Beijinging: Accessibility Is a Pipe Dream

May 30, 2008 at 4:45 PM | 3 Comments

Our own femme fatale, Monica Guy, has the pre-Olympics buzz from Beijing for us this week.

How many people with disabilities are there in China? It's a tricky question. The China Disabled Persons' Federation say it's 60 million, a recent BBC report says 83 million and estimates based on the World Health Organization's population model are upwards of 125 million. But discrepancies of few million make little difference in a country of 1.3 billion people, and until now at least, nobody has much cared about the actual number.

In fact, when Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Britain's Paralympic athlete who's earned 11 gold medals, first went to Beijing, locals would to poke her to determine whether or not she was real.

The expected visit of just 4,000 more disabled people to Beijing this September seems, bizarrely, to have galvanized the Chinese authorities into action over accessibility. In terms of numbers, it's like a pinprick on an elephant's rump. But these disabled visitors are special: They're the Paralympic athletes, and they'll be trailed by 6,000 journalists.

About 30,000 Beijing-based volunteers have now signed up for "disability training" ahead of the Olympic Games. As we speak, they're undertaking crash courses in how to deal with handicaps of all types, from physical disabilities to visual and hearing impairments to learning difficulties.

It all sounds good and very PC, but we're a bit dubious about how much help all these volunteers will actually be, either to the visitors or to their own people. For instance, according to the official spin there'll be 10,000 sign language translators trailing their way around shopping malls and businesses this summer, helping deaf people find their way.

But what language will they learn? Chinese sign language is just as incomprehensible to an ASL "speaker" as Chinese is to the average Englishman. Many countries have their own sign language, and even deaf Americans and Brits cannot easily communicate.

We hear the Chinese volunteers are learning International Sign Language, which sounds like a good idea until you learn that ISL is about as common among deaf signers as Esperanto is among the rest of us.

Training 30,000 volunteers in multilingual sign language before the Games arrive: Now that will be an Olympic feat.

Related Stories:
· Monica Guy's Beijing Field Trip [Jaunted]
· Beijing coverage [Jaunted]

Where: Beijing, China

Tags: Beijing Olympics / 2008 Olympics / Beijing Olympics 2008 / Beijinging / Beijing Field Trip / Accessible Travel

by femmefatale

Gestuno/ISL and Esperanto

Gestuno/ISL is indeed pretty rare - not so Esperanto!
I guess you must be one of those rare people with the ability to know what language a person speaks without actually hearing it! ;-)

Although I have spoken Esperanto for about 58 years, and still use it every day, no one that I can recall has ever asked me out of the blue if I speak it. And those who have somehow found out this information rarely have the slightest interest in knowing more - their loss, not mine!

Are you aware that Radio China International (and Radio Polonia) has been broadcasting daily in Esperanto for years?:
http://esperanto.cri.cn/
and that Olympic info in Esperanto has also long been available:
http://www.espero.com.cn/z-18s/s1/s1-1/s1-1a.htm
Our Vancouver Olympic organizers by comparison think that they will be able to get along with just English and French - I have heard nothing yet about ISL.

Nobel Prize for Esperanto

Another interesting fact is that the Beijing Olympics have appointe the first-ever Esperanto translator for the Olympics,

For those who advocate an "English-only" solution, despite the possibility of the accusation of "linguistic imperialism", the fact that eight British MP's have nominated Esperanto for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008, should also be worth noting.

3 Comments

Return to » Beijinging: Accessibility Is a Pipe Dream

mankso

Jaunted Member
May 31, 2008 at 12:26 AM

Gestuno/ISL and Esperanto
>ISL is about as common among deaf signers as Esperanto is among the rest of us.
Gestuno/ISL is indeed pretty rare - not so Esperanto!
I guess you must be one of those rare people with the ability to know what language a person speaks without actually hearing it! ;-)
Although I have spoken Esperanto for about 58 years, and still use it every day, no one that I can recall has ever asked me out of the blue if I speak it. And those who have somehow found out this information rarely have the slightest interest in knowing more - their loss, not mine!
Are you aware that Radio China International (and Radio Polonia) has been broadcasting daily in Esperanto for years?:
http://esperanto.cri.cn/
and that Olympic info in Esperanto has also long been available:
http://www.espero.com.cn/z-18s/s1/s1-1/s1-1a.htm
Our Vancouver Olympic organizers by comparison think that they will be able to get along with just English and French - I have heard nothing yet about ISL.

mankso

Jaunted Member
May 31, 2008 at 1:15 PM

Esperanto
And now I read that a recent Language Festival at the University of Nanjing attracted some 13,500 visitors:
http://www.liberafolio.org/2008/chinalingvafestivalo/
Can you guess which was the second most popular language?! (All is revealed in the article cited. Warning!: unilingual English-speakers may have some difficulty accessing this info).

bribarker

Jaunted Member
June 3, 2008 at 1:56 PM

Nobel Prize for Esperanto
There may be some surprise at the strength of support for Esperanto in China.
Another interesting fact is that the Beijing Olympics have appointe the first-ever Esperanto translator for the Olympics,
For those who advocate an "English-only" solution, despite the possibility of the accusation of "linguistic imperialism", the fact that eight British MP's have nominated Esperanto for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008, should also be worth noting.
Confirmation at http://esperantolobby.org

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