Shipping tycoon leaves corpse to medical school

A Taiwan shipping tycoon who has been a philanthropist since the age of 60, donated his body to the medical school of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tsu Chi Foundation upon his recent death at the age of 77.

Lee Tsung-chi (李宗吉), a rags-to-riches entrepreneur who owned ships exceeding 1 million tonnes and other enterprises, donated his body to the medical school as a last contribution to society.

"It was a hard decision to make for my father to give away his own body," said one of Lee's daughters, Chia-ying (佳穎). Describing the move as "respectable and compassionate," Chia-ying said her father's decision was made despite the traditional Chinese belief that a good man should have his body kept intact after death for the sake of his ancestors as well as his offspring.

In addition, she said, her father had a vast garden-like graveyard prepared for his mother, and he originally planned to be buried there to keep his mother company. Donating his body to the medical school was tantamount to forsaking the arrangement, Chia-ying added.

Lee had a destitute childhood in China. Because his parents could not afford to give him an education, he left school before the age of 12, laboring to support his family until he was 20, when he left Xiamen for Taiwan around 1950.

In Taiwan, Lee labored to start up his own business and began to operate his first ocean-going vessel in 1959, gradually expanding his shipping operations into a "little kingdom" in 20 years. One of his ships once rescued more than 200 refugees in the open sea and other vessels of his fleet transported wheat and other relief goods to Lebanon during the wars in the Middle East.

Lee became a devout philanthropist some 17 years ago after being inspired by Buddhist Compassion Relief Tsu Chi founder, Master Cheng Yen (証嚴法師), who has for years championed altruism.

More than a decade ago, Lee donated the Taipei office building where he started his business to foundation. The building was then valued at several hundred million New Taiwan dollars, marking the biggest single donation that the foundation had received in decades.

In the following year, he had part of the stocks of one of his warehousing companies transferred to the foundation as another donation to Taiwan's biggest and best-organized charity organization.

Three years ago, in the wake of the devastating Sept. 21 earthquake, when Lee was on his sick bed, he continued to raise funds for the foundation, which was busy distributing relief to quake victims while making strenuous efforts to build or reconstruct some 50 schools in central Taiwan, the hardest-hit area.

Lee raised NT$200 million (US$5.9 million) for Tsu Chi through phone calls made from his hospital bed.

Lee's eight sons and daughters have been influenced by their father. They decided to donate all the proceedings that would be raised from Lee's funeral to be held today to one of the foundation's hospitals in Hsintien, Taipei County, "to mark our father's last effort to raise money for the foundation."

The Tsu Chi Medical School began to advocate the concept of "body donation" six years ago in an effort to seek cadavers for anatomy classes.

Although increasing numbers of people in Taiwan are donating their organs after death, there are still too few willing to donate their corpses.

Medical schools get bodies for anatomy classes from only a few sources, which include the homeless, unidentified bodies or the bodies of elderly retired servicemen who came to Taiwan from China decades ago and died without families.