watching it. WHITE What seems quite interesting is it sounds to me like there's quite a decent crowd there. JUNG I think a lot of people watch it because firstly they want to see the spirit of disabled people, which has been talked about so much. And I think also it's something which is new and fresh, so they're quite curious to see what it's like. WHITE Not everyone would paint quite as rosy a picture of China and the place of disability in it. Normally Beijing, like most of the world's capitals, has its share of street beggars, some of whom are disabled. They've been removed from the streets during the run up to the Paralympics. Jing Fung is part of a group of blind broadcasters who've set up their own radio station, they're trying to use their skills during the Paralympics to bring about change. FUNG We broadcast online to mainly visually-impaired people. We broadcast on the radio to tell other people what disabled people are thinking. And we have a three minute slot each night on state television. CLIP Our main role is to report on the sports that blind people are interested in. WHITE What's its deeper significance of what you're doing? FUNG We're changing society, people can see us out here as blind journalists and that disabled people can get into different forms of employment and do other things. WHITE What's wrong, what is it you're trying to change? FUNG The most important thing is to change attitudes, people thinking. Our work can actually influence the way people think. WHITE What about the role of the government? FUNG The government's main role is to serve people and to help change the way people live. But that's not something only limited to disabled people - they need to work to improve the whole of society. With an event like the Paralympics it's an opportunity for people to come together from all over the world to express their views so that the Chinese government and people in China can see more progressive ways of helping disabled people and improve their way of dealing with disabled people. CLIP WHITE Meanwhile back in Jung's front room his wife Wong Su Lang [Phon.] has returned home, she's not disabled. She watched the opening ceremony all the way through and now the wheelchair tennis catches her attention. WONG Well for me it's also the first time I've seen wheelchair tennis and what surprises me most is it looks just the same as any other tennis. WHITE Are you surprised how many people seem to be there? WONG Well I'm not that surprised because firstly they're very new stadiums so people really want to go and see them. And also the tickets are quite cheap, the government's made sure that the tickets are sold cheaply so that more people will go to see the sport. WHITE I've been talking to your husband about attitudes to disability in China, sometimes people who are watching, as it were, see more than people who are actually experiencing it, I wonder what you think? WONG Well certainly in Beijing when we go out we tend to go out with friends and we go to restaurants and everything I've experienced is other people's help and kindness and in the city it's been pretty good. But I come from the countryside and as far as I know there aren't many disabled people where I come from, at least we don't see them, so I don't know what kind of attitudes there might be to disabled people there. WHITE There must be disabled people in the countryside, why do you think you don't see them? WONG My home is in south China and before I came here I'd never actually encountered any disabled people before, certainly not people with a physical disability like my husband, so I just assume that there aren't any. We occasionally see a few blind people but even they're very, very few and most blind people would never go out anyway. And one of my neighbours, an elderly lady who's blind, she never goes out at all, she just does some housework and she would never go out because it's too difficult to get around. WHITE I mentioned this criticism in the West about attitudes to disability and so forth, but you seem contented and a happy man, has the West got it wrong about China and disability? JUNG I think if it does exist it's not too noticeable but I think also discrimination which exists is changing and just from my own point of view I haven't been too deeply affected by discrimination. WHITE I've no reason or right to doubt Jung's contentment - a family man enjoying a quiet life. It was significant though that with the microphone off he compared unfavourably the stilted performances of Chinese officials and the relaxed and open speech of the British head of the International Paralympic Committee at the opening ceremony, he wouldn't repeat it with the mic on. But his puzzlement at Western journalists tendency to criticise China is clearly genuine and when you look at the money which has been spent to make the subway, buses and various historic places of interest accessible you can understand why. The question about whether progress for disabled people will be maintained after the games and whether it will spread beyond Beijing to the rest of the China hangs in the air. We might be able to give an answer in about 10 years time? Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 麻豆约拍 is not responsible for external websites

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