In colorful shades, Hsieh Kun-shan (謝坤山) puts down on canvas nature's wonders -- sunrise and sunset, mountains and beaches, flowers in the wilderness and fish in a stream. His latest work, a half-finished oil painting of Guanyin mountain (觀音山), stands on an easel in the small living room of his home in the capital's suburbs.
Hsieh's vibrant artworks have won him fame if not fortune, having been exhibited around the world. The feat is made all the more remarkable by the fact that, following a devastating electric shock 31 years ago, the artist was left without arms, only one leg and sight in only one eye. Hsieh holds his paintbrush between his teeth and has become one of the world's most esteemed "mouth painters."
Talent aside, Hsieh's tale of triumph over adversity has led him to become an inspirational role model for those with physical handicaps and countless others: students, patients, prison inmates, charity workers and the underprivileged.
PHOTO: AFP
"To me, there are no difficulties in life. There are only challenges to meet and problems to solve," says a smiling Hsieh, 47, in his second-floor apartment in Banqiao (板橋), which is neatly arranged by his wife Lin Yeh-chen and their two teenage daughters.
"I always think about the bright side -- appreciating what is left in me rather than wallowing in regret over what has been taken away," Hsieh says, gesturing with the stump of his right arm, which was amputated after his life-changing accident.
It happened when he was 16 and working at a factory. He was carrying iron rods that touched high-voltage cables overhead.
"Loss of the limbs and physical pain did not weaken me. But my heart was broken when I saw the tears, despair and helplessness on my mother's face," Hsieh recalls. "I was only adding more sorrows to the woman who was already leading a miserable life. She had to take care of me like I was an infant. I made up my mind then that I must make myself useful and I would never let her cry again," Hsieh says.
Against all odds, it was a promise he kept.
Born in 1958 in a remote, mountainous town in the eastern coastal city of Taitung, Hsieh's parents, poor and illiterate, could only find odd jobs for meager pay to feed the family of five. As the eldest child, Hsieh was a man in the house at an early age.
"Very often I had to carry my months-old sister on my back and walk 2km or 5km to reach my mother so she could breast-feed the baby," Hsieh recalls.
Tough enough
"Childhood hardship strengthened my willpower. In a way it
prepared me for future adversities," he says. Aged 12, he quit school to find work to help support the family. He found his first job at an animal feed farm before moving on to factory work.
As the country's industry started to boom, the father sold all their belongings and moved to Taipei dreaming of a better life.
But the family's newfound hope suffered a cruel blow.
"I was helping at the garment factory. All of a sudden, the steel rods I was carrying were sucked up by high-voltage wires," he said, somehow smiling. "Making things worse, for some reason I had taken my shoes off that day, which made my whole body an electric conductor."
Hsieh was knocked unconscious immediately. He woke up two days later feeling unbearable pain from his badly burnt legs and arms. Doctors had no choice but to amputate some of his limbs to save his life.
He lost most of his right arm, his entire left arm, his right leg below the knee. His right eye was severely damaged, and his left foot was deformed. He completely lost the sight of his right eye years later when his sister accidentally hit it with a staple when fixing his books.
"When I woke up after the surgeries, I saw my mother weeping by my bed. She cried for many days to come. I thought, `What have I done to the woman?'"
Hsieh was confined in the family's rented small apartment for the following seven years. The only five short trips he made outside were to get a haircut.
"But I was not in exile. I was thinking of ways to take care of myself so as to start a second life. My body was confined but my mind was free," says Hsieh, who patiently began to learn to live with his disabilities.
He invented a special device which could be chained to the remainder of his right arm and have a spoon attached to it so he could feed himself. He also designed a long hook which could be attached to the chain to unzip his pants. He even learned to bathe himself.
Hsieh was seeking a meaningful life that he had control over.
"We should not live on bread alone. We must ... enrich our lives and open our mind," he says.
In his small room, Hsieh decided to paint for a living, remembering how he had enjoyed doodling on textbooks during school lessons childhood and had been punished by his teachers. He started teaching himself to sketch with a pencil in his mouth and found it cathartic.
Dogged determination
"I found peace and contentment in drawing," says Hsieh, who even taught himself to sharpen pencils with his mouth holding a small knife. In his early 20s, Hsieh escaped his enforced isolation and joined two other self-taught peers in forming a studio selling oil paintings called One Step Behind. He insisted on moving out of his mother's home, having an artificial leg attached so he could move around.
The most dramatic change in Hsieh's life came the day he met well-known oil painter Wu Ah-sun (吳阿山) at Wu's art exhibition in Taipei. Impressed by Hsieh's eagerness to learn, Wu agreed to let him attend without charge a class he gave at a university. He also helped promote Hsieh's works.
It was at this class that Hsieh met his future wife, a pretty girl working at an electronics firm. Sharing the same interests, the couple often traveled on buses and trains for field trips.
Chen and Wu were the only guests when Hsieh, at 29, married Lin, four years his junior, in a simple court wedding without the blessing of the bride's family. Hsieh's mother had died three years earlier.
"Many people say they admire my courage and the sacrifice I have made, but this is really not the case. It might be so on earthly terms -- that he is physically handicapped -- but we make each other stronger and our minds are together," said Lin, a lively, genial woman.
She describes Hsieh as a "real man who beams love, warmth and light with extreme optimism."
To make up the education he once lost, Hsieh managed to finish six years of high school studies at the age of 30.
"My parents-in-law are now proud of me since they know I have strong shoulders for their daughter to lean on," Hsieh says.
Hsieh has won many art awards and in 1987 became a member of the Liechtenstein-based Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World which offers grants to some 650 such artists in 60 countries.
He receives US$3,000 per month, and he can sell a medium-sized oil painting for some US$5,000. He also receives payments for lecturing. In 2002 he was elected one of the association's six board members.
Hsieh's life story is now part of Taiwan's lore. It is included in textbooks for elementary and high-school children and was made into a 30-episode TV series in 2003, in which he played himself as an adult.
He wrote a biography in 2002 which was adapted into a children's book a year later.
Now 47, Hsieh devotes a great deal of time to helping others.
"Do you know anyone who is more unfortunate than me? But do you also know anyone who is as lucky as me?" are the two questions he often asks audiences when invited to speak at public events.
"I was given so much help and kindness in my life by people I didn't know, and I want to give whatever I can to the needy," Hsieh says.
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