Surviving a fire 26 years ago, Chen Mei-li (陳美麗) sustained third-degree burns and faced prejudice due to her appearance. Nonetheless, she fought to overcome the setbacks and eventually came to help others to regain their confidence.
On Dec. 8, 1991, a fire at Hai Pa Wang restaurant in Taipei claimed five lives and injured 86 people. Chen, who was three months pregnant at the time, had been dining at the restaurant when the fire broke out.
Recalling the terrifying incident, she remembered seeing plumes of smoke and a sudden burst of flames as everyone began running to flee the building.
Photo courtesy of Chen Mei-li
Amid the confusion, Chen passed out and woke up later in a hospital to see her, husband, young daughter and other family standing over her.
She had suffered third-degree burns over more than 60 percent of her body. Worried that her unborn child might suffer deformities, she underwent a late-stage abortion.
She was overwhelmed by the loss, which caused her greater suffering than the physical pain.
Chen began having suicidal, but when her one-year-old daughter first spoke and called her “mother,” she resolved to keep living to care for her family.
It took her four years of visits to the hospital, which had come to seem like a second home to her, to recover from her burns.
Chen went on to have two more children, welcoming a son and a daughter into her family. After the last pregnancy, she had skin grafts on her stomach to cover her burns.
Chen returned to the workforce, but was met with discrimination in the luxury products sector she worked in due to her appearance.
She was repeatedly rejected while job hunting and received negative comments from people telling her not to go out in public because she “looked like a demon.”
However, through all these blows she became ever more courageous. Over the years, she worked at Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation and Children Are Us Foundation. She even started a coffee shop with friends and learned to cook, receiving a certification for basic-level Chinese cuisine.
She resumed her education and obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and came to receive many awards including the Outstanding College Youth award in 2009, the Golden Eagle in 2010 and the President Education Award in 2011. She now serves as the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation’s “spokesperson for facial equality,” helping disfigured people to recover their confidence.
Along the way, Chen learned to see every challenge as an opportunity to improve herself.
“When I am fully prepared at all times, I can reduce the chance of failure,” she said.
She encourages disabled people to “become what they are doing.”
They should not consider themselves disabled and always reliant on others, she said, adding that the wounded can leave their trauma behind to strive for rebirth.
Chen and stylist Lillian Ma (馬家駒) in an exhibition called “Beautiful Metamorphosis,” gave people who have been disfigured a makeover and asked them to share their stories in an effort to raise public awareness about facial equality.
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