If you ever doubted real X-Men were among us, check out the neat super-power of Nong Youhui, a young Chinese boy who can see in total darkness.
 |
| Nong Youhui - Chinese cat boy |
Riddick, the cool antihero played by Vin Diesel in Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movie characters, but I never dreamed of someday reading about somebody who could actually see in the dark. The first news about a little Chinese child with cat-like eyes who could see in the dark as well as normal people see in clear daylight, first broke out in 2009. Doctors who examined little Nong Youhui said he was born with a rare condition known as luekodermia, which leaves his eyes exposed to sunlight damage, but also allow him to see clearly in the dark.
An eye-specialist recently visited the boy, in his home village, in China’s Guanxi province, to examine his unusual eyes. the first thing he noticed when he arrived was that Nong’s eyes were light blue just like Westerners, but very unusual for Asians. He became even more intrigued when he noticed that when shined upon with a flashlight, the boy’s eyes would emit a kind of blue-green light, just like a cat’s. As it turned out, his eyes not only looked liked a feline’s they also allowed him to see and even read perfectly in total darkness.
Nong Shihua, the boy’s father, says two months after he was born, he was told there was something strange about Youhui’s eyes, but when they went to a hospital, the doctor told them not to worry, and that his eyes would be fine when he grew up. His eyes remained the same, but since they didn’t seem to bother the boy, his family began to care less and less about this abnormality. He would go to school, play outside with other kids, and pretty much everything else young boys his age do, but one day, a teacher noticed something peculiar – Youhui squinted his eyes in bright light and complained about blurry vision. Then one of the boy’s playmates told him his eyes were like a cat’s and that really got him intrigued.
The teacher shinned a flashlight and Nong Youhui’s eyes flashed back, just like a feline’s. He asked him if he could see in the dark, and the boy said yes. Then one night he invited him to catch crickets at night, and the Nong told him he didn’t need a flashlight to see the bugs. When rumors about his unusual gift spread, many reporters came and performed all kinds of tests to see if he was for real. They blocked out all light and had him answer some questions in the dark, while others showed him a series of playing cards, to see if he could recognize them. He past all tests, and his reputation of Cat-boy, Starchild, or real-life mutant kept growing.
