Eight years ago, drug felons in Penghu's Ting Wang Prison began to find great solace in writing, an unlikely pastime for most of the inmates.
Unexpectedly, these inmates turned out to be so serious about their writing that they published 11 books so far and donated profits of up to NT$700,000 to people traumatized by natural disasters, such as the devastating 921 Earthquake and the Typhoon Chebi, which wreaked havoc on Penghu in 2001.
Because of their philanthropy, these prisoners-turned-writers have also received numerous letters of gratitude and encouragement from the distressed and the orphaned.
Such benevolent acts can be credited to Ou Yin-chuan (
When Ou started her teaching career in at the facility, she realized that most of the inmates did not have much schooling. Thus, she encouraged them to try to express their ideas about love and nostalgia by writing to their children or families. Meanwhile, Ou also introduced thought-provoking documentaries or articles as food for thought for the inmates, to help them practice thinking for themselves and gradually learn to write.
Afterwards, Ou's enthusiasm for these prisoners also inspired a number of renowned writers such as Bo Yang (柏楊), Chen Jo-shi (陳若曦), Chang Hsiang-hua (張香華), Huang Chun-ming (黃村明) Shen Hua-mo (沈花末) to join the cause and became teachers in the prison's writing program.
The warden also established a similar writing program for the inmates in Taoyuan Prison after he was transferred there.
Since the first writing class was set up eight years ago, prisoners from these two prisons have successively published 11 works, including The Time When We Were in Love (在愛的時光), A Story from the Fringe World (來自邊緣的故事) -- which made Kingstone Bookstore's top-10 best-seller list; A Guy Missing Sunshine (想念陽光的人), The Spring inside the High Walls (高牆裡的春天) and Sunshine from the Fringe (來自邊緣的陽光).
Royalties from the books were donated to the needy.
The writers' endeavors have not only helped them make a name for themselves, but have also improved their reputation among local residents.
Although those who have been locked up in Ting Wang Prison were mostly hardened criminals who were serving 15-year sentences or longer, they have been regarded as extraordinary writers.
At the beginning, it was an extremely laborious task for these inmates to begin writing, since they did not even have a clue as to what to write about.
However, because of their diligence, they started making progress, little by little, and finally became capable of composing some serious and provocative literary works aimed at expressing their homesickness, their love for society and their concerns about the minority groups in Taiwan.
In recent years, the prisoners-turned-writers have drawn attention from academics in neighboring countries.
Japanese writers even translated their works and introduced them to Japanese readers. In addition, the meaningful contributions of these talented prisoners have also received extensive news coverage in Hong Kong and China.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift