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´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 In Touch |
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Listen to this programmeFactsheet of this programmeTranscript of this programme Print this page FactsheetPING YALIPeter White interviews Chinese paralympic athlete Ping Yali. CDPF - China Disabled Person's Federation GENERAL CONTACTS RNIB 105 Judd Street London WC1H 9NE Helpline: 0845 766 9999 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm) Tel: 0207 388 1266 (switchboard/overseas callers) Web: The RNIB provides information, support and advice for anyone with a serious sight problem. They not only provide Braille, Talking Books and computer training, but imaginative and practical solutions to everyday challenges. The RNIB campaigns to change society's attitudes, actions and assumptions, so that people with sight problems can enjoy the same rights, freedoms and responsibilities as fully sighted people. They also fund pioneering research into preventing and treating eye disease and promote eye health by running public health awareness campaigns. HENSHAWS SOCIETY FOR BLIND PEOPLE (HSBP) John Derby House 88-92 Talbot Road Old Trafford Manchester M16 0GS Tel: 0161 872 1234 Email: info@hsbp.co.uk Web: Henshaws provides a wide range of services for people who have sight difficulties. They aim to enable visually impaired people of all ages to maximise their independence and enjoy a high quality of life. They have centres in: Harrogate, Knaresborough, Liverpool, Llandudno, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Salford, Southport and Trafford. THE GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND ASSOCIATION (GDBA) Burghfield Common Reading RG7 3YG Tel: 0118 983 5555 Email: guidedogs@guidedogs.org.uk Web: The GDBA’s mission is to provide guide dogs, mobility and other rehabilitation services that meet the needs of blind and partially sighted people. ACTION FOR BLIND PEOPLE 14-16 Verney Road London SE16 3DZ Tel: 0800 915 4666 (info & advice) Tel: 020 7635 4800 (central office) Web: Registered charity with national cover that provides practical support in the areas of housing, holidays, information, employment and training, cash grants and welfare rights for blind and partially-sighted people. Leaflets and booklets are available. NATIONAL LEAGUE OF THE BLIND AND DISABLED Central Office Swinton House 324 Grays Inn Road London WC1X 8DD Tel: 020 7837 6103 Textphone: 020 7837 6103 National League of the Blind and Disabled is a registered trade union and is involved in all issues regarding the employment of blind and disabled people in the UK. NATIONAL LIBRARY FOR THE BLIND (NLB) Far Cromwell Road Bredbury Stockport SK6 2SG Tel: 0161 406 2525 Textphone: 0161 355 2043 Email: enquiries@nlbuk.org Web: Trustees from the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) and the National Library for the Blind (NLB) have agreed to merge the library services of both charities as of 1 January 2007, creating the new RNIB National Library Service. EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HELPLINE (England) Freepost RRLL-GHUX-CTRX Arndale House Arndale Centre Manchester M4 3EQ 0845 604 6610 - England main number 0845 604 6620 - England textphone 0845 604 6630 - England fax Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9:00 am-5:00 pm; Wed 9:00 am-8:00 pm (last call taken at 7:45pm) EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HELPLINE (Wales) Freepost RRLR-UEYB-UYZL 3rd Floor 3 Callaghan Square Cardiff CF10 5BT 0845 604 8810 - Wales main number 0845 604 8820 - Wales textphone 0845 604 8830 - Wales fax Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9:00 am-5:00 pm; Wed 9:00 am-8:00 pm (last call taken at 7:45pm) EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HELPLINE (Scotland) Freepost RRLL-GYLB-UJTA The Optima Building 58 Robertson Street Glasgow G2 8DU 0845 604 5510 - Scotland Main 0845 604 5520 - Scotland Textphone 0845 604 5530 - Scotland – Fax Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9:00 am-5:00 pm; Wed 9:00 am-8:00 pm (last call taken at 7:45pm) DISABLED LIVING FOUNDATION 380-384 Harrow Road London W9 2HU Tel: 0845 130 9177 Web: The Disabled Living Foundation provides information and advice on disability equipment. THRIVE The Geoffrey Udall Centre Beech Hill Reading RG7 2AT Tel: 0118 9885688 Email: info@thrive.org.uk Thrive is a national charity, founded in 1978, whose aim is to research, educate and promote the use and advantages of gardening for those with a disability. Thrive’s vision is that the benefits of gardening are known to, and can be accessed by, anyone with a disability. Thrive has been supporting blind gardeners for over 30 years, and established the Blind Gardeners’ Club with RNIB in 2006 to help gardeners share information and techniques. Membership of the club costs £9 a year. