Tainan resident Ruth Brown and her husband Lin Cheng-hui (
The 488-ping (1,613m2) parcel of land alone is valued at an estimated NT$100 million.
Samaritans
PHOTO: HUANG WEN-HUANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Over the years, Brown, 88, and her husband have donated land worth more than NT$400 million in the Tainan area to build churches and daycare centers. The new service center for the elderly caps off Brown's 57 years of service to the people of Tainan.
In 1944, 25-year-old Ruth Brown, a trained nurse, became a missionary and left her home in Texas for China to work with people suffering from Hansen's disease, also known as leprosy.
Six years later, she was expelled from the officially atheist new China and came to Taiwan.
Hansen's disease was so feared in Taiwan at the time that medical professionals who worked with patients suffering from the disease were often ostracized.
Huang Te-cheng (黃德成), executive director of the Tainan YMCA Social Welfare Foundation, said that families with members suffering from Hansen's disease were ashamed and would not let them leave home. Brown often had to go to patients' homes to persuade their relatives to let them be treated.
In 1950, Brown opened the first home for Hansen's disease sufferers from Yunlin, Chiayi, and Tainan counties.
Fear and ignorance
Fear and ignorance forced Brown to locate the home on the outskirts of Tainan City, in an area then largely given over to fish ponds.
Frightened by Brown's disfigured patients, local residents referred to the home as "the filthy hospital."
Brown's response was to move into the home and live with the patients.
Her courage and dedication attracted the attention of local landowner Lin, who eventually married the nurse from Texas.
After their marriage, Lin built the Linan Presbyterian Church on land that he donated.
He also supported Brown's work at the home for Hansen's disease patients until 1975, when the last patients were transferred to a specialized dermatology clinic at the new Sin Lau Hospital in Madou.
Brown also ran a center for victims of childhood polio, a serious health problem in Taiwan until the early 1970s.
With construction on the new service center at their old home about to begin, Brown and her husband have moved to a modest apartment in a nearby high rise.
Over the last six decades, Tainan's health care needs have changed as Taiwan has developed from a poor agricultural country into an aging post-industrial society.
What has not changed is Brown and Lin's generosity in serving those needs, Huang said.
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS