2 . Some Ugandan students study traditional Chinese craft, which helps build bridges through art. With its balanced, rounded pot and cups, the tea set seems like Chinese ceramic (陶瓷) at first glance. But closer inspection of its pattern reveals an ancient Ugandan design. “My projects always aim to join some aspects of Chinese and Ugandan culture together,” says the tea set’s creator, Ocen Robert.

Robert arrived in China from the East African nation to pursue a higher education in ceramic arts at Jingdezhen Ceramic University in East China’s Jiangxi province in 2015. The Ugandan is also enrolled in a PhD program focusing on design, with his art pieces sold at national-level exhibitions in China.

“I like it here not only because of its safety, but the raw materials and the production techniques for ceramics here are also among the best in the world.” He says. During his stay in China, Robert was given many chances to participate in ceramic production, exhibitions and even access to experts-all helping to grow the space where he could express his creativity.

Robert spends most of his free time in local museums’ culture and history sections so as to deepen his understanding and passion for traditional Chinese culture. He also gets to know Chinese professionals inside and outside the ceramic world. “I would love to solidify my career as an artist here while helping to link Uganda and China,” Robert says.

“Ugandans are thankful, curious, and passionate about Chinese culture. I would love to introduce the artists back home to study and create ceramic artworks in China and promote them to the world.”

Robert says, “To be a modern artist in Chinese ceramics, one needs to comprehend the full f low of production, which requires years of practice and learning.” One of the most challenging areas of creating his pieces involves creating the “ideal shape and thickness”. He says “I fail at times, but I always practice and try again and again.” Robert has attained the essential spirit of Chinese ceramic arts—accepting and integrating the differences.

It’s eight o’clock on Christmas morning, and my dad says he wants to listen to the news. My 11-year-old self is wondering why on Earth grown-ups would be interested in the news when there are important things to be done, such as handing out presents. And then, while I am only half-listening, something strange happens: the newsreader begins talking about a Christmas message. Hadn’t we heard that report earlier?

My older brother, Colin, figures out what’s happening. “Pete, Pete, it’s a tape recorder! We’ve got our tape recorder!”

It finally dawns on me: my dad recorded the news and is playing it back now.

Colin and I had both been blind from birth. At the special school that Colin and I attended, a recorder of your own was the height of desire. However, realistic about family finances, we had no real expectations of getting one.

The tape recorder my dad bought us would have cost more than four times his weekly wage. He could only afford it by borrowing the money. I know my mum and dad would have thought long and hard before being in the debt.

The new toy controlled the rest of the Christmas holidays. Once we had mastered the controls, we recorded anything and everything: each other, our parents, the milkman, the dog... and we very quickly learned how much fun we could have with it.

It wasn’t the first time I had been attracted by a tape recorder. I vividly remember walking into a room when I was four and hearing a child’s tuneless singing. I stopped dead. “It’s you,” Dad said.

It turned out that he had borrowed a tape recorder. So for the first time, in the same way that a sighted child might react to seeing themselves in a mirror, I got the sense of myself as a separate person who existed outside my head and was experienced by other people.

I took my first steps down the path to my career as a broadcaster when I returned to school.

I was lucky to be in a class of imaginative, creative and radio-obsessed (对广播痴迷的) boys.

After several years, I went into a radio station, hoping to become a broadcast journalist.

The People I Admire

Mama’s Soup Pot

There are too many treasures in life we take for granted, the worth of which we don’t fully realize until they’re pointed out to us in some unexpected way. So it was with Mama’s soup pot.

Mama’s soup was special because there was no recipe for it. It had been so since her girlhood in Italy, where she learned its secret from her grandma, who had inherited (继承) it from generation to generation. Also, it was a symbol of security. For our large immigrant family, Mama’s soup guaranteed we would never go hungry. And we could judge our economic conditions by its contents.

At one time, however, Mama’s soup pot became a source of embarrassment to me, for I feared it would cost me a new friend I had made at school. Sol was an unusual pal for me because his father was a doctor and they lived in the best part of our town. Often Sol invited me to his home for dinner, where I found the food was good but tasteless, lacking the heartiness of the one served from my mom’s flame-blackened pots. Moreover, the atmosphere matched the food and everything was so formal. Sol’s mother and father were polite, but the conversation around the table was not natural, which made me a little depressed. And no one hugged!

In my family, warm hugs were a constant-men, women, boys and girls-and if you didn’t kiss your mother, she demanded: “What’s the matter? You sick?” But at that time in my life, all this was an embarrassment.

I had known Sol would like to eat dinner at my house, but that was the last thing I wanted. My family was so different. No other kids had such pots on their stoves, nor did they have a mama whose first action upon seeing you enter the house was to sit you down with a spoon and bowl.

One day, Sol pointedly asked if he could come to my house. I had to say yes.

The day Sol came over I was nervous.

But Sol quickly finished his bowl and asked for one more.

Ollie Simmons was good at maths, but Ruby Riley wasn’t. Well, Ruby didn’t think she was. She sat next to Ollie and so she just copied him. This was the best way she had found to do maths and she didn’t have to think at all.

One day the teacher said, “We will be having a maths test after lunch.” Ruby felt there were butterflies in the stomach. “Can I copy off you?” she whispered to Ollie. Ollie thought for a minute. “What will you give me?” he whispered back. Ruby showed Oilie a stone she had. It was round and smooth and the colour of the sea. “OK!” he said, “Give me the stone, and then you can copy my answers.” Ollie got full marks in the maths test and so did Ruby. Their names went on the top of the maths champion chart.

Every week there was a maths test and every week Ollie and Ruby got full marks together. Ollie had to share the top place with Ruby, but it was worth it. He had a torch, a key chain, a golf ball and a gift box!

One day, there was a maths test again. This time, Ruby picked a watch, thinking everything would go as usual—Ollie would let her copy and they would be on the top of the chart together again. But she was wrong. The headmaster came into Ruby’s class. “I want to see Ollie Simmons,” she said. Ollie was gone for a long time. Then the door opened. It was the headmaster again. “Ruby Riley, she said,” Come with me, please. “Ruby felt like a bird in a cage—there was no way to escape. The headmaster told Ruby that every lunchtime for five weeks she had to do maths. “You have to learn to think for yourself,” she said. “And Ollie has to learn a lesson, too. He’s going to teach you.”

Hanging her head down. Ruby felt so regretful for getting Ollie into trouble.

Ollie proved to be a good reacher for Ruby.