BY YAN BING

  I had never expected to enter a world of people who can't see until on a summer afternoon I came to a training camp for them in Beijing. I decided to serve as a volunteer there and spent 15 days with them as a reporter.

  When I learned about the opportunity to cover the launch of a broadcast training camp for blind people, I told myself it must be an unusual event. But I never expected I could be so touched when I stepped into the camp studio located in an apartment building in southern Beijing.

  Most people working for the camp, which aimed to help blind people make audio programs, had seeing difficulties to a varying degree. So I was not surprised when a man groping his way in the room asked me to guide him. But my heart was greatly quaked when he told me: "I'm afraid I would knock someone down without a guide." Sitting in a sofa waiting, I couldn't help wondering: :How can a blind man who, in my thinking, should be afraid of being stumbled, show such worry to others?"

The launching ceremony started. The beautiful voices of the two ceremony hosts drew me back from my contemplation. I could hear confidence, perseverance and humor in them. And I believed it was a kind of impromptu show of emotion, rather than mincing techniques in broadcasting rooms, when they raised or toned down their voices.

  "Radios have been our companions since we were kids. How we wish to become broadcasters! With the help of so many warmhearted people, our training camp is opened. Today, we're one step closer to our dream!" the two hosts, Qing Feng and Li Ning, told a room of participants and reporters. I noticed that Li Ning clenched her fists when she told the camp participants to work hard to fulfill their dreams.

  Following the opening speech was the story-telling session. Story tellers were camp participants, their parents and teachers; stories were about how a girl who suffered eyesight disability when in freshman year in college struggled to finish school with the help of classmates who would read out the textbook for her; and about how blind people pained and gained for their dreams to become translators, broadcasters and psychological consultants.

  And I, like other reporters, was in tears and clapped my hands. That was the most touching ceremony I had ever attended, and I found I had been in a world with love, fraternity and unyieldingness.

  The inauguration ceremony ended after less than an hour, but my mission to do something for the community that moved me so much had just begun. I came to a decision without second thought: I would work as a volunteer for the training camp. With the support of my editor, I fulfilled my desire.

Hand in Hand

Hardly had I stepped out of the elevator the second day, I heard a pleasant voice from the studio. Chen Lili, a girl from northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was reading aloud a poem she wrote under the direction of a teacher from the Communication University of China, a Beijing-based university famous for the training of TV program anchors and radio broadcasters.

  The teacher was coaching the participants how to express their feeling and emotion with intonation. After that, they learned how to use computer software designed for blind people.

  Guiding for blind people proved a job not as easy as I had imagined. When they finished the day's lessons, my tough job began: to guide them to their hotels. It was my first time to act as a guide for blind people and to be hand in hand with them. My hand was kind of stiff. I did not realize that, but Su Tengyang, a 14-year-old boy who was hand in hand with me, felt so.

  "Don't be nervous, Mr. Yan. Relax your right arm, or just let it droop naturally, then I can hold it,?said the boy in an attractive baritone. He was studying at a school for blind children in Tianjin. His dream to become a program anchorman would partly come true as he would be back in Tianjin after the training camp, as he was to host a grand performance for disabled people there.

That evening, I accompanied Tengyang, Lili and some other camp participants to their hotels. When I told them I was a newspaper reporter, Tengyang was curious to know more about my work. And an idea occurred to me: If only we had a Braille paper, Tengyang could then read it!

  My imagination, however, was disrupted when we got to the exit of the apartment block, where a woman behind us, who was impatient of our slow movement, complained in an utterly unhidden coldness: "How could I be so damned to meet such people!?I was much more startled at a street crossing after a driver who saw us stopped his car but many cars following him blew their horns. I did not know how panic a blind person would be at the harsh yelling, but I guessed they might be much more scared than I was.

  In a world of darkness, blind people may hope to get helping hands everywhere from those who can see, but sometimes they have to face indifference and rudeness, as, after all, volunteers or fraternity are not always something that can be made in a matter of an hour.

  Although an individual might be helpless at such ugly phenomena, I wish to tell everyone that how to treat disabled people could reflect how civilized a society is. With uncivilized groups in existence, we may have a long way to go before we reach the real civilization.

                         On the Great Wall                                             Interview among peers

                         On the Great Wall                                                        Interview

                         Touching the Great Wall                                   Playing the swing

                          Learning computer                                           Farewell

                         Interview                                                             Having meals

Dancing

Beautiful Hearts

  Despite some unpleasant encounters, we were never short of warm hearts. We spent the first weekend on Tian'anmen Square, where many people were flying kites, colorful kites. Tengyang, however, was puzzled at the word kite when I told him that there were lots of kites in the sky.

  I explained to him how to make and fly a kite in words. But that was not enough. To let Tengyang know what that marvelous thing really was, I led him to a man who was flying a kite. "Could you please let the boy feel your kite?" I asked the man but at the same time told myself it would be an unreasonable demand at a usual time. I did not want to make explanation as I did not like to mention the words "blind" or "can't see" in front of the boy.

  My worry proved unnecessary. When the man saw Tengyang, who was hand in hand with me, he agreed without hesitation. "All right. No problem,"he said, putting the bird-shape kite in Tengyang's hands.

  The boy stroked the kite along its rim for several times with a smile on his face and returned it to the man in gratification. Tengyang must be overjoyed that day, as after having a touch of the amazing kite, he helped Qing Feng finish a reporting mission perfectly. In the recorded program that would be broadcast to blind listeners, he described vividly what the stone lion on an ancient ornamental column looked like. He even captured that a knee of the lion was drawn up while it stood on the other three legs.

  I myself also made a discovery on the square during the break when we had snacks. To my surprise, the participants would rather fumble their way to the dustbin than litter where they sat or stood for their convenience.

  The discovery confirmed my impression that they were a considerate and responsible group. I acquired the impression when one of them asked me for guide for fear of knocking down others before the launching ceremony. And the impression was enhanced the next week when they visited an online broadcast studio for university students, where they were asked to greet the listeners and speak out what they wanted to say most.

  Like at the camp launching ceremony, they again showed confidence and optimism, but I was deeply impressed by the remarks of a boy named Yan Jiawei: "We are already very happy, as we have so many chances to participate in training programs like this. Those blind people in the countryside deserve more pity and concern. I hope they can get more help."

Farewell

We spent our second and last weekend on the Great Wall. It was another happy and unforgettable day for us. My task that day was to guide Lili. I did not know if she could draw a picture of the great wonder in her mind with my introduction and her own touch, but I could see astonishment and joy on her face when she made her way along the wall with groping hands.

  After lunch, the campers played the swing near a little river. When they flew high, their cheers and laughers, echoing the chatters of the brook water, seemed to be carried to the sky.

  The rejoicing continued when the bus took us back and arrived at their hotels, where Han Dong, the youngest among them, began to weep, as the boy living in Beijing would be the first to leave the camp. His mother was already there to take him back home.

  The others had one more night to say goodbye. When I got to the camp the next day, Lili, Jiawei and several other peers were hand in hand with tears in eyes. I sent off Lili and another girl at the railway station. When the train carrying Lili pulled out, a poem she wrote and read for me seemed to linger on in my ears:

  When I set foot on the train,

  Driven away is the loneliness of pain.

  What before my eyes is my dream for the future,

  Dream for the twilight from afar... 

The writer is a reporter of the People's Daily.