An 86-year-old Tao elder from Orchid Island (蘭嶼) was presented with a top award yesterday for quitting smoking and prize money of NT$300,000 from the anti-smoking organization the John Tung Foundation.
Chou Lung-fa (周龍發), who had smoked one or two packets of cigarettes daily over the past 60 years, had originally planned not to give up smoking until he turned 90, said Chou Chang-jung (周長榮), his son.
However, the elder Chou said the prize money offered by the association prompted him to rearrange his schedule and “win the sum to help build houses for younger generations and for health reasons.”
Yu Tseng Li-ching (于曾麗卿), a 64-year-old woman, was awarded the “Best Witness Prize” for helping her only son, nicknamed “Big head,” quit smoking.
“Big head” once successfully gave up smoking when he was hospitalized after suffering serious burns on almost half of his body, but after recovering he started to smoke again while attending a job training program.
Yu Tseng organized a group of monitors — including neighbors, relatives and her son’s friends — to remind “Big head” to keep off the cigarettes whenever he was found to have smoked.
Yu Tseng, in addition to inviting neighbors to leave messages in a “quit notebook” to encourage her son to carry on, read the notebook carefully every day to find out what problems her son was having.
Touched by his mother’s insistence and seriousness, “Big head” finally succeeded, even though he suffered discomfort, such as vomiting, and lost 16kg.
The John Tung Foundation launched the “Quit and Win” campaign, endorsed by the WHO, in 2002 to provide a platform for the nation’s 4 million smokers to quit their habit.
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