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Seeing the world with the eyes of the blind

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-04-28 07:55

Ma Lirong, blind guide at Sun In The Dark, leads visitors walk into a dark space to experience the world without light. Zou Hong / China Daily

A new center allows visitors to experience everyday things in darkness, Qin Zhongwei reports.

Dimly lit restaurants used to attract lots of attention, but a new establishment in Beijing has put that style in the shade by going all the way and offering visitors total darkness. Located underground at the Workers?Gymnasium, Sun in the Dark, which opened at the end of March, offers customers the unique chance to experience the feeling of having to use all their senses except their sight in its totally dark 400-square-meter space.

Taking the idea from Germany, where a center in Hamburg has proved popular since it opened in 1988, Sun in the Dark is one of the first establishments in China to offer visitors the chance to spend an hour in total darkness.

With the help of blind or visually impaired guides, visitors can experience the feeling of walking in a park, entering someone's home and enjoying a snack at a cafe - all in total darkness.

The blind author Helen Keller once touched her many readers by asking: "What if I had three days to see?"

What if you could not see for one day or even just one hour? What could you manage to do in pitch-black darkness?

The answer, according to Ma Lirong, one of the blind guides at Sun in the Dark, is that you could probably do most things but everything would feel very strange.

Ma, who went blind due to an eye disease when she was 7, does her household chores like any housewife. "I do the cleaning, cooking and everything. The only difference is I don't read newspapers like you guys," she told METRO as she was showing diners at the restaurant how to use white canes to move around in the darkness.

"I love listening to books and I learn English in my spare time," the 38-year-old said.

Ma, a former masseuse, takes small groups of guests through Sun in the Dark, starting with an adventure. Suddenly a normal activity like a walk in the park becomes an alien experience because you cannot see and must work out what is in the simulated park by touching the trees and smelling the flowers.

It is usually a piece of cake sitting on a park bench and have a rest, but at Sun in the Dark you have to touch things to find where the bench is then carefully sit on it. You will be very conscious of protecting your body and very sensitive to sound. If you do not listen carefully to your guide you will quickly get lost.

In the "home" environment, it will take you much longer to "see" the layout of the room because you will have to feel your way around. Recognizing vegetables and fruit in the kitchen becomes very difficult.

Your guide might ask you to dress a baby doll using clothes on the bed. That simple task will be far more complicated and stressful because you will have no idea of the color and the style of the clothes, or whether they are for girls or boys.

Ma said children adapt to the dark environment better than adults.

"I often hear parents call out to tell their children not to run so fast inside the center. It's interesting," she said.

Young people and females are usually nervous as soon as they enter the center, but the main intention of the facility is not to help people overcome their fear of the dark. It is more about helping sighted people to better understand how visually impaired people experience the world.

Ma no longer feels sad about losing her sight at such an early age, but she does get upset when she notices cyclists riding on the part of the sidewalk designed for blind people or when bus drivers do not pick her up when she is the only person at a bus stop.

"I think they will understand my attitude if they come here," she said.

Another benefit of visiting Sun in the Dark is that you can forget for a while the noise of the world outside and concentrate on your own thoughts and feelings.

At the "cafe" environment inside the space, you can order tea, coffee and snacks. Many visitors have told Ma that they like to stay longer at the center because they feel more relaxed there because they are not distracted by all the things they normally see.

Zhang Chunyan, a 29-year-old participant who has just left her job and is looking for a new start, said she had a new attitude once she cannot see.

"Even though we are not visually impaired, I realized it is so easy for us to be short-sighted in certain ways. Seeing doesn't protect you from blindness," Zhang told METRO.

"But now, I am more focused on spending my energy on what deserves my whole-hearted effort. "

(China Daily 04/28/2011)