Secondary People

I realize I've almost never seen a person with disabilities traveling alone on the street.

More precisely, I’ve rarely seen people with disabilities at all.

Yet I know that many rare disease patients I’ve met live with various forms of disability.

Once, I was talking with my friend Zhijian, who studies in Macau. He told me that the accessibility facilities there are excellent.

Later, I escorted him out of a hotel conference room—perhaps partly to see for myself whether what he said was true.

At the hotel entrance, there were two small steps. I had to lift his wheelchair down, trying to keep it steady so he wouldn’t fall. Then came the taxi: most trunks were too small to fit the wheelchair, so we had to fold it up and struggle to squeeze it onto the back seat.

Scenes like this have become increasingly common for me—cars blocking tactile paving, ramps so steep they look like cliffs, fences cutting off pedestrian streets.

It wasn’t until I started going out with people who have accessibility needs that I realized how many invisible barriers still exist.

Even in the place where people first begin their education—school—the difference is already there.

Ten years ago, when I first visited a U.S. university, I only remembered it as a place straight out of a TV show for prodigies.

But when I went back last year, I saw something different: a place built to include everyone.

At Harvard, every academic building is equipped with comprehensive accessibility features—the restrooms open automatically with sensors, and every one of them has a