A 72-year-old man in Yilan City Thursday received a commendation from the mayor after being twice recognized this year as an exemplary elder.
Marking this year’s Double Ninth Festival — the traditional senior citizens’ day falling on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month — the city recognized 31 elderly residents for leading an exemplary life, Yilan Mayor Chiang Tsung-yuan (江聰淵) said, adding that Wu Wen-ching (吳文清), a retired postal worker, was one of recipients.
Wu also received an award from the Senior Citizen’s Welfare Association for being an exemplary aged person for the entire country, the only resident of Yilan to receive the honor this year, Chiang said.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
Wu was a diligent mail carrier who also delivered necessities to impoverished households during typhoons, Chiang said.
Wu was also known for reading and writing missives for those who were illiterate, and for devoting himself to charity work after retiring from the post office, he said.
During Wu’s tenure as deputy chairman at the Fude Temple, he made use of the temple’s connections and resources to care for those in need, and transformed the establishment into an information hub for charity work in the community, Chiang