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You and Yours - Transcript 大象传媒 Radio 4 |
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TX: 17.09.08 - Access in Beijing PRESENTERS: JOHN WAITE AND PETER WHITE |
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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 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WAITE Well in 11 minutes, in other words at 1 o'clock our time, it'll be the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Beijing, the most successful games ever in terms of raising the profile of disabled athletes. However our man in Beijing, Peter White, has been out and about investigating how accessible the city and some of its major attractions are for disabled people. WHITE In the run up to the Olympics and the Paralympics the Chinese authorities have made a great deal of what steps they've taken to make their iconic sites accessible to disabled people. Which of course means not just visitors but local people as well. And sites don't come much more iconic than this - we're at the foot of the Great Wall, we're at Badaling, which is a site quite near the city of Beijing and it's very popular, as you can hear, it's a bit like Blackpool actually. And we've come with Wong Tun Yung who is a wheelchair user, he had polio as a child and we want to see just how accessible the Great Wall is. Wong Tun Yung tell me about the last time you were here. WONG The last time I came to the Great Wall was in 1971. When I arrived here I was just at the foot of the wall, so I only stayed at the gate. WHITE Was that frustrating, were you annoyed by that? WONG Yes exactly, I felt very frustrated. I couldn't go up to the Great Wall, so I only had lunch and then I went home. WHITE Explain what the wall means to Chinese people. WONG An old saying says - You're not a hero if you do not come to the Great Wall. WHITE And so what are you hoping for today? WONG Today I hope to reach as high as possible. I heard the barrier free facilities have been improved here. WHITE Okay, off we go and I hope you have a good day. WONG Thanks very much. WHITE Well we've come to the first little bit that is not exactly barrier free, because I've just come up a flight of steps and Mr Wong has had to be carried up those, in his chair, all very dignified. And now we're moving on. WONG The land here is not very flat so it is not good for the chair wheels. WHITE Have you got further than you did before, the last time you were here? WONG Yes of course higher and definitely easier than last time. WHITE Well we've got to another staging post and everybody's breathing a bit heavily. In fact Mr Wong you're probably breathing less heavily than most because you've been carried. But just explain some of the difficulties of this route. WONG Just excellent, I thank all the volunteers and the people who have helped me and because I feel so excited I'm here on the Great Wall. I've never been to this position before in my life. WHITE What I'm thinking is if friends and other tourists have to help is that really barrier free? WONG I should say half barrier free, half not. WHITE We could have done this the easy way - there is a cable car which is accessible. But of course the whole point of accessibility is to do what other people do and the Great Wall experience is not just about being at the top but about getting to the top. So we went by the popular route. After a short but strenuous climb we paused so that Mr Wong could savour the view. WONG It is the most beautiful view that I've ever seen. I feel so happy because I've been on to the Great Wall now. WHITE So now you can be a hero. TRAIN ANNOUNCEMENT Well Mr Wong has gone home and I'm heading back to the office on the underground system, just as I would if I were in London. Making the Great Wall of China accessible is quite a challenge, after all it wasn't meant to be accessible, it was supposed to keep out invaders. What's surely more important is that they make accessible things like the transport system so that disabled people can work and join in and they've done pretty well. There's miles of textured paving for blind people, there are accessible buses and there is this tube. A few blips but as good as anything you're going to find in the West. What's odd though is that very few disabled people seem to be using it. And I think I might be beginning to understand why. INTERPRETER There are at least 10,000 motorcycles in Beijing. And all the motorcycles are given to the handicapped free of charge. WHITE An earlier model of the three-wheeler could be bought by disabled people but about three years ago, as part of the clean up Beijing campaign for the Olympics and Paralympics, they were withdrawn by the government because they were rather smelly and smoky and distinctly un-green. Their smart replacements were given free by the government to anyone who'd owned one of the old ones. Mr Jung showed me his with pride. JUNG I use this a lot to get around and so very often we're out in the wind and rain, so it's very helpful to have this canopy which can keep the elements off me. The seat also has a backrest, so it's not really like a motorbike, it's more like a little car. WHITE It's a little car with a motorbike's engine isn't it. JUNG Well I've actually been riding one of these disabled people's three-wheelers since 1994 and I had an older one before this. The reason I got it to begin with was because I was getting married and I had to go to fetch the wedding presents from my father-in-law's and so I had to have some kind of vehicle to carry them round. WHITE What would you say are the - is the significance of these bikes, what have they enabled you and other disabled people to do? JUNG The most important thing about these motorbikes is that we can get out to work, we can meet friends and we have the freedom to travel around much more flexibly, so it really widens our vistas. So I would say that these motorbikes are our legs, the legs of disabled people. WAITE And to hear all of Peter's reports from Beijing and to download a podcast of that one you go to the You and Yours website. Back to the You and Yours homepage The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites |
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