Zhang Yonghong sits on the floor of a busy Beijing subway, a few thin cushions his only protection from the cold ground. Surrounded by hundreds of paper cuttings, he leans forward with a knife, his face creased with concentration. He carefully carves folk images out of a piece of bright red paper. Zhang is 38 years old but no taller than a toddler, the result of a condition the Chinese call the glass doll disease, so-named because sufferers have bones that break easily and they are generally shorter than normal. Unable to walk and confined to a wheelchair, Zhang struggles to make a living selling his artwork, spending his days on the streets of Beijing battling hot, humid summers and bitingly cold winters, and the ever-vigilant Urban Management Corps, a unit whose job it is to keep people such as Zhang out of sight.
On this bitterly cold day, Zhang is wearing a pair of children's padded pyjamas and several layers of jumpers. His Sponge Bob backpack sits at his side. People stop to glance at the handicapped man's artwork, some buying a few pieces, others dropping small bills into a red donation box. Many stare at a large plastic sheet on the floor which tells the story of the Shaanxi province native and includes a picture of his four-year-old daughter, Tianyu, who suffers from the same disease. Also on display are Zhang's recent divorce papers - his wife ran off with another man. In the photo, the little girl lies on a bed crying, casts on one of her arms and a leg. A headline proclaims: 'I use my skills to save my daughter.'
A young man of about 20, with a wispy beard and a woollen hat pulled down over his head, stares at the paper cuttings and then suddenly bends down to give Zhang a hug. He whispers something, then spins away. An observer taps the young man on the shoulder and thanks him for the kind gesture. The man turns around, tears welling in his eyes, and says somewhat helplessly, 'This is my country.'
The comment is a stark reminder of the situation facing the mainland's estimated 83 million handicapped people, most of whom have been left behind by the nation's economic 'miracle'. While even critics of the government concede that there has been some improvement in the care of handicapped people, the general consensus is that it's been too little, and, for many, too late.
'It's improved from 20 years ago,' says Helen McCabe, who has been working with autistic programmes in the mainland since 1992. 'But there are still so many things families [must] provide, so it's challenging.
'Every programme you have to pay for out of your own pocket,' says McCabe, a professor of special education at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in New York. 'It keeps going back to family responsibility.'
She says that although the mainland has many laws and regulations on the books, such as guarantees to the right to community-based rehabilitation, in reality the protections are not implemented. The disabled can get stipends from the government, but these run from as little as 100 yuan (HK$120) a month to 600 yuan, depending on the area. The money is distributed by the Chinese Disabled People's Foundation (CDPF), but one must have a significant level of disability to qualify and many are unaware such funds, as meagre as they are, exist. In some cases, families are reluctant to admit a family member is disabled and so they don't register for a disabled ID card.