Chinese Actress Reveals High Myopia Issues
Popular mainland Chinese actress Wang Churan, who rose to fame with dramas like “My World of Fireworks,” recently revealed in an interview that her nearsightedness has reached over 700 degrees, with an increase of over 100 degrees in just one year. She described how taking off her glasses not only impairs her vision, but also affects her hearing, leading to difficulties in responding to greetings promptly and often being misunderstood as aloof. The topic quickly became a hot search trend.
At 27 years old, Wang Churan disclosed her severe nearsightedness situation while promoting her new drama “This Second Over Fire” co-starring with Zhang Linghe. She believed that the degree of her eyesight would stabilize in adulthood, but a recent check found her nearsightedness degree escalated from over 600 degrees last year to over 700 degrees, a rapid increase of over 100 degrees within a year, which even surprised herself.
Reflecting on the sharp rise in her myopia, Wang Churan attributed it to habits of lying on her side while using her phone and viewing screens in the dark, prompting her mother to jokingly criticize her for “wanting to eat her phone.”
Ophthalmologists define high myopia as exceeding 600 degrees, which is irreversible, and the eye axis will not shorten. While the rate of low myopia progression may slow down in adulthood, it does not signify entering a “safe period” for vision. Prolonged high-intensity and unscientific eye usage habits can continue to strain the ciliary muscles and elongate the eye axis. With an increase of over 100 degrees in a year, Wang Churan is treading on the abnormal line of progressive adult myopia.
Wang Churan shared the unique challenges brought by severe nearsightedness, particularly related to sensory integration issues. Jokingly, she mentioned that without her glasses, she not only experiences blurred vision, making her “unable to see,” but also creates a false perception of “unable to hear” as well, leading to misunderstandings where she is labeled as “aloof” or “arrogant” due to delayed responses to greetings.
However, eye specialists explained that when Wang Churan takes off her glasses and cannot hear clearly, it is not an illusion. With reduced visual input, the brain allocates more cognitive resources to process the blurry visual signals, resulting in a relative decrease in resources for auditory processing. Moreover, without clear cues like lip movements and facial expressions to decipher, it is easy to feel a sense of “not hearing properly.”
This explanation helps dispel a long-standing misunderstanding about Wang Churan. Previously, amidst controversy surrounding her role and acting skills in the TV drama “My World of Fireworks” with Yang Yang in July and August 2023, a clip from a variety show where she appeared to roll her eyes at her co-star Tan Jianci, combined with rumors from bystanders, led to her temporarily being labeled as the “eye-rolling sister” and “arrogant.”
As the misunderstanding deepened, Wang Churan and her team eventually revealed the true reason behind this “physiological habit”: in order to present the best look on camera, Wang Churan consciously overcame the habit of squinting common in nearsighted individuals to maintain focus. This led to severe dry eye due to prolonged wear of contact lenses and intense eye use. When her eyes feel dry, she instinctively widens her eyes, blinks frequently, or moves her eyeballs. These physiological responses captured by high-definition cameras led to allegations of “arrogance” and “eye-rolling.”
Wang Churan also disclosed her deep fear of surgeries due to childhood trauma from watching the exaggerated surgery scenes in the horror movie “Final Destination.” Combined with the high demands on eye conditions in her acting profession, she currently does not consider undergoing myopia surgery and primarily relies on alternating between glasses and contact lenses.
After the truth came to light, netizens expressed sympathy for the unfair treatment Wang Churan had endured. Regarding Wang Churan’s recent statement in the interview that “taking off her glasses, her eyes can’t see and her ears can’t hear,” netizens resonated deeply, marveling at how precisely this phrase encapsulates the hidden struggles of millions of severely nearsighted individuals. Some even joked that next time a friend removes their glasses and doesn’t greet them, they should not immediately label them as “aloof,” as they might just be temporarily “deaf and blind.”