Hsuan-hsuan (萱萱) would have been adopted out were it not for Li Wen-kang (李文剛), 97, a Kaohsiung garbage collector who is more saint than recycler of rubbish.
Sixteen years ago, Li heard about a struggling single mother in Kaohsiung, down on her luck and ready to give up her daughter -- Hsuan-hsuan -- for adoption.
Li intervened, offering to pay for the child's upkeep with his meager income from collecting cardboard on the streets.
PHOTO: KUO YUNG-HSIANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Hsuan-hsuan is now a Taipei college student ranked third in her class.
Li continues to pay her way, recycling soda bottles and cardboard into books, pencils and a university education for her. Despite his advanced years, Li still hits the streets every night, trolling for trash that he can sell to help Hsuan-hsuan and other disadvantaged children.
"Keep your money for yourselves," Li tells his beneficiaries when they offer to pay their own way or help him.
"I have more money than I need, so why not help some folks out?" he says.
Li is frugal to a fault, eating just once a day and living on a shoestring. This explains why, despite a monthly income of just NT$1,000 to NT$2,000 plus a scant pension, the spry nonagenarian has cash to spare for poor children.
Li's virtuousness is also apparent in the fact that giving comes much more easily to him than receiving.
Although he has given Hsuan-hsuan and her mother tens of thousands of NT dollars yearly since Hsuan-hsuan was three, Li refuses to accept their invitation to go and live with them in Taipei. He also brushes off suggestions that he scale back his nightly garbage runs or accept others' charity.
Since Hsuan-hsuan and her mother moved to Taipei from Kaohsiung recently, Hsuan-hsuan calls her benefactor every two or three days.
"I've never asked Hsuan-hsuan to call me, but I'm very happy whenever I hear her voice. I just want her to study hard and listen to her mother," Li said.
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