When Hsu Chih-ching (
Afraid that the act might jeopardize her marriage, Hsu's mother and brother tried to talk her out of it, and instead volunteered to donate their own livers.
Meanwhile, Hsu's employer rejected her application to have unpaid temporary leave. Her fiance also attempted to change her mind.
"Why does it have to be you? Don't you have other siblings?" he had said.
Despite such heart-wrenching remarks from her loved ones, Hsu remained determined.
"You can always start a new relationship," Hsu said, "but you only have one dad."
Although the liver transplant saved her father's life, it also brought Hsu a lot of suffering.
Her fiance's unsupportive attitude eventually forced Hsu to break off the relationship. This, despite the fact that their wedding photos had already been taken and a wedding date finalized.
She also lost her job as a manager in a karaoke bar for taking too many days off work.
The surgery left a 3cm scar on her abdomen, which would take some time to heal.
However, her good deed was later acknowledged by the Jhongli City government, which last month honored her with a model resident award.
Jhongli Mayor Yeh Pu-liang (
Acknowledging that Hsu had lost her husband-to-be because of the liver operation, Yeh made a remark that inadvertently became a notice to bachelors nationwide.
"I ask all the good guys out there not to give up on such a wonderful girl, who is willing to give her own liver to save her father," he said.
The mayor added that he would be honored if he could be her matchmaker.
By last Thursday, Yeh's e-mail account was overwhelmed with inquiries, as thousands of men around the nation responded to the mayor's call.
Phone lines at the Jhongli City office were also tied up all day by people asking for her contact information. Some even proposed, without even meeting her.
A librarian working at the city office told the Taipei Times that most of the e-mails were looking for friendship.
Doctors said the transplant was highly unlikely to jeopardize Hsu's health; a liver can continue to function normally even if over three-quarters of it is removed. Full regeneration can occur within 12 months.
Hsu, however, does not seem to be flattered by the publicity she has received these past few days.
She declined to give a full interview to the Taipei Times after seeing coverage of the incident by Chinese-language media, but she did say that the publicity had been tremendously disruptive.
For one thing, Hsu's new boyfriend had been shocked to hear about her anonymous admirers, creating tension in the couple's new relationship.
And briefly after the transplant operation, her father caught a fever and re-entered the hospital, where he is still receiving treatment.
When asked whether the new relationship had the potential to go any further, Hsu gave short answers and said it was stable.
"We will think about it [marriage] after my father checks out of the hospital," she said, adding that all she wanted was to be left in peace.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not