As Xue Juan glides in her wheelchair, you can't help noticing the hand she uses to steer it. Her left hand is callused.

This Paralympic champion who won the women's single in table tennis at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games described how she got them. Wheelchair-bound when she was around 1 year old due to polio, the girl from Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province in east China, was chosen to play for the Beijing wheelchair table tennis team when she was 17. It was relatively late for a table tennis player and she had to train harder than the others. She practiced six to eight hours every day, which led to the calluses.

But she has no complaints. Her hard work paid off when she joined the national wheelchair table tennis team in 2013.

Following a dream

"Everybody has a dream," Xue told Beijing Review. "My dream was to win the gold. I thought of giving up, especially when I was exhausted from training. However, my dream of the gold medal motivated me to persist."

Recently, Xue was in the limelight for another reason. She appeared in a music video that will be released on May 19, the 29th National Day for Helping the Disabled.

Organized by the China Foundation for Disabled Persons and the China Commission of Promotion of Publicity for the Undertakings of Chinese Disabled Persons, the music video features 100 stars from the entertainment industry and 40 actors from disabled persons' art troupes. The song, Sunshine of Love, was written by Chinese singer Guo Feng, who also created the score.

"We hope to influence society and involve more people to participate," Guo said.

"Sunshine of Love suggests everybody should have love, especially people with disabilities who are a disadvantaged group. We should use love to inspire more people to help those with disabilities," Xue said.

Chen Miaoxi, one of the participants in the video, is a pioneer. The 29-year-old from southwest China's Guizhou Province, who lost both legs during a traffic accident when she was 2, is a deputy director of Kindling Life Art Troupe. The troupe is based in Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong Province.

Finding it difficult to get a job due to her physical condition at home, Chen decided to try her luck in Shenzhen, which is more developed and offers more opportunities. She met other people with disabilities and they set up the troupe in 2013.

Over the years, it has developed into a professional art troupe with about 70 members with different disabilities. While performing for charity in schools and nursing homes, the troupe manages to make a profit through commercial performances and videos on social networking platforms.

A new opportunity

In 2010, China had 85.02 million people with disabilities and the number is estimated to have increased since then. While the government has rolled out policies to support people with disabilities, the group members themselves are also exploring ways to be self-sufficient.

Zhang Qingjie is another deputy director of Kindling Life Art Troupe. The 32-year-old, who also took part in the video, had polio as a child and walks with a great deal of difficulty. He has been in Shenzhen for eight years. He tried his hand at different jobs such as a cleaner in a factory, insurance salesperson and human resources staff member before coming to the art troupe.

He said people with disabilities are generally less-educated. This, coupled with their physical condition, makes it harder for them to find a job. But now online short videos are offering people with disabilities a new opportunity to make a living.

Zhang started the Zhucanmeng (Helping People with Disabilities Alliance) New Media Company this year with funding from a local enterprise. The company has recruited over 10 people with disabilities to make short videos on light-hearted topics such as household tips, which are posted on different online platforms, especially short video platforms such as Kuaishou (also known as Kwai) and Douyin (or TikTok). The company is paid by the platforms according to the number of times its videos are viewed.

The employees are given free training and get a basic pay of over 2,000 yuan ($298) plus a bonus according to their performance. They are also offered free food and accommodations.

"In the mobile Internet era, many jobs are done online using smartphones. People with disabilities are at the same starting point as others because the content they present on new media platforms is no different from what is being done by people without disabilities," Zhang said.

If his model proves successful, Zhang wants it to be applied in other parts of China to help more people with disabilities. Next, his company will try to develop people with disabilities into Internet celebrities through performances on short video platforms.

The biggest difficulty his company faces is lack of funding. Recruiting teachers to train people with disabilities costs money and the business has a long cycle of investment return.

Multiple platforms

Fortunately, in addition to short videos, the thriving e-commerce industry also offers opportunities for people with disabilities.

According to a report jointly published by China Disabled Persons' Federation and AliResearch, the research arm of Alibaba Group, there were 316,000 vendors with disabilities on online selling platform Taobao.com as of June 2015.

Li Min, who was born after 1990 in Shuyang, east China's Jiangsu Province, lost her left arm in a traffic accident when she was a child. Finding it difficult to land a job after graduating from university, she opened an online shop selling flowers—since Shuyang is one of the major flower and sapling cultivation locations in China—on Taobao.com, which now has an annual sales volume of over 1 million yuan ($148,500).

Xia Mengwen, who comes from central China's Wuhan City, has cerebral palsy. As he told China Labor and Social Security News, he makes 6,000 yuan ($894) a month by selling local specialty foods online.

A major online classified advertisement site in China, 58.com, launched a special job ad section for people with disabilities in May 2018. In order to post jobs that better match people's needs, the section is classified according to different disabilities.

"The Internet has cleared obstacles for people with disabilities to participate in social and economic activities," said Lai Desheng, Dean of the Business School of Beijing Normal University. "It has become a technological foundation for people with disabilities to get employed or start their own businesses."

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar

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