I took my
friend Qi Shan on a train ride this morning. We did a big loop from Admiralty
all around the Red line up through Orchard and back to Admiralty again. We
hopped off the train at the Dhobi Ghaut train station to get an ice-cream and then
we re-boarded the train back to Admiralty where Qi Shan lives with his mother.
Qi Shan has
Downs Syndrome.
He loves trains and ice creams and his mum.
They are the three most favorite things in his life.
Qi Shan is twenty eight years old but I think of him as a big kid. He doesn't talk very much but he is very expressive and he is happy pretty much all the time. He loves to hug people and clap his hands and I enjoy my time with him very much.
He loves trains and ice creams and his mum.
They are the three most favorite things in his life.
Qi Shan is twenty eight years old but I think of him as a big kid. He doesn't talk very much but he is very expressive and he is happy pretty much all the time. He loves to hug people and clap his hands and I enjoy my time with him very much.
I love it in
fact.
Downs Syndrome
is also known as Trisomy 21. It is a condition caused by the presence of an
additional chromosome in the human body. This chromosome is numbered twenty one
and hence the numerical version of the name. The condition is typically
associated with a delay in cognitive ability and in physical growth and people
with Downs Syndrome have a particularly distinct set of facial characteristics.
With the additional genetic material in their bodies, Down's syndrome children
are particularly susceptible to many conditions such as congenital heart
disease and a wide range of cancers.
Their life
expectancy is significantly shorter than other people.
Downs Syndrome
is named after the British physician John Langdon Down. He described the
syndrome in the British Medical Journal in 1886. The characteristic that I
mostly associate Downs Syndrome with is one of absolute happiness. People with
Downs Syndrome love to hug and laugh and play and it is delightful associating
with them.
It really is.
I first met Qi
Shan a couple of years ago when I started volunteering at a Community Centre on
Saturday afternoons. My friend Rowena – with whom I work - asked me if I wanted
to come along one day and I told her that I would. I used to volunteer at a
similar centre back in Australia and it was great fun.
The Community
centre in Singapore is run solely by volunteers. They receive no government
assistance. None whatsoever. The Centre was started by a support group mainly
to provide respite for parents. They are also assisted by a group of university
students and they are all very kind people. Like many things in Singapore these
Saturday afternoon sessions are very orderly and structured. There are
different themes every week where there is a focus on things like hygiene and
self help. We have spent countless hours practicing washing our hands and
brushing our teeth and we also practice skills such as balancing and hopping
and skipping with ropes. Qi Shan does all of these tasks very easily. He is a
much better hopper and skipper than I am.
The activities
that the participants like to do the most though is to sing and dance. Music is
played very loudly in the community hall and we all dance in a big circle. There
is no air conditioning in the Centre so it gets very hot and for an old bloke
like me it is quite exhausting.
With my work
travel schedule I have been away from Singapore for the past couple of weekends
so I asked the Volunteer coordinator if it would be alright if I took Qi Shan
on an outing. She told me that would be quite OK and so I asked Qi Shan what he
wanted to do. He told me he wanted to ride on a train and so this is what we
did.
When I arrived
at his HDB flat this morning Qi Shan was all packed up and ready to go. HDB is
an acronym for ‘Housing Development Board” – which is public housing apartments
here in Singapore. Qi Shan was wearing his Thomas the Tank Engine tee-shirt and
he had a Thomas the Tank Engine back pack on as well. When I knocked on his
door he opened it and then he threw himself into my arms and gave me an
almighty hug.
He squeezed me
tight.
He was very
excited.
Here is a
picture of a Singaporean train it is the type that Qi Shan likes to catch:
Qi Shan and I
walked to the Admiralty station from his flat but we skipped a part of the way
as well. When we got on the train Qi Shan didn't want to sit down. He wanted to
stand near the doors and watch them open and close. After the third stop I was
a little alarmed when Qi Shan alighted and rushed down to the next carriage. We
did this for the next five stops. We carriage hopped and he thought it was
great fun.
On the train
quite a few people looked at Qi Shan as if he had a communicable disease. Many
Singaporeans seem to dislike people with physical disabilities and there is an
uncomfortable stigma attached with people with Downs Syndrome and autism. One
does not see many of them out in public.
They are
locked away.
I think that this
is a terrible shame and I believe that is an indictment on Singaporean society.
As we rushed
into the carriage during our carriage hopping at one stop a group of young
Singaporean adults looked at us with both derision and scorn. I told them not
to worry and that Qi Shan didn't bite. I warned them however that I did. I
gnashed my teeth at them and told them that if they didn't stop staring I would
eat them alive. Qi Shan squeezed my hand very tight and he gave me a big hug
when I said this, and these horrible people got off at the next station.
After an
ice-cream stop at Dhobi Ghaut we caught the train back to Admiralty and I
walked Qi Shan home. He was very tired and went straight to his bed for a nap.
I told him
that we would do another train ride next Sunday and he clapped his hands in
delight. I clapped my hands too because I had just as much fun as he did.
Maybe more.
Here is a
picture of an ice-cream that Qi Shan likes to eat. His favorite flavor is
chocolate.
Mine is
vanilla:
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