I am not sure whether I find this insensitive or not, given that Stevie Wonder wears sunglasses. But Helen Keller prescription glasses…not for me I am afraid. I was inspired by two different Helen Keller films, both named The Miracle Worker. Helen survived and thrived in conditions where the first choice offered to her parents was probably institutionalisation. With the help of her teacher and companion, Ann Sullivan, Keller learned sign language, later on went to Harvard, and wrote a number of books.
Wikipedia: Keller made a breakthrough, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of “water”. Writing in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, Keller recalled the moment:
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free![18]
Keller quickly demanded that Sullivan sign the names of all the other familiar objects in her world.
I probably wouldn’t read too much into it. From studying Japanese I discovered for example that Japanese people love to use either French words or English words in their products. They take two random French words that mean nothing together and put them together on t-shirts and jumpers. I think that the name Helen Keller must sound snazzy and maybe some Chinese marketing person thought that would be a nice name for a sunglasses brand. But it’s true that it can be quite offensive and make no sense. It’s a bit like people in the West who get themselves some either Chinese or Japanese character that looks very flashy and in the end, it just means “chicken soup”…