Hi,

A few years ago, my wife and I were holidaying in Bangkok and decided to sign up for something that I’d read about in a magazine and instantly taken a fancy to. It was a concept called "dining in the dark". A hotel in the city was hosting this experience, which allowed patrons to eat in complete darkness, attended to by blind staff. You’d have no idea what you’re eating and would have to take guesses afterwards. Challenge accepted.

Dining in the dark isn’t a new idea. Zurich’s blindekuh restaurant and Cologne’s unsicht-Bar are both two decades old. There’s also the Dans le noir? chain of restaurants, which had branches in multiple major cities from Paris to New York to Nairobi, though some of those locations have closed down.

Back to Bangkok. I still remember that darkness vividly – can you even use "vividly" to describe a hue that doesn’t exist on any colour palette? The air was so thick with the darkness that I found it hard to breathe for the first few minutes. Gradually, my ears got used to the room. We even picked up a conversation with a cheery South African couple seated somewhere near us, who said this was their second time dining in the dark.

As the waiters came with the cutlery – "Sir, be careful, there’s a glass of water right here" – and then the food, which was frankly unremarkable, I remember wanting to get out.

At first, it was out of discomfort and desperation.

But soon, the reason I wanted to escape was something else. I am embarrassed to say this – but I got bored. (And no, I couldn’t correctly guess any of the food we were served. I didn’t really care.)

Is ‘mimicking’ a disability education or entertainment?

"This empathic approach is meant – or better said, was originally meant – to place the blind at something of an advantage relative to their normally sighted counterparts."

But the reason DID restaurants continue to get enthusiastic visitors may not have anything to do with their educative element. Rather, they have been subsumed into the larger "experience economy" that churns out interesting experiences – memories and stories – instead of just products and services.

(Of course, one of the pitfalls of catering to customers addicted to experiences is their propensity to quickly get bored and seek the next big adrenaline or dopamine shot.)

Can dining in darkness give you an authentic insight into how people with blindness experience food? Unlikely, say Spence and Piqueras-Fiszman.

For starters, unlike those with visual impairment, normally sighted people typically have a great deal of stored knowledge about the appearance properties of foods and beverages. "This means that once they have recognised it via their other senses, they often can’t help but create in their minds a potentially vivid mental image of what the food or beverage actually looks like."

The other big difference is that normally sighted people are aware the entire time that this is all just a performance they can end anytime they want to. Their blindness isn’t real. It’s a game.

I came out of the dark room that night disappointed that it hadn’t overwhelmed me. Sure, it was a "fun" evening. And I did feel a surge of affection and compassion for our blind servers. But the feeling simply didn’t last long enough to make a difference.

"Herein lies the problem with disability simulation," "It may make a person more aware of another person’s experiences, but it doesn’t dig deep to the root of discrimination against people with minority identities." It is more likely to evoke pity than true acceptance.

Would you pay for a depression simulator?

I was reminded of our Bangkok story as a result of the conversation generated by where some readers talked about specially designed activities that let able-bodied people experience the "handicaps" that people with disabilities face in daily life.

Ladau has the best critique of such well-meaning attempts at fostering understanding:

"It would be silly if while speaking to someone who walks, I said, ‘I don’t know how you do it. Walking is so hard.’ Of course it’s hard – for me. But for an able-bodied person it’s instinctive. And using a wheelchair is hard for an able-bodied person. For me, it’s innate."

More importantly, Ladau adds: consider the fact that for so many, disability is an identity and a culture, as are race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Now imagine if schools and organisations began to hold Black Awareness events, during which white people would put on blackface and go around in public for a few hours to gain an understanding of the experiences of black people.

Uh-oh.

And what about those who live with mental illness, yet another chronically ill-understood identity? If someone gave you, I don’t know, a pill that would temporarily suck all the vitality from your life, would you swallow it? Do you think a real-life equivalent of the dementor’s kiss from Harry Potter books would achieve anything?

Write to me – you know you want to! – and as always, I’d greatly appreciate your sharing this newsletter with friends and family.

Until next week.

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