Fighters to the end

Yang Kwei-ying (楊貴英), remembers well Oct. 27, the day Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) announced a halt to the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.

"To be honest, when I heard the news I could not really feel immediately happy, because throughout the years of protest I felt too much. My feelings became so complicated," she said.

"It has become a part of my life. Before we really succeeded, [the nuclear plant] was like a shadow in my head that haunted me everyday and I could not take it out," she said.

In the eyes of Yang's companions from the Yenliao Anti-Nuclear Self-Help Organization (鹽寮反核自救會), the 57 year-old Yang is the warm-hearted caretaker of the movement. She searches for volunteers, prepares food for protesters and above all, she sticks by her principles, and did so even during the most depressing years of the movement.

In the eyes of her neighbors in Fulung village, however, Yang and her husband are strange. Since their involvement in the anti-nuclear energy movement, they have neglected their shop, just a short walk form the Fulung train station, which originally sold clothes and groceries.

Two or three days in a week, Yang had to attend meetings concerning the power plant so she would close the store. "Little by little people stopped coming to the store. So I changed to selling fishing and water sports goods, you know, things that don't go out of fashion quickly," Yang said.

The family, which includes four children, now mostly depends on her husband's wage as a ticket clerk at the Fulung train station. Her husband has been reluctant to aggressively join the campaign, fearing that it might impact his government job. "So I just act out his beliefs," said Yang.

The couple has been rigid about adhering to their opposition to the plant. They were one of the first households to reject all preferential treatment from Taipower. Since the passage of the budget for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, Kungliao residents have been given various benefits, including discounted electricity. Kungliao township government is also given NT$200 million each year to conduct other preferential measures.

"We don't accept the cable fee discount. Our children don't join the free lunch provided by the school that is supported by Taipower. My children don't take the scholarship and tuition fee reduction, either" she said.

To give up those benefits Yang had to go to through a string of application processes, which made Yang "a difficult person" in the neighborhood. "The administration staff thought we were weird. And school teachers thought I was giving them a hard time. Relatives and friends blamed us for blocking their way to save money," she said. "But I thought since we are against the plant we should show it from our actions."

But her devotion has caused rifts not only between her and neighbors, but also among her and her children. "When ? my children complain that I am not being a dutiful mother, I really have no position to argue back. I just become silent," she said. "These are the enormous pressures you have no place to release."

Thirteen years ago, Yang was inspired to join the movement by a speech made by environmental scholar Chang Kuo-lung (張國龍). Since then, Yang said it has been impossible to count the losses suffered because of her devotion to the movement. "I just take those expenses as if I had a sickness for years," she said.