Lu Lai-hsuan (呂賴選), 96, who was also known as “the Grandmother” to students and teachers at Taichung’s First Senior High School, died on Friday last week to the sorrow of the school community, which had provided for Lu since the death of her son, daughter-in-law and grandson during Typhoon Toraji in 2001.
According to the school, Lu’s grandson, Yang Che-hsiang (楊?翔), a student at the high school at the time, was in a car with his mother and both died after the foundations of the then-Dongmen Bridge collapsed as they were crossing it during the typhoon.
Yang’s father is thought to have committed suicide after the incident.
Photo courtesy of Taichung First Senior High School
He was known to wander the banks of Han Creek (旱溪) and his body was found under the Han Creek Bridge.
With Lu, Yang’s paternal grandmother, as well as his maternal grandmother being elderly and with no other children to care for them, the school donated NT$3.5 million (US$109,638) toward their care.
Lu’s maternal grandmother died in 2002, while Lu moved to a nursing home in Dali Township (大里), with the costs paid by the fund, the school said.
The high school arranged for a group of students and teachers to visit Lu at every major holiday, it said, adding that each school dean would tell their successor to continue caring for Lu.
As Yang was the head of the Chinese Instrument and Music Club prior to his death, the club made it a tradition to visit his grandmother and perform for her, the school said.
Lu regarded the school community as her family, it said, adding that she always welcomed teachers or students when they came to visit.
Lu held a positive outlook on life, not only volunteering in the nursing home, but also playing and attending croquet games, the school said.
School dean Chen Mu-chu (陳木柱) said Lu’s health had been declining in recent years, but she was still well when the school last visited her in September.
It came as a shock to hear that she had died from complications after a bout of pneumonia, Chen said.
Former dean Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said the news was sad, but he was glad that the school takes care of elderly people.
Students said that the school should continue to care for those in need.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching