China Daily
26th December 2023
A creative spirit that conquers challenges
Last year, video blogger and wheelchair user Zhao Hongcheng spoke at the UK-China Disability Arts Forum, sharing her everyday life experience and reviewing barrier-free facilities at public places, including the metro, sightseeing spots and theaters.
Just a year later, Zhao attended the fifth edition of the forum, but this time she has taken on the role of a theater performer, with her own one-woman show Be Seen, which won Best Innovative Play at the Seventh Chinese Theatre Awards.
Not only is the play a solo performance, it is also based on her true story. In the production, she talks of her experience of being "othered", her relationship with her mother, as well as the complexity of her personality, with both optimism and anger, tenacity and insecurity.
"For so many years, I think I'm ill. In a world where most people see me as an unwell person, it's really hard for me to believe that I am not," one of the monologues in the play goes.
"Now I understand, being disabled is not an illness. It's a fact that I can't change. But what I can change is to no longer see myself as an ill person. And even better, I can tell my story, so those who are similar to, or different from me, can hear my voice."
While Zhao has been reviewing accessibility in theater venues and going to performances, encouraged by her husband, before this play she never thought that she could become a performer on the stage.