Idid not start my education until I was 17. There are simply too few chances for blind kids to get an education in China, let alone a poor country boy like me. Only about 5 percent of blind Chinese have any schooling. Still, my childhood was a happy one. I did almost all the things a country boy does, climbing trees or catching fish in the river. I even helped out in the fields, doing things like picking leaves. How? We blind people develop a good sense of touch. Ripe tobacco leaves do not have fine hairs on them.