{"id":2030,"date":"2008-08-18T19:34:43","date_gmt":"2008-08-18T19:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2030"},"modified":"2008-08-18T19:34:43","modified_gmt":"2008-08-18T19:34:43","slug":"east_meets_west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2030","title":{"rendered":"East Meets West"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BBC reports that the forthcoming Beijing Paralympics might contribute to more enlightened attitudes about disability<\/a> amongst the Chinese. The article emphasizes that Chinese with disabilities still face long odds of achieving any meaningful integration with mainstream society, but there are at least a few emerging social programs that offer job training. It’s not much, but it’s an improvement. <\/p>\n

The Paralympics may change some attitudes, but it’s really the forces of globalization that will usher in a different perspective on disability. As more Chinese with disabilities become aware that their Western counterparts have more opportunities to work and live independently, they may put growing pressure on their own government to do more. And if living standards continue to improve, the government–and society as a whole–may be more inclined to oblige. Of course, the West has a long ways to go to achieve full integration and acceptance of people with disabilities, but it’s probably fair to say we’re a few steps further down the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BBC reports that the forthcoming Beijing Paralympics might contribute to more enlightened attitudes about disability amongst the Chinese. The article emphasizes that Chinese with disabilities still face long odds of achieving any meaningful integration with mainstream society, but there are at least a few emerging social programs that offer job training. It’s not much, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-wK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}