Assistance poured in from netizens after an elderly grass jelly vendor at Luodong Night Market (羅東夜市) in Yilan County, who worked until late at night to support his disabled children, was diagnosed with liver cancer.
Netizens took note of the prolonged absence of 79-year-old Wang Chin-fa (王金發) and learned of his whereabouts and condition, donating daily necessities to the bedridden Wang, Luodong Township’s Kaiming Borough Warden Tsai Mao-fa (蔡茂發) said.
To provide for his two children with learning disabilities, Wang, the only breadwinner in the family, had sold homemade grass jelly at the night market from 6pm to 11pm every day for the past two years without fail, Tsai said.
A photograph of an exhausted Wang sitting in front of his cart with his face buried in his hands went viral on the Internet, Tsai said.
Netizens, unable to bear the sight of the elderly man working until midnight, launched a campaign to help boost Wang’s sales so that he could complete his work earlier, Tsai said.
Some netizens, after tasting Wang’s grass jelly, said on social media that the drink was “rich and pure and had a sweet aftertaste without tasting like chemicals” and that it was “cooling, thirst-quenching and full of love.”
Wang’s absence worried netizens, and one managed to find him at a local hospital, where Wang had just undergone an operation after being diagnosed with liver cancer, Tsai said.
Wang’s wife said that he was taken to the hospital for a stomach ache in the morning on June 6, and it was determined that he had developed liver cancer.
He is still hospitalized and recovering from the operation, she added.
Tsai and Luodong Township representative Hsu Chun-jen (許俊仁) took the supplies collected by netizens to the hospital on Monday to bolster Wang’s morale and bid him a speedy recovery, they said.
When presented with the supplies, Wang held his palms together and said in a weak voice: “Thank you. Thank you.”
Wang’s wife tearfully said Wang is a stubborn man who insists on making the grass jelly in a process requiring eight hours and refused to use any artificial ingredients.
Wang’s wife quoted him as saying: “I would rather make less money than sell my conscience.”
“I must recover soon to go back to work. I must not let the customers down,” he said, adding that he was very thankful for the netizens’ initiative and donations.
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