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is not responsible for external websites General contacts Back to top TranscriptIN TOUCHTX: 02.09.08 2040-2100 PRESENTER: PETER WHITE PRODUCER: CHERYL GABRIEL White Good evening. In a moment we'll be heralding the approaching start of the Beijing Paralympics with a profile of the blind Chinese athlete who set them on the road to their enormous success by winning their very first gold medal over 20 years ago. Just before that though: most of you will know by now that NICE, the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence, has finally given the go ahead for the NHS to pay for the drug Lucentis, which is established as being able to halt the progress of the eye condition wet AMD. One of the great frustrations of doing a weekly programme is that the news embargo on that story meant we weren't able to bring it to you last week just before it broke, we will though be picking up the threads, next week we'll be looking at the implications of the decision, how it will affect current and future patients up and down the country and at how alternative treatments for AMD might be affected, so do join us for that. Now in four days time Beijing's temporarily interrupted party will get underway again with the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games. And in some ways this could prove to be an even more important pointer to China's future than the Olympics. If you think China dominated the Olympics you ain't seen nothing yet. They are likely to be all powerful in the Paralympics. In Athens they won almost twice as many gold medals as the runners up - Great Britain - and for the next fortnight it will be disabled people who are very visibly bringing glory to China. And the hope is that this can only improve the social and economic position of disabled people in that huge country. Well on my last visit to China I went to see Ping Yali with my trusty translator Stephen Hallett. Ping Yali was the very first athlete to win a gold for China. We talked not only about her sport but about her life and its huge ups and some very big downs too. One of three sisters but the only one who was blind she described how sport gave her status but she began by reminding me about the state of the development of Paralympic sport in China when she was a child. Ping Yali In the 1960s it was very difficult for disabled people to take part in sports and international sports partly because at that time the Americans were actually boycotting Chinese participation in international events and it was very difficult for us to compete outside our own country. And so we tended to compete within or between schools for the blind and then compare our achievements by writing to each other. White So tell me the rest of your story. Ping Yali At that time I really liked sports and I didn't do well in any other subjects - in maths or in language in Chinese - I remember at one time I only got 5% for one of my maths tests and the maths teacher said well if your parents know that you got 5% that's as good as getting 100%, so I'll give you 6%, just to get a bit better. But then I went back with 6% and my father beat my anyway. Because I did so badly in maths I had to make up for it by doing really well in sport. And then by winning awards in my sports competitions I was actually able to make up for my terrible failures in the maths area. White So how did the long jump start? Ping Yali It was actually my teachers who wanted me to do the long jump and for a blind person to jump into the void, what we call jumping into the sandpit, is actually a very terrifying thing, so I was very resistant to that. At that time my teacher at the school for the blind where I was studying had a clever method, they took me to the edge of the sandpit just to play - to play in the sand - and we used to make jokes amongst our students saying well we were going to bury the teacher alive in the sandpit. Then my teacher, who's called Teacher Gow, said look how soft the sand is, just feel it, wouldn't it be fun just to jump into the sandpit, so why don't you have a go, you wouldn't dare that would you - so you said of course I'd dare to jump in. So then my teacher said, well if you just jump from the edge into the sandpit you can only jump about 1.8 - 2 metres, if you run up, you give yourself a few metres run, then you can jump further and if you give yourself about 7 metres run then you can jump even further, you can jump right across the sandpit. With this advice from Teacher Gow, without any kind of problems or any anxiety, I was able to get into jumping the long jump. White So when did you realise you were really good? Ping Yali Even when I was quite young, just a few years old, I was very, very badly behaved and we lived on an old aerodrome and I used to go running around and getting into trouble, climbing up electric pylons and getting into really dangerous places, and my father would shut me up at home so I'd jump out of the window. And the other neighbours used to say - so why of all your three daughters is the blind one the most naughty? White So tell me then how you got to the Olympics. Ping Yali So then I worked my way up through the various stages and through the various competitions