After spending 48 years in a wheelchair, writer and national policy advisor Liu Hsia (劉俠), celebrated her 60th birthday yesterday.
Liu, who took the post in the Presidential Office last May, is better known by her pen name Xing Lin Tzu (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
During her birthday celebration, amongst many of her life-long friends, she called herself a "walking quadriplegic fossil," since she has been suffering from a rare disease for almost five decades.
Though enjoying a high-profile and well-paid position as a national policy advisor for President Chen Shui-bian (
"I think it is a sign that our country is in good shape," Liu quipped.
This is vintage Liu -- permenantly ill and physically suffering -- but with a strong sense of humor and an inspirational attitude toward life.
"She never stops brainstorming," said Lin Chi-ping (林治平), a professor from the Chung Yuan Christian University (中原大學).
"I have known her for more than 30 years. While her bizarre disease may trap her, it seems to me that it never became an obstacle for her and never hindered her from writing beautiful articles and caring about people in need."
The Reverend Maurice Alwyn Sween III, an American missionary who has been residing in Taiwan for the past 15 years, said that Liu often inspires him with fresh ideas toward life.
"Reading her articles helped me calm down, think deeply and remain clear minded toward the challenges in my life," said Sween.
"She has a unique way of looking at things which causes people to see that there can always be hope if you never give up."
Liu's younger brother Liu Kan (劉侃), president of the Home of Victory (
Liu has a rare disease called atrophic arthritis which is related to rheumatoid arthritis. The disease made her a quadriplegic when she was 12 years old, a condition that limited her formal education. Her schooling ended after graduation from the Peitou Elementary School (北投國小) in 1954.
The disease hinders her from being able move around physically, but not from thinking and creating. She has written more than 1,000 short stories and articles.
The malady has destroyed the functioning of nearly 90 percent of her joints and forces her to lie down most of the time and utilize a wheelchair to get around.
The disease remains incurable. She controls the worst symptoms with prescription medication.
Most of Liu's articles are inspirational. She won a National Literature and Art Award with a book in 1982. In addition, her articles have been utilized in elementary and junior high school Mandarin-language textbooks.
Liu's writing also earned her a commendation as one of Taiwan's 10 most outstanding women in 1980. Two years later, she used the award's monetary prize of NT$200,000 to establish the Eden Social Welfare Foundation (伊甸殘障福利基金會) to care for the needs of people who suffer from disabilities.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,