WOULD not take the chance," replied a blind masseur identified by his surname Guo, when asked the "Helen Keller question": "What would you do if you could have your sight back for three days?"

"You wouldn't be able to cope with the visible world in only three days," agreed his colleague Chen.

A person born blind has no sense of direction, distance or space. Four people in every thousand in Shanghai are blind or seriously sight impaired.

Many of them work in the 143 blind massage houses in the city.

Guo and his five colleagues work in a massage house named "Yuejia" on Baochun Lu in a southwestern suburb.

Yuejia's owner, Shen Hongming, 35, is blind. Shen became blind at the age of 10 when his eyes were damaged by ammonia.

"I grew up in the countryside of Songjiang. Ammonia was a commonly used fertilizer at that time," he recalled. Now he has only a slight sense of light and dark.

Like many other local blind people, Shen used to have a job in a welfare factory. "I could only do very simple work there and I could not do it well."

Welfare factories used to be the major institutions for looking after the disabled and giving them work but many of them have been closed since the beginning of economic reform. The Shanghai Disabled Association started training in healthcare massage for the "visually-challenged" in 1997.

"Few jobs are available for the blind," said a director, surnamed Lao, of the Employment and Training Centre for the Disabled (ETCD).

The blind health massage idea was thought up by a blind man who had worked in Shenzhen as a masseur. He returned to Shanghai and found an investor to start the first blind massage house in the city named "Double Rainbow". The business was making a profit within a few months of opening.

Finding it a great opportunity to provide employment for blind people, ETCD invited experienced masseurs from Traditional Chinese Medical hospitals and universities to hold training courses for the blind.

Within a year, 28 massage houses had opened and with the rapid development of the blind massage business, regulations were drawn up demanding that any blind massage house hire at least four local blind people and have a working space of at least 80 square metres.

As a special service institution, blind massage houses are exempt from taxation.

Shen was one of the masseurs working in "Double Rainbow". He decided to start out on his own in 1999. His brother invested nearly 100,000 yuan (US$12,048) in a residence on Baochun Lu. It took him a year and a half to break even.

"Without the taxation exemption, I would not have ben able to carry on through the hard times," Shen said.

Risky to walk

Yuejia is 12-hour open every day. The masseurs sleep on the massage bed at night. Some massage houses offer better lodging conditions by renting apartments for their masseurs.

"It would be inconvenient for blind people to have to walk around and they need people to take care of their daily life," Shen said.

Masseurs in Yuejia rarely go out. "To walk on the street is like tying your head on your belt. Only when you are back home, is your head safe on your neck," said Chen.

A blind man once fell into a sewer because the iron manhole cover was missing. "He stayed down there overnight until workers found him in the early morning," Chen said.

Paths for the blind are hard to find in the city. Blind people following such paths may walk into fire hydrants, lines of bicycles or worse. In many streets no path for the blind can be found at all.

They also complain about public transport's lack of voice service. "I waited for Bus 920 on Hongqiao Lu last New Year's Eve. I waited there for so long but could not hear the bus coming," said Guo. He asked a woman nearby to tell him when she saw Bus 920 coming up but when it did come, she just said: "Here it is" and rushed on board herself. It was freezing cold and Guo could no longer hear people nearby as it was so late.

The subway is even more dangerous. The underground paths and gateways are like a labyrinth to the blind. Seeing-eye dog training has not started in China and blind people have to rely on other people in their travels.

Meager income

"Blind people do have advantages in the massage business," Shen said. "We rely on our sense of touch in our perception of the world most of the time, which makes us sensitive and capable of spotting the key elements required in the exercise of the skill."

But there are drawbacks too. "People can learn through sight and reading but we rely heavily on hand-to-hand guidance in the learning," said another masseur.

"Were I able to see, I would choose masseurs with a good image and keep my place clean and neat," Shen said. And he has a lot of trouble when he needs to go out to handle business matters.

The city also has regular massage houses but rumours have it that sexual services are also involved in many of them. "Blind massage houses are safe and clean," said a director of the ETCD surnamed Lao. "They just can't offer such 'services'. It is pure health care massage."

Some masseurs complain about long working hours and lack of social security insurance as they are paid according to the amount of work. A "clock" of massage service costs between 38 and 68 yuan in Shanghai, and one third goes to the masseur. This has become commonplace in the trade.

"We have started to introduce the social security system into the business," Lao said. But many blind people turn a cold shoulder to this as they would have to return a certain amount of their income as a social security tax. "Blind people receive a regular pension of a few hundred yuan monthly and a medical pension of 500 yuan every year," Lao said. "They have become used to receiving subsidies but not to turning in money."

Lao and his colleagues are still working on a programme that would ensure blind people understand their responsibilities and their rights under the social security system.

"Blind people are highly sensitive and self-protective, thinking about their own interests," said Lao.

EDCD has received great support from many institutions and the administration but competition from regular massage houses poses a serious threat to their trade.

"We have worked hard to start this trade and see to its growth. It offered a rare opportunity for blind people to find employment, as well as being a profitable business. We would hate to see it decline under severe competition."