Dear Roadrunner,

Excellent report, a real stemwinder. Starting to read like a coming of age novel!

Thank you also for your (belated) sensitivity toward Lulu and her eyesight. My primary work here in China is in the anti-blindness field. A bunch of us met Lulu when she passed through Shanghai after your ride last year, and we had a great time. What I'm about to say is unrelated to Lulu, except in the broader China context.

(public health message)
This country, for all its brilliance and history and rapid development and bullet trains and skyscrapers and export prowess, has some decidedly unscientific views when it comes to eyesight. One is that when people start suffering from cataract (a normal manifestation of aging just like gray hair), it means not that they should seek medical help but that their "candle has burned to the end" and their useful life is over. As a result, China has one of the world's lowest rates of cataract surgery, even though it's the world's single most common surgery and can restore full vision in 15 minutes or less at very low cost.

Another, and far more pernicious in my opinion, is the very widespread view that giving children eyeglasses actually makes their vision worse. I'm not making this up. Though this view is widely held across China, it's particularly common in poorer regions, and leads to a very malicious cycle of low educational attainment due to uncorrected poor vision, leading to another generation of low socio-economic attainment and chronic poverty. Myopia, or nearsightedness, is extremely common in children in Asia, including China. The primary and secondary school dropout statistics in western China are really depressing, and much of this could be alleviated if myopic children would just wear spectacles -- but their seemingly well-intentioned parents just won't let them. Sad

This is all the more ironic in the context of China's cities, where these days it seems every other girl (and many a boy) is wearing fashion eyeglasses with no lenses at all! Imagine! Wearing spectacles just to look cool, while millions of children are spurning real spectacles due to medical ignorance!

Again, I know nothing about Lulu's vision and don't remember whether she had or wore glasses, but I do hope that if she does have refractive error or other vision issues that she'll see an eye doctor or at least visit an optical shop and get spectacles with the correct, current prescription. She'll be a lot safer on the bike, and far happier in life, if she can correct her vision.

(/public health message)

And now we return to our regularly scheduled ride report...

cheers