until I was selected for the national team in '84, then was sent as part of the national team to represent the People's Republic of China in New York. White Now when did China begin to compete in the Paralympics? Ping Yali In June 1984, that was the first time. White So you were part of the first ever team? Ping Yali China won the first gold medal in July 1984 in the Olympics, so that was the first time China ever won an Olympic medal, I actually won earlier than that because the Paralympics were in New York in June, so strictly speaking I'm the first gold medal winner of the People's Republic of China. White Right. And when you went did you know how good you were, did you know how your performance compared with other competitors from other countries? Ping Yali At that time we knew nothing really about what was happening in the rest of the world, just as the rest of the world knew very little about China. Many people in the West thought that China, the Communist Party, would never send a team of Olympic athletes into the Paralympics. But actually what we all found was that the rest of the world emphasises humanitarian principles and also China does too, China subscribes - even the Chinese Communist Party subscribes - to these humanitarian principles. So our only aim at that time was to take part, the thing was to really participate in this event. White So did you really not know what performances your opponents were likely to do in your event? Ping Yali I knew nothing about them and so that's why I was so frightened and why I worked so hard before the event to practise as hard as possible. White When did you realise that you compared well with your opponents? Ping Yali It was really by taking part in that event and after competing then I realised that our level was no worse than anybody else's, that Chinese disabled athletes could compete on an equal footing with anybody else. White Tell me about the atmosphere in New York, the atmosphere at the games. Ping Yali At that time we drew lots to know when we going to compete in the event and actually I came quite near the end of the competition. Before I went I was really scared because I heard that there were white people and black people all competing and our feeling had always been, from watching television, that white and black people were physically much more developed than we were. White Really? And did you mix with the other athletes, did the Chinese team mix with the athletes from other countries? Ping Yali I didn't know any English at the time and I had this terrible fear of white people and the moment I was confronted with them my legs would start shaking. And then some of my sighted compatriots said to me that well I can see them and actually they're trembling as well, we're all frightened. So we knew that all of us were kind of trembling, we didn't know who was afraid of whom. White Had you been abroad before, had you been out of China? Ping Yali That was the first time I went abroad. White So really everything about that must have seemed very strange to you? Ping Yali In my imaginings I thought that America was incredibly beautiful and very great and this was the impression that we always had of America. I even believed that the moon in America must be better than the moon in China. When I got to America I found that a lot of things really weren't that different. One thing that shocked me was so many police cars around all over the place and we were told that if we were going to go in a taxi we had to be really careful because it was dangerous out there, so I actually felt quite frightened. White Okay, tell me about winning. Ping Yali At that time there were two other competitors, one from Brazil and one from Cuba, and of course I couldn't see them so I didn't know how strong they were and how able they were. My trainer told me at the time that I was better than any of them, though in fact in their own training they'd all done better than me. So I leapt with a sense of faith and that's how I was able to win the event because my trainers had cheated me. White And do you remember how you felt - can you remember the feeling when you won? Ping Yali Well at that time everybody was saying you must think of the motherland and you must think of your country, well I wasn't as great as that, I just thought of my mum. My mother actually had died when I was eight of cancer and she gave birth to a blind child and she was always very, very worried about my future, so she died as a sighted person but with great anxiety about her daughter. I thought that probably this would be some kind of reassurance to her soul, if she has a soul, has a spirit, this would give her some kind of reassurance. White How high profile was the event, how well known was it in China that you had done this? Ping Yali Unfortunately at that time China was still quite poor so it didn't really send any journalists to cover the event, so the event wasn't immediately reported in China. We also didn't have any photographs of the event. So even now when they look for materials about that time and