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Letters and Blogs
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-16 08:03 Tai Chi for the eyes Comment on "Let kids rest their eyes in open country" (China Daily website) I am a 60-year-old Englishman teaching English at Huaibei Coal Industry College. With perfect eyesight, I noticed how many students wear glasses and in fact, have problems even reading what is written on the blackboard. I am also an artist, often going out for walks in the Chinese countryside; and I try very hard to focus on all distances as a way of exercising the 18 muscles around each eye that control the focus and vision. I know it is a ridiculous coincidence but I have also been mentioning the problem to my students and demonstrating a simple daily exercise that if they do this every day just like any other muscle, the eye muscles will get stronger and they can, if they really try, give away the glasses. Could you be kind enough to pass on this definitive way of reducing optical myopia? I am trying to reduce intellectual myopia at the same time, but that is another method. Tell students to do this simple thing to improve their eyesight: stand somewhere there is a long view; hold the hands in front of the eyes; try to focus on the fingerprints as much as possible, as close as possible, it takes a moment of concentrated effort. Then move the hand slowly away from the eyes and continue to focus as much as possible on the fingerprints. As the hand is moved to the full length of the arm, then move the fingers to the side and continue to adjust the focus out into the long distance trying to focus on all of the mid-scenes on the way. Then bring the hand slowly back towards the face, reverse the process, refocus from the long distance, then through the middle and close scenes focus again on the fingerprints as much as possible. Try it you can feel the eye muscles working. Do this regular exercise and you may well cure myopia. I call it Tai Chi for the eyes. Graham Gordon Thomas via e-mail Address the crisis of sex imbalance The sex imbalance in China is a crisis of such disturbing implications that it deserves more consideration than any other domestic issue including population growth. A study, analyzing data from 2,861 Chinese counties and published in 2009 by Professor Wei Xingzhu and Professor Li Lu, shows the sex ratio at birth was 124 boys to every 100 girls between 2000 and 2004. In Jiangxi and Henan, the sex ratio at birth in the same period was over 140 boys to every 100 girls. In Anhui, Guangdong, Hunan and Hainan, the ratios were over 130. In rural China, the gender crisis will create tens of millions of single men in their 20s and 30s with no prospects of marriage. Some would suggest that China can resolve the imbalance by letting unmarried men marry foreigners. However, there are 1.3 billion people in China, and the rest of world would not be able to offer enough wives for those unmarried men. The government should consider some reforms on family planning policies. And helpful projects such as the Care for Girls experiment, which waived school fees for girls and gave pensions to their parents, reducing the sex ratios at birth from 134 to 120 in 24 test counties, should be expanded to all towns, cities and rural areas of China. Kai Xue via e-mail (China Daily 09/16/2009 page8) |
