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Feature: Bloggers launch online appeal for leprosarium

"This issue has gained momentum as we keep producing fresh content. It has spread from blogger to blogger."

Tung Fu-hsing, a blogger who supports the preservation of Losheng Sanatorium

A loosely formed coalition of 200 Taiwanese bloggers say that the local mainstream media have failed to convey to the public why the 78 year-old Losheng (Happy Life) Sanatorium should not be razed to make way for a new mass rapid transit (MRT) station.

An online appeal for funds to raise awareness on this issue raised NT$200,000 in less than 24 hours.

"There's no hierarchy, no leader, no real organization," said blogger Piglet (豬小草). "We are all doing what we can to help preserve Losheng."

Piglet has produced four podcasts on the Losheng issue, which he said have been downloaded more than 4,000 times.

Piglet has also produced a video demonstrating the difficulties wheelchair-bound Losheng residents may have getting in and out of a high-rise.

Other online efforts to preserve Losheng include a petition started by a medical students' association from National Taiwan University that has collected almost a thousand signatures.

Online petition

Blogger Rubble (瓦礫) also started an online petition where bloggers can show their support by clicking on an Internet icon saying "Let the Losheng issue decide our vote," which is linked to her post of the same name. The blog search service Technorati shows 111 blogs linked to her post.

"This issue has gained momentum as we keep producing fresh content," said Tung Fu-hsing (董福興). "It has spread from blogger to blogger."

Losheng Sanatorium's inhabitants are reminders of a past era, when leprosy was a dreaded, incurable disease. Those infected were removed from their families to isolated communities such as Losheng, which in time became home as decades passed.

Having become used to life at Losheng where they enjoy an autonomous existence, residents fear that moving to a new, high-rise complex recommended by the government would strip them of their mobility and sense of community. The sanatorium has been in the news as student protesters and residents clashed with police over the facility's impending closure.

"The media covered the issue by focusing on the altercations, which they contrasted with the government officials giving their side of the story. But the case for preserving Losheng and how it could be done was not covered in a substantive way at all," Tung said.

Just a few month ago, blogger Wenli mostly wrote gushing posts about Nintendo's hit videogame console Wii on his blog -- "The diary of an unemployed youth."

Now instead of breathless speculation about when the eagerly anticipated machine would finally make its official appearance in Taiwan, his recent posts have all focused on the issue of preserving Losheng for its aging residents.

"The government has deliberately hidden the fact that there is an alternate proposal -- a proposal that would preserve 90 percent of the remaining Losheng buildings as well as allow the MRT construction to continue on schedule," Wenli wrote on his blog.

Drawn meticulously in pencil, Wenli painstakingly illustrated the two proposals for Losheng -- the Taipei City Government's Department of Rapid Transit System's proposal that would leave only 41 percent of the buildings standing and a Council of Cultural Affairs proposal that would preserve 90 percent of what's left of Losheng and keep it as a functional community.

Seventy percent of the original sanatorium complex has been demolished already to make way for future development.

With a looming deadline for the mandatory evacuation of the remaining Losheng inhabitants to a high-rise care unit, the bloggers are moving quickly to spread the news beyond their electronic community.

"When we saw how clearly Wenli and [blogger] How's drawings presented the two proposals, our online group started talking about putting together an ad to raise awareness of the `90 percent proposal' featuring the drawings," Tung wrote.

Appeal

Tung yesterday issued an appeal on his blog and the online social bookmarking community HEMiDEMi to raise NT$200,000, enough for a half-page ad in the Chinese-language Apple Daily.

The money was raised in less than 24 hours, with 388 contributors each pledging from as little as NT $100 to as much as NT$2,000.

Piglet has a different take on why the online community, many young and belonging to the often disparagingly dubbed "strawberry generation" for their supposed immaturity and lack of resilience, have become passionate about the Losheng cause.

"When you read something in the newspaper, you know it is happening on an intellectual level, but when you read it on a friend's blog, the connection from person to person makes the story much more real," Piglet said.

"Because they read our blogs, they know us and they trust us," Piglet said. "In the end, everything is built on that trust."
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