Stripping Labels: Being Visually Impaired but Musically Talented

By Charlotte Xiong 

Chinese International School

Imagine a world of darkness. Navigating this world. Living in this world. How does one survive in such a visual, fast-paced world, let alone enjoy themselves? 

Humming to the tunes of MC Cheung Tin-fu, a famous canto-pop singer, 18-year-old girl Minnie from Hong Kong proves to us that the world of the blind is more than just the label that they can’t see; they can be exceptional singers, and they can still enjoy music. 

Minnie can be described as an introverted girl upon a first meeting, someone who does not speak up at all unless you prompt her again and again. However, when we hit play on one of MC Cheung Tin-Fu’s albums, she immediately perks up and pours her soul into her singing, even tapping along to the drums to the beat. 

A quick search on the internet shows us that in our world, around 40-50 billion people are blind in varying degrees, and upon interviewing people about their expectations for the blind, they often pull out some stereotypes such as “blind people are not normal people, they need to be addressed with very loudly”, or “they won’t know you’re addressing them, or that all blind people go to Braille school”, or even that “blind people are crazy”. Connecting with SDG goal 8: Promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all, treating the visually blind not just with kindness, but also with dignity and respect is an act we should all enforce. 

In fact, in a curious attempt to really figure out how different the visually impaired are to us, the World Wide Web tells us: blind and visually impaired children showed higher working-memory capacity than sighted children; however, visually impaired children showed a weakness in verbal comprehension. This could explain why very often, we mistake those visually impaired to be not very bright, when their real challenge was communicating that train of thought to us. Additionally, in a research article published by the University of Oxford, in measuring the intake of sounds to both the visually impaired and an average human being, it was found that in the blind participants, the auditory cortex more accurately represented the frequency of each sound. 

“Our study shows that the brains of blind individuals are better able to represent frequencies,” Chang said. “For a sighted person, having an accurate representation of sound isn’t as important because they have sight to help them recognize objects, while blind individuals only have auditory information. This gives us an idea of what changes in the brain explain why blind people are better at picking out and identifying sounds in the environment.”

Fig 1. Chang, Kelly. Diagram of Sighted and Visually Impaired Sound Levels. “Brains Of Blind People Rewire Themselves To Sharpen Their Hearing” by Tom Hale, 23 April 2019. IFL Science, https://www.iflscience.com/brains-of-blind-people-rewire-themselves-to-sharpen-their-hearing-52241. 

In a world that was not made for the visually impaired, they are often held back by a simple label when they trip over a not-neatly-tucked chair or when they can’t tell who is who by a simple “hello.” Such mishaps are often perceived by sighted individuals as signs of their inability to perform tasks or as direct reflections of their intelligence level. It has never occurred to some that just because the sighted cannot imagine their world without vision, it does not mean that the visually impaired have a sad or unhappy life because of their visual condition. They may also have a limited number of extracurricular activities to enjoy, but they cherish these even more and often develop such a passion that it is impossible for them to hold back from pursuing what seems like the “impossible.” 

Fig 2. Ebenezer New Hope School Kids performing

One of those “impossible’s” is music. At the Ebenezer New Hope School in Hong Kong, a full classroom of kids who are visually impaired and some might even consider “dumb”, sit in a circle with service volunteers seated around them to comfort them at a sudden outburst. Yes, at first glance, it does seem that they were impossible to instruct, that they could not concentrate. 

Fig 3. Pictures from the Ebenezer New Hope School Music Fair. Provided by School.

As part of a school-founded service initiative called Vocalize, a group of passionate students gathers to support individuals with blindness, Down Syndrome, ASD, and other neurodiverse disabilities at organizations like the locally founded charity Love21 and Ebenezer New Hope School. When we arrived for our first volunteering session, we carried many expectations and stereotypes. I remember reluctantly lifting the lid off the piano, feeling anxious about our lesson plans. Although we were high school students deeply passionate about music, we didn’t anticipate working with such a diverse group—some even older than us—who appeared unable to concentrate and were extremely quiet, as if lost in their thoughts. As the other volunteers looked to me to begin, I hesitantly started with a few simple songs, including "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." That moment remains vivid in my memory; it was when Minnie began to sing along. One by one, the other kids joined in, clapping to the rhythm. I felt a wave of shame wash over me for allowing my initial judgments to cloud my perspective. 

Fig 4. Mandy playing the drums

Now looking back, I could not have been more wrong about the talented children of Ebenezer New Hope School. Not only were they passionate about music, but they were also exceptionally talented at rhythms, and many could even play the piano and hit the drums after a few tries. Throughout the yea,r we had experienced so much with all of them and truly saw joy come up in their eyes when we went back each week to spend an hour of fun and music with them. As we head towards the next semester, the kids are preparing to perform on stage with their musical instruments, taking their passion to the next level, and proving that they have achieved the “impossible”.