HEFEI, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Instead of
becoming a masseuse like many blind people in China, Wang Xiangjun, who
is also congenitally blind, has a bigger dream -- teaching visually
impaired kids how to play the piano. Wang,
24, was first introduced to music by her grandmother, who was a primary
school music teacher. But she did not start to learn to play the piano
until she was sent to study at the Hefei Special Education Center of
east China's Anhui Province. Since then, Wang has been fascinated by the pattern of sounds produced by the black and white keys on the musical instrument. "It's
very hard for blind people to learn to play the piano. The first
problem is to find the keys," said Wang, who had to listen to the melody
again and again, so as to remember them by heart. Then she would try to
carefully press the keys one by one. "After
three months' practice, she finally mastered the basic fingering and
hand positions," recalled Li Yunxia, Wang's music teacher at the special
education per. "Music makes her
more confident. Her ears are her eyes," Li said. "Though learning piano
is especially difficult for blind people, she was very earnest about it.
She not only kept up with the teaching schedule, and she even performed
better than I expected." Thursday marks White Cane Safety Day, an event designated to help the public better understand blindness and visual handicaps. There
are over 17 million visually impaired people in China. With the efforts
of the country and the awareness of the general public, the life of
many visually impaired citizens has changed for the better. In
2014, the Ministry of Education stipulated that visually impaired
people should be given access to braille or electronic exam papers, as
well as support staff so that they can sit the national college entrance
exam. Benefiting from the act, Wang
finished the braille version of the exam paper in 2015 and was admitted
to the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, the first blind student to do so
through the college entrance exam in Anhui Province. During
her college years, Wang performed a number of music concerts and raised
more than 100,000 yuan (around 14,890 U.S. dollars). She donated all of
the funds to those in need. After graduation, she returned to her alma mater -- Hefei Special Education Center, and became a piano teacher in 2019. "Many
kind people have helped and encouraged me over these past years, which
is an important reason for me to keep on taking the path of music," said
Wang, who also wishes to pass on the love and kindness to more blind
children by working as a teacher. Her
dream finally came true when she gave her first music lesson to over 20
students from the school's piano club. Her students are of different
ages and from different classes, ranging from the first to the ninth
grades. "All of my students are so
lovely that they remind me of what I was like as a child. I know their
difficulties in learning. They can't see the piano score or find the
keys, but I can teach them with my experience and let them see hope and a
bright future," Wang said. Enditem
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