For 73-year-old Tung Hsiang-ming (湯祥明), Lunar New Year is not a time for family reunions. Since he was sent to the Happy Life Leprosy Hospital in Sinjhuang, Taipei County, in 1951, Tung has spent each holiday with other lepers in the once secluded sanatorium. Still, hot-pot dinners and red envelopes brought some joy to Tung and his fellow patients. This year, however, was different.
Fears of relocation to a new hospital facility -- one with iron-barred windows -- has marred their happiness.
In 2003, Taipei County officials began demolishing the 70-year-old hospital community built under Japanese colonial rule to make room for the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system's Xinshuang Line.
Banyan trees were uprooted, elegant Japanese-styled houses were torn down, and old patients were moved from their homes to prefabricated sheds.
With negotiations with the government appearing less and less fruitful, the frustrated patients knew that soon the rest of the complex would be razed to the ground.
For Tung and other 300 lepers, the demolition of Happy Life was the most unwelcome news for the Lunar New Year.
"When the society turned its back on me and ostracized me in the 1950s, I found peace here at Happy Life. Happy Life is my home and the other patients are my family. I don't want to move," Tung said, sitting in a small pre-fab shanty crammed with a plank bed, TV set, tabletop gas burner and cooking utensils.
For many other lepers, the Happy Life is not just a verdant hospital complex. It is a place where they lived out the pain of parting with their families and where they survived the devastations of leprosy. It is home.
Since many of the older patients were cut off from society and their families decades ago, they now have few ties to the outside world.
Huang Jing-liang (
"I've lived here for more than 60 years without contact with my family. If Happy Life is not my home, what is?" the 75-year-old Huang said.
For these people, the new Huilung Community Hospital, where the Taipei County Government plans to relocate them, can never replace Happy Life.
For the government, however, the MRT project is crucial.
When the Vice President Annette Lu (
"If patients refuse to move to the new hospital, the hospital should improve its facilities and listen more to the patients," Lu said.
"However, the MRT is a nationally significant project. Once such an important project is delayed, the nation will lose a considerable amount of money. Who is going to pay for this?" she said.
According to the county government, changing the route of the Xinshuang MRT line in order to preserve Happy Life would cost more than NT$2 billion (US$63 million) and delay the project's completion by more than three years.
But are the MRT line and patients' rights mutually exclusive? Many city planning experts believe not.
"It is possible to preserve Happy Life as historical and cultural site with the MRT trains running past it. It could be a shared space for modern technology and historical heritage," said Hsia Chu-joe (
If the Taipei County Government and construction companies can move the power plant and water treatment plant from the original hospital complex, Hsia said, the 70-year-old hospital would not have to be dismantled and its patients forced to move.
To seek a solution, the Executive Yuan invited experts to study alternative plans for the MRT line and the hospital last October.
The panel of experts submitted its report to the Executive Yuan last month, suggesting the government both preserve the patient wards and continue construction of the MRT line.
"The panel said that it will only cost NT$300 million to change the route, instead of the NT$2 billion the government claims," said Wu Jia-zhen (
In Wu's eyes, the extra expense is a price the government should pay to redeem the wrongs made 11 years ago.
"The government was wrong when they failed to consider the 300 patients living at Happy Life and rashly mapped out the routes of the Xinshuang MRT line in 1994," Wu said.
"How could they decide to tear down Happy life without the patients' consent and an assessment of its cultural and historical values?" the rights activist said.
For the long-forgotten patients, the pain of being eaten away by their affliction has now long passed. Blindness, deafness, loss of fingers, above-the-knee amputations and wooden limbs do not bother them any more.
"We now only hope to live out our lives here," said Chen Zai-tien (
The Grand Hotel Taipei on Saturday confirmed that its information system had been illegally accessed and expressed its deepest apologies for the concern it has caused its customers, adding that the issue is being investigated by the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau. The hotel said that on Tuesday last week, it had discovered an external illegal intrusion into its information system. An initial digital forensic investigation confirmed that parts of the system had been accessed, it said, adding that the possibility that some customer data were stolen and leaked could not be ruled out. The actual scope and content of the affected data
DO THEY BITE IT? Cats have better memories than people might think, but their motivation is based entirely around the chance of getting fed Cats can remember the identity of the people who fed them the day before, Taipei-based veterinarians said on Friday, debunking a popular myth that cats have a short memory. If a stray does not recognize the person who fed them the previous day, it is likely because they are not carrying food and the cat has no reason to recognize them, said Wu Chou Animal Hospital head Chen Chen-huan (陳震寰). “When cats come to a human bearing food, it is coming for the food, not the person,” he said. “The food is the key.” Since the cat’s attention is on the food, it
Taiwan must act to preempt potential Section 301 investigations as US President Donald Trump moves to a new tariff strategy, following a US Supreme Court ruling that voided tariff measures, an academic said yesterday. Countries running the largest trade surpluses with the US face a growing likelihood of Section 301 investigations, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. Section 301 refers to a provision of the Trade Act of 1974 that allows Washington to impose retaliatory tariffs over perceived unfair trade practices, including the running of large trade surpluses. Because Taiwan has become the fourth-largest source of the US’ trade
People hold incense and pray with offerings in front of Taipei’s Kuanghwa Market yesterday. The fifth day of the Lunar New Year is traditionally about welcoming the God of Wealth, during which companies and shops set off firecrackers to celebrate their reopening and pray for good business in the new year.
RSS