Visually impaired couple spend their honeymoon volunteering

Blind national team swimmer Lai Zhijie and his wife Ye Zhaoling, who studied at National Taiwan University's Department of Foreign Languages, were married at the end of October, but they didn't go abroad for their honeymoon. Instead, they headed to Huadong and other remote places to do volunteer work.

The couple and Lai's Seeing Eye dog made their first stop on Monday at Beichang Elementary School in Hualian. Lai contends that this could be a most interesting honeymoon. Lai, who won a bronze medal for Taiwan in the Asian Games 1999 200-meter butterfly, is a man of many talents. He teaches newly blind students piano tuning, and he is the second visually impaired person in Taiwan to earn his piano tuner's certificate.

He plays baseball on a team for the blind, and is an avid long-distance runner. On December 18, he took part in the ING International Marathon in Taipei, completing the entire distance. The next day, he set off on his honeymoon with his new wife. But the Lais' honeymoon will be quite different from the average run-of-the-mill vacation trip most couples take. The two will spend their time doing volunteer work, working for the King Car foundation.

From December 19 though the 27th, the pair will be in Hualian, Taidong and other remote areas of central Taiwan, visiting elementary schools and sharing their own story with the children, encouraging them to grow and develop. Lai says that his new wife and he arrived at their first stop on Monday, the students had arranged a welcoming symposium, and a visually-impaired sixth grader, Xu Yazhen, played the flute with classmate Liu Yufan.

Lai says that volunteer vacations are a new concept, so he and his wife believe that if they can combine their honeymoon with volunteering, it will be more meaningful. People don't get much out of the average honeymoon, but, Lai says, although being handicapped can slow one down, having the spark of life is all the more precious as a result, and he hopes that this trip will let him share his life experiences with many people, and encourage everyone to come out as well.

Holding Lai's hand, wife Ye Zhaoling says that the two of them have lived a "barrierless" life since being married. Many people might suppose that she has to take care of him, but actually, apart from not doing any cooking, Lai shares equally in the housework, helping to wash dishes and mop floors. Ye says that in the future, there will be fewer and fewer barriers to the handicapped, and society should be friendly and encouraging to people with physical limitations. Only in this way can a truly accessible world be built.