A Great Experience for a Paralympian Chess Player

The translation is a bit ragged in places, but the experience is very real. Indonesian Paralympian wowed the grand Game Xinhua Updated: 2008-09-16 14:12 JAKARTA -- Dati Sosiawan Putra of Indonesia, who just returned from the Beijing Paralympic Games, said that he really could not imagine how the government of China has made a wonderful success of world events, Beijing 2008 Olympics and Paralympics. Sosiawan is a disabled-seeing Indonesian athlete, namely chess-board games. Born in Bandung, 120 kilometres from the capital city of Jakarta, he has just returned from Beijing after representing the national Paralympic Committee of Indonesian (NPC) and traveling together the whole contingent of Indonesian. "Although three Indonesian Paralympian failed to earn medals, but our participation in Beijing would attribute to bilateral relationship and friendhsip between Indonesian and Chinese sports committee, particularly Paralympic," he told Xinhua during a recent interview in Jakarta. He persistently praised China with not only the success of organizing the sport events, Olympics and Paralympics but the booming economy and the generous feeling of the people. "Wherever we went to some tourist destinations in China, I felt a kind of generous feeling of Chinese people," he said. Sosiawan said that after the games, the whole Indonesian contingent spare time for sight-seeing. They went to see historial ancient mosque in Beijing, and also visited the Great Wall. Wherever he went, his assistant led him due to seeing disability condition. His assistant, wearing Moslem veil led him patiently by grasping his hand. Sosiawan is extrovert. He told Xinhua that he had suffered seeing disability since he was five years old. "I was bornt in 1966. I started to feel something different with my sight-seeing in 1971. Since that, I struggled to keep survive, and started to play chess-board. I guess, my achievement is not too bad, by earning silver medal in Thailand 2007. And I am looking forward to Malaysia 2009 for gold medal during the Fespic Games X," he said with optimism. He felt the Chinese people's support for Beijing 2008 was really extraordinary. "The people were willing to stay tuned to the games and supported their athletes with enthusiasm. But they still regard foreign Paralympians with full respect and warm welcome," he said. "Volunteers also respected all foreign athletes. They refused any generous tipping, yet it had become habitual in most countries throughout the world," he said.