about me they can't find any photographs. Recently the national waxworks museum has wanted to do a waxwork of me and they wanted to find images of me from that time to sort of preserve my memory but they haven't been able to find anything. White Now you've become a very successful businesswoman yourself, just tell us how that has come about. Ping Yali After retiring from the Olympic team China was going through a very rapid period of economic reform and many international methods of management were being introduced and so the old forms of sheltered employment were becoming outmoded and at that time I was sent to work in a special factory for disabled people but it was becoming old fashioned and outmoded and so before long I found myself unemployed, without anything at all. So I found myself not only unemployed but also divorced because my husband left me and I remember one time when a policeman came to visit my household and see how things were going and actually was shocked to find that my own state and the conditions I was living in was so far removed from the expectations I'd had when I won the gold medal. White Given what you'd achieved, did this make you angry? Ping Yali I wanted to commit suicide. White And how did you change things? Ping Yali At that time I thought about my young child, who was quite dependent on me because I'd already become divorced and my child needed all my support and was a very well behaved child and I was really concerned about her future. But at the same time I was living in such bad conditions, even the paint on the wall was flaking off and the conditions in my house were getting really bad. I was seriously in debt because I owed bills - electricity and water bills - and I couldn't pay them. I wrote to the Mayor of Beijing and I said my life is really difficult. But at that time there was no policy or no regulations relating to the welfare of former Olympic medal winners and when I think about it now I feel it was a really terrible tragic time. White And you really were that desperate, you were desperate enough to think about suicide? Ping Yali Sometimes I just don't want to think about what happened then because during the day I was called out to go and tell my story to factories and to people, in public places, and tell them all about my great achievements in the Olympics and at night I'd come home, back to my poverty stricken surroundings, and I just wanted to kill myself. And I was like a balloon blown up and was ready to burst. In the past people had actually advised me to learn a skill like massage but because I'd been so taken up with my sports and then later went to work in this factory and was basically enjoying myself and having a good time I didn't think about learning another skill, so I began to regret that early decision. White So you - I mean you have now become very successful, can you just sum up how you managed to turn that from the skill of masseur to running a business? Ping Yali So from this state of being a gold medal winner with nothing to my name I suddenly became clear and thought well I actually have to do something to change this situation. White So how do you see the impact of the Olympics and the Paralympics on blind and disabled people? Ping Yali Recently I met my old teacher - Teacher Gow - and I talked to him about what he felt most proud about and he said well what made him most proud wasn't just the fact that you were able to win the gold medal and become a famous athlete, it was more that many of the students who did then become gold medal winners or they took part in the Olympics later then set up their own businesses or their own massage centres and made quite a lot of money from it. So what this shows is that sport actually does have impact on people's lives. White So do you think you've become a role model? Ping Yali Well the Chinese Disabled Person's Federation is always saying that I'm a role model but I've met many other disabled people who are much more able than me in many ways and it's just that I was lucky to be able to take part in the Olympics and win that gold medal but actually there are many other people who've achieved far more than me, and it's just because at the moment our country emphasises - places so much emphasis on the Olympics that it's given me this kind of special status but actually many other people have achieved far more. White Ping Yali with her very human story. And our thanks in making that programme not only to Ping Yali herself but to our on-the-spot translator Stephen Hallett, our technician in Beijing Jing Ling. And if you have any queries about tonight do call our action line on 0800 044 044 or e-mail In Touch via our website and there'll be a podcast of today's programme as from tomorrow. Next week I'll be in Beijing reporting on the first few days of the Paralympics and on how our visually impaired British athletes are getting on. Please join us for that but for now from me Peter White, my producer Cheryl Gabriel and the team, goodbye. Back to top |
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