"Huang Guofu didn’t let the childhood accident that left him armless at the age of four interfere with his love for painting. Instead, he taught himself to paint with his feet at the age of 12. He recalls staying up all night at times just to practice. After his father fell ill, Guong, 18 at the time, quit school and decided to pursue painting as a profession in order to help pay for treatments. He started selling his art on the streets where some purchased his work purely out of sympathy." [Huffington Post] more ›

The number of disabled people in China could exceed 100 million in 2015, if numbers from the 2007 census are anything to go by. Say researchers at Peking University, there were 83 million people with disabilities three years ago, but that number is set to increase rapidly as the population ages, and the environment disintegrates. Hopefully, new initiatives to subsidize daily expenses for those with handicaps will help some. more ›

When the Expo opened, people quickly figured out the best way to skip those annoying lines: pretend to be handicapped. Now, after bringing us his collection of Expo sleepers, photographer and Shanghaiist reader Etienne Guist is back with images of a Shanghai miracle: people who were in desperate need of wheelchairs when they entered the Expo, only to leave walking on their own two legs! more ›

The problem of people pretending to be disabled and abusing the faster queues has gotten so bad that some pavilions have shut down their "green lines" altogether. The Saudi Arabian, Swiss and Thailand Pavilions have all done away with the lines indefinitely thanks to not just fake handicapped, but the crowds of people who try to muscle their ways in with the fake handicapped. more ›

We've caught ourselves thinking about the difficulties of being disabled in China on many occasions: a significant amount of city spaces and public transport are simply handicapped-unfriendly. Besides the occasional beggar, you rarely see disabled people in public, which is probably thanks to the many social factors constraining handicapped people. But at a very basic level, it's more troubling to think of the difficulties a set of stairs are for someone incapable of using them and the effect it would have on both their ability to travel and their quality of life. more ›

Turned off by the stories of falling signs and failing rides at Happy Valley? Maybe the problem is that they let people in when they haven't officially opened yet! The real opening is this Saturday, apparently. [Shanghai Daily] more ›

• China to expand 9-year compulsory education in ethnic minority regions [Xinhua] "By 2010, more than 95 percent of the population of China's ethnic autonomous areas should have access to the nine-year compulsory education, said the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009-2010) released Monday by the Information Office of the State Council."
• Thai Protests Prevent Asian Summit [Washington Post] "Anti-government demonstrators forced the cancellation of a summit of Asian leaders Saturday when they invaded the meeting site in this Thai resort town. The summit was supposed to bring together the leaders of the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, and Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea."
• In China, Effective Treatment Options for HIV, But Stigma Still Lingers [RH Reality Check] "Last year, South African Supreme Court Justice Edwin Cameron described HIV-related stigma in China as a "tragedy" for preventing people living with HIV from accessing what is otherwise a "very good treatment program." According to his data, whilst between 35,000 and 40,000 HIV-positive people in China are effectively receiving treatment, more than twice that number are unwilling to be tested or receive test results because of fear of stigma and remain untreated."