Politicians across party lines yesterday attended a memorial service for Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee member Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中), who drowned while trying to rescue his daughter in a boating accident last month.
The service was attended by committee Chairman Lin Feng-jeng, all committee members, Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄), who previously headed the committee, People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), Democratic Progressive Party caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), among others.
Yang, 47, was a member of the KMT from 2013 to 2016 and served as the spokesman and deputy director of the party’s Culture and Communications Committee at times during that period. He resigned as KMT spokesman on Jan. 16, 2016, and had since been forthright in his criticism of the party and its assets.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
He was expelled from the party in June 2016 for his remarks.
Local media reported that Yang’s 11-year-old daughter fell overboard while they were on a boat tour in the Cook Islands on Aug. 30 and he jumped into the water to rescue her, but perished in the attempt, while she survived.
At yesterday’s memorial service, Yang’s mother nearly fainted after reciting a poem titled Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.
Yang’s wife, former National Youth Commission minister Chen Yi-chen (陳以真) and her daughter were seen crying in each other’s arms.
KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Tang Te-ming (唐德明), who attended the service on behalf of the party, later shared the elegiac couplet that former KMT marshal Chang Hsueh-liang (張學良) wrote to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) after his death.
“Our care for each other makes us like brothers, but our fights over our differences in political ideologies make us like enemies,” Tang wrote on Facebook, in an apparent attempt to demonstrate the KMT’s mixed feelings toward Yang.
Yang’s family has chosen a tree burial for him and his resting place is to be in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店).
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