`A Prayer Written with Bare Feet'

As the dawn broke on Jan. 24, last year, Tsai Rong-fong (蔡榮豐) got up much earlier than usual and quietly stepped out of his house. He was blaming himself because he couldn't spend the holiday with his family. It was the Chinese New Year, an occasion for families to get together. Tsai had to go because he had a "mission" -- documenting the journey of 40 foreign Buddhist monks walking around Taiwan on bare feet.

Four months earlier, the 921 earthquake had shaken the entire island, killing more than 2,000 and leaving painful memories on the minds of many more. Knowing of the disaster, the monks, from Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia, gathered here to walk and pray for peace in the country. For 39 days, they walked along the coast, taking breaks under the sun and spent their nights at temples, in the harsh cold of a winter they did not know in their own tropical countries.

Following the procession at every stage, Tsai now puts the fruit of his work on show in his solo exhibition at the Residence Salon (官邸藝文沙龍) in Taipei. A Prayer Written with Bare Feet (赤腳書寫的吉祥祈願文) will be followed by the release of Tsai's photo album of the same title.

Tsai was originally going to shoot only one leg of their journey, but on the seventh day, an incident changed his mind. At a gas station, the leader of the procession sat on a stool to dust off his bare foot, bandaged, swollen and bloodstained from the walk. Tsai took a photo of the foot.

After he did, he noticed that the foot looked much like the shape of Taiwan, with its mountain ridge and tectonic line.

"They were doing this for love of a foreign country. Their act of goodness touched me greatly. I thought to myself that I should not let them do this in vain. ... I want to show people what they did and encourage them to carry on these acts of goodness," Tsai said with eyes closed, as if trying to recall the moment he realized it was his "god-given mission" to take photos of them.

Before the project, Tsai had been a celebrity portrait photographer for 25 years. The works were his first attempt at "doing something creative for myself."

His sharp sense of composition and color is evident in the 13 small-format and three large-format photos on show, a number too small to offer a satisfying picture of the journey. One nice thing is that the photo of the swollen foot and one showing a monk arranging his garments after a break were printed on carpets. Their warm texture eliminate the sometimes cold distance found in documentary photos.

Trying to convey a lot besides the photos, Tsai has written his thoughts beside each photo. Many of the photos were taken on New Year's Day or the day after, when, Tsai said, it's toughest going for the procession.

One intriguing photo of a monk sitting on a racetrack as if getting ready for a race was taken after they had just got up from a night at the stadium on New Year's Eve. Another shows a luggage-carrying couple and their kid on the way to their family reunion on New Year's Day crossing the path of the fast-walking procession, making an interesting contrast.

The monks' barefoot-written prayer might have helped Taiwan get back on its feet after 921. For Tsai, after following the monks to many small towns, one thing is certain. "So many towns are of lucky names like Nuannuan (warmth), Yungkan (eternal health) or Fulong (happiness and prosperity). It must be a blessed place. We have to cherish this blessing and help each other in need," Tsai said.