“I used to want to kill my father,” said Yu Zi (雨子), the nickname used by Lin Kai-wei (林凱偉), who said he suffers from manic depression as a result of his father’s violent behavior when he was growing up.
Lin’s father, Lin Ching-fu (林清福), who goes by the nickname Fu Ge (福歌), said he has since come to see the error of his ways and hopes to pull his son away from a life of hatred by admitting his errors and apologizing to Yu Zi.
The two decided to embark on a 12-day tour of the nation, which they began on Thursday, with their mottos of “Repentance” and “Atonement” written on the bottoms of their feet.
Photo: Yu Ming-ching, Taipei Times
Fu Ge, 67, who lives in Yilan County’s Lodung Township (羅東), had a tough childhood as well. He said he was given as a stepson to another family in return for a 5kg bag of brown sugar, suffered from obsessive-compulsive behavior and hyperactivity, and even becoming a “gangster” by the time he was in third grade.
As he got older, his hyperactive tendencies manifested themselves in violence toward his family after he was married.
Yu Zi, 36, grew up in the shadow of his father’s violence and although his grades in junior-high school were good enough to see him enrolled in the Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, the pressure from his violent father and his schoolwork led to manic depression, causing his performance at school to suffer greatly.
Yu Zi said he was accepted into the National Yilan Agriculture and Industry Vocational School in 1990, but his father’s continued violent behavior only further decreased Yu Zi’s emotional stability, making him extremely sensitive to sound, anxious and led him to entertain thoughts of suicide.
Yu Zi sought help at to the Yilan Mental Rehabilitation Association, but he still took seven years to finish his education at the National Yilan Agriculture and Industry Vocational School.
After graduating, Yu Zi did not want to go home and under the guise of transferring into a university, he lived in Taipei for six years.
Yu Zi said he was avoiding his father, but living alone only worsened his mental state and when his depression took over, he would go on binges of compulsive buying.
“I once spent NT$330,000 on various items in a six-month span,” Yu Zi said.
In 2002, Fu Ge told his son to come back home and learn a trade, but Fu Ge’s violent tendencies put father and son at each other’s throats.
Fu Ge finally chased Yu Zi out of the house in 2003, telling him to go to a Buddhist temple in Greater Taichung to “calm down.”
Yu Zi said he was extremely angry at being driven from his home and he felt that his father did not love him. Yu Zi’s hatred grew so deep that he even bought industrial grade sulfuric acid with the intention of murdering his father.
While living at the temple had a calming effect on Yu Zi, he failed to return the favor. In March this year, Yu Zi stole more than NT$100,000 of items from the temple and sold them for cash, which led to his expulsion.
When Fu Ge learned of the incident, he began to reflect on how he had treated his son, adding that on a trip to the hospital for a check-up, he noticed that most of the other people there were accompanied by their children, but he was all alone.
“I thought, my son is right near me, why don’t I try to pull him back?” Fu Ge said.
Fu Ge said he started by apologizing to his son and after reflecting on his actions, he arranged for Yu Zi to work at a publishing company to help him re-integrate into the community.
“Making money with your own sweat is really satisfying, but more importantly, I have found my confidence again,” Yu Zi said.
With the relationship between father and son on the mend, the two have decided to walk around the country to represent their resolve of atoning and repenting, with Fu Ge writing “Walking around the island in atonement” on his right foot, and “Hug me if you love me” on his left. Yu Zi wrote “Walking around the island in Repentance” on his right foot, and “Tian tian 9195” (天天9195) on his left, meaning “save him and save me (救伊救我) every day.”
“Violence and bullying should never be allowed to happen — even once — for although you might feel happy for one second of violence, you will hurt for a lifetime,” Fu Ge said.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff writer
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