Although Su's school for visually-impaired children offers accommodation, he travels by bus with his mother more than two hours from school to practice the piano at home.

"There is only one piano at school and I am afraid he might not be able to concentrate there," she said.

As an asthma sufferer, he also receives regular treatment at a clinic.

It has required exceptional patience for Su to play the piano. At first, he was only able to learn one note or one hand position per session, his teacher said.

Three months later, he learnt a few bars and sentences.

"It is difficult for him to feel tangible things in interpreting music, but he has better hearing than a normal child," Luo Zheng said.

His mother herself turns the music scores into simplified ones, which he then translates into Braille.

Unfortunately, not many musical scores are available in Braille and Su has yet to learn the expression marks.

As a child, Su sometimes forgot or failed to practice as required and his mother acted as his supervisor.

"I once dragged him from bed at 10 pm to practice. He is good now. He will have to rely on himself in the future," she said.

Su himself felt strange when he first touched a piano. "There are so many keys," he explained.

Feeling discouraged, he considered giving up, but later thought it would be a waste of money to do so.

"It was a bit boring when I practiced as a child, though I enjoy playing now," Su said.

He won a "gold prize" for children last year at the fourth national children and youth arts festival. He also once accompanied a pop singer at a charity show at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Guangzhou.

Su admires legendary composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who created music even when he was deaf.

Away from the piano, Su enjoys listening to pop music.

He studied Chinese, mathematics, English and computer science at school, ranking second for academic performance in his class. At school, he also learns cooking and other courses on self-reliance.

Su realised how important English was as a foreign language during his trip to Vienna and, in his spare time, he likes to read books, such as Sherlock Holmes as well as Chinese classics like Romance of Three Kingdoms and Heroes of the Marshes.

The library is a major resource for him and he also downloads kungfu novels and science fiction stories from the Internet, where he communicates with his classmates using instant messaging tools.

One of his dreams is to play at the opening ceremony of the upcoming Asian Para Games to be held alongside the Asian Games in Guangzhou in November.

He also aspires to compete in the national Golden Bell Awards musical contest, which is held every two years in Guangzhou.

Su's mother works at a property management company, while his father is a consultant. The family, which is financially sound, also includes two grandparents and Su's older sister.

Luo Zheng said she hopes Su becomes a piano teacher one day.

With his acute sense of hearing, she said he could also become a piano tuner as well as help to translate musical scores into Braille.

(Li Wenfang and Li Jing) (The End)