According to CNN (USA), Yang must divide his time between life with his wife in Beijing with work in his hometown in Tangshan, an industrial city about 160km away. His weekly itinerary involves riding on a bullet train, then catching two buses and three subway trains through busy stations. For most Chinese visually impaired people, such walking is impossible. But Yang is lucky to have a companion. It was Dick, a 4-year-old Labrador.
Guide dogs like Dick are rare in China. Mr. Yang had to wait 5 years to have this special friend. According to CCTV, China had only about 200 guide dogs as of April, which is rarer than even pandas.
The China Blind Association estimates the country’s blind population at more than 17 million. According to the World Health Organization, up to 8 million Chinese are completely blind, equivalent to the total population of Switzerland. For every 85,000 visually impaired Chinese, there is only one guide dog.
Meanwhile, about 1/50th of the visually impaired in the US are assisted by a guide dog. In the UK, more than 1,000 guide dogs are also trained each year to assist a total of 36,000 people with total or partial blindness.
Danger on the street
Determining the direction on the streets of China is also considered a difficult task for the blind. A 2016 survey found that 30% of the country’s blind people rarely leave their homes. Only a quarter of blind people regularly go out on their own, the rest are mainly guided by family and friends.
Before he was accompanied by Dick, Mr. Yang also had to rely on a cane to walk. He said it was difficult and dangerous to cross multi-lane highways and navigate by himself through overpasses and pedestrian tunnels in the Chinese capital.
“I was very scared. The most terrifying thing was that I couldn’t know what the way forward would be,” he said.
Despite much progress in recent years, Chinese cities are still considered disability-friendly. Even in the capital Beijing, many areas still do not have separate entrances or audible traffic lights specifically for the visually impaired.
Most of the sidewalks of cities in China are paved with tactile stones to guide the blind. But they are often said to be disabled-friendly or downright dangerous to use. Some lanes are built too zigzag, while others lead directly into trees, light poles or fire hydrants. Even, many areas are also encroached on by cars, bicycles, and illegal street vendors.
“These ‘blind roads’ are basically unreachable. Their design is not convenient for the visually impaired,” Yang said.
Besides, in China, many manhole covers on the street are often stolen to sell scrap. Between 2017 and 2019, there were more than 70 cases of injury or death from falling into a drain without a lid. The cases are so common that in April China’s Supreme Court announced it would severely penalize crooks who remove or damage manhole covers. The maximum sentence is death, if causing serious injury or death.
Over the years, several smaller guide dog training centers have been established in China. However, Dalian remains the largest center in the country and one of only two accredited by the International Guide Dog Federation (IGDF). In order to be recognized by the IGDF, a center needs to pass a rigorous review process, which can be difficult for centers that do not have enough funding.
Lack of funding is a major obstacle for China’s guide dog training centers. As a non-profit organization, the Dalian Center offers free guide dogs to subscribers, but the cost of training each dog is more than $30,000. Currently, the center is facing a serious budget deficit, although it has received support from a number of organizations before.
“If we have enough funding, we will be able to train more guide dogs. But in reality, we can only operate on the money we have,” said Ms. Liang, a dog trainer at the Dalian center.
Currently, the center has about 30 guide dog trainers. Many of them are young college graduates who are passionate about raising dogs and helping others. These people accept a monthly salary that is 60% lower than the city average.
The community has not accepted
Mr. Yang and many other blind people said that in recent years, guide dogs have become more accepted by Chinese people. In major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, guide dogs are allowed on subways, buses, and trains.
But some other places still don’t accept that. In April, a traffic officer in Thai Nguyen, Shanxi province, pretended to be blind and purposely boarded a bus with a guide dog. In the end, he was chased off the bus by the driver and berated by some passengers for wasting their time.
The video recorded the story then spread on Chinese social networks with the desire to call on the community to raise awareness of the difficulties that the visually impaired are facing.
Although guide dogs have enabled Mr. Yang and other visually impaired people to walk more freely, there are still many obstacles. Many hotels still do not allow pets in the rooms. Even if guide dogs have a valid work permit and appropriate vaccinations, many airlines still require a separate health certificate, which is required for the transport of pets and animals. farm animals, very hard to get.
In addition, some cities have enacted their own policies that allow guide dogs to go to public places and travel on vehicles, but enforcement cannot be immediately approved.
Yang said he has been turned away by bus drivers, hotels and restaurants for bringing a guide dog, but he is undaunted. Instead, he sees every rejection as an opportunity to help people get a closer look at guide dogs.
“There are only about 200 guide dogs in this country of 1.4 billion people. Therefore, the chances of meeting one of these animals are very low. That’s why we need pioneers to introduce them to society,” he said.
