Visually impaired couple in China show sighted people the world with little light at Expo

From Xinhua:

A young couple with poor eyesight has proven they are capable volunteers at the ongoing Shanghai World Expo.

Every day since May 1, when the 184-day event began, the couple has helped visitors at the Sunshine & Life Pavilion inside the Expo Garden experience how a blind person lives in order to help healthy people understand the situations faced daily by visually-impaired people.

Failing to see anything in a special dark room without any light, visitors try to feel about for things, such as stone carvings, with their hands and try to judge, with their ears, in which direction a ball is quickly moving.

Sometimes, they may need help from the young couple, who serve as voluntary guides and commentators at the Pavilion. The Sunshine & Life Pavilion is the first exhibit designed specially for handicapped people in the more than 150 year history of the Expo.

The couple, Zhu Guoxiang and Xie Danling, who are visually-impaired, are among 65 handicapped volunteers working at the pavilion.

Zhu, born in 1984, developed cataracts, and Xie, born in 1985, suffers from congenital glaucoma and is only able to perceive faint light.

Xie said that outside the pavilion, people with sound bodies can help the handicapped, but inside the Sunshine & Life Pavilion, they may ask visually-impaired people for help.

"A lot of viewers shed tears after they experience how a blind person lives. They say to us,'Life is so hard for you,' " Xie noted.

"Though there were so many difficulties in our lives, we've surmounted them," Zhu said.