A Buddhist nun has taken in more than 70 orphans and displaced children, raising them and sending them to school for the past 11 years.
Despite her limited savings, Zhenrong (真融) managed to establish an orphanage in Yilan County’s Wujie Township (五結), making ends meet by producing and selling dried Chinese radish, and spinning “like a Tibetan prayer wheel” as she ferries the kids to and from school.
It all began in 1998 when she saw two boys dressed in rags wandering near a river in Suao (蘇澳).
Talking to them, she learned that the boys, ages six and seven, had to scavenge for food because their father was a jobless alcoholic and their mother had left.
She allowed the boys to live at her mini-monastery named after Samantabhadra, a boddhisatva who symbolizes truth and reality and who, in Tibetan Buddhism, is considered an Abi-Buddha or primordial Buddha.
“There is a sad story behind every child I have taken in,” she said.
The youngsters were originally displaced or abandoned because their parents had either died, separated or had been locked up for drug or alcohol abuse.
“Some babies were sent here after being born out of wedlock to teenage girls,” she said.
“It grieves me that none of the abandoned babies’ parents have ever visited since,” she said.
With about NT$4 million (US$120,000) in her savings account, she took out a loan of more than NT$8 million from a bank the next year to buy an abandoned resort in Wujie, where she set up an orphanage, which allowed her to take in more children.
Since it cost at least NT$70,000 per month to run the home and her monthly mortgage was NT$80,000, Zhenrong needed to make money and began curing Chinese radish, making it a staple of the home’s dining table.
Her dried radish turned out to be a major source of income after a restaurant franchise operator from Taipei visited the orphanage and offered to buy her product.
Zhenrong also raised money by running a recycling plant and soliciting donations from Buddhists.
She said she finds her life of hardship and toil quite rewarding when she sees “her” children receive an education, become socially adapted and emerge from their shells after an early childhood of poverty and being uncomfortable even making eye contact with other people.
“Their wardrobe now is basic but clean,” Zhenrong said.
RSS