top of page
  • Chris McMillan

Visionary Comic

China Daily


21st September 2022


Visionary Comic


A man sporting Afro-style hair and wearing sunglasses, grabs the mic and stands in a relaxed posture ready to make the audience laugh. Seeing how easily he moves onstage, one can hardly notice that the stylish stand-up comedian, Gao Xiang, has any problems with vision.


Gao was diagnosed with the rare eye disease Stargardt at the age of 12. The disorder typically causes vision loss during childhood or adolescence, although in some forms this might become obvious only in adulthood.


The legal definition of blind is a visual acuity of less than 0.05. The 34-year-old Gao's visual acuity is currently 0.02. Although, everything he sees is blurry or hazy, he has been exploring more possibilities of life. Gao has successively done numerous jobshe has worked in a factory, at a video game company and tried his hand as a marketing planner and a psychological consultant. And two years ago, he decided to become a full-time stand-up comedian.


Many of his jokes are on the difficulties faced by people with the degenerative eye disease and the visually impaired in general. He highlights everyday difficulties such as urban barrier-free facilities with designs that are unfriendly to the visually impaired and the shortage of guide dogs.


Gao has delivered more than 1,200 performances over the past two years.


https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202209/21/WS632a53d1a310fd2b29e78cb9.html

0 views

Recent Posts

See All

China Daily 27th November 2023 Hospital train brings hope via surgery By Wang Xiaoyu Doctors perform cataract operations to improve the lives of people in isolated areas. Wang Xiaoyu reports from Korl

RTHK 30th November 2023 'Kids with mental health issues need outside help' Chinese University researchers on Wednesday urged people to seek help as soon as possible if their children are suffering fro

bottom of page