Discrimination and intolerance makes having a disability hard in Hong Kong
Despite a fall in complaints about discrimination, people with disabilities continue to face hurdles and intolerance in the community
Hong Kong-based writer Paul Letters was looking forward to taking his young son on a visit to the bird enclosure in Hong Kong Park recently when they were stopped at the entrance. A security guard told Letters, who is a wheelchair user owing to a nerve condition, he would have to get up and walk if he wanted to look around the aviary.
Such sheer insensitivity aside, there was a symbol posted at the gate to indicate that the aviary was accessible to wheelchairs. The men exchanged words and a supervisor had to be summoned before Letters and his four-year-old were allowed in. But by then the little boy was in tears, and dad wasn't far behind.
"I held back the tears," Letters says. "Once again my disability prevents my son from enjoying something which should be more accessible."
I held back the tears. Once again my disability prevents my son's enjoyment
Hong Kong is regarded as an easy place in which to live and to get around: public transport is efficient, services are reliable, and shops and entertainment in easy reach. But not for people with disabilities. The visually impaired find their way forward blocked by oblivious crowds; some taxis speed past people in wheelchairs; many buildings and venues fail to provide barrier-free access. And as Letters' encounter illustrates, many must contend with a sometimes unfeeling society.
On the face of it, those with disabilities are encountering fewer hurdles than before.
The Equal Opportunities Commission has received 212 complaints about discrimination based on disability so far this year, so the final figure this year looks set to be lower than last year's total of 387. That's better than in 2009, when there were 528 complaints.
Yet it was only a few weeks ago that this newspaper reported how a Kowloon Motor Bus driver refused to lower the disabled access platform at the front doors to help Julie Aswani, a commuter with limited mobility, alight from his vehicle. The driver laughed when she tried to explain her difficulties with using the rear exit, she said.
In the end, Aswani called the police. Having made complaints to KMB over similar incidents, including two in 2011, she said, she had just "had enough".