Shoko Asahara was born as Chizuo Matsumoto on March 2, 1955, into a large, poor family of tatami-mat-makers in Kumamoto Prefecture. He had infantile glaucoma from birth, which made him lose all sight in his left eye and go partially blind in his right eye at a young age, and was thus enrolled in a school for the blind. Asahara was known to be a bully at the school, taking advantage of the other students by beating them and extorting money from them. He graduated in 1977 and turned to the study of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, which were common careers for the blind in Japan. He married the following year and eventually fathered 12 children, the eldest of whom was born in 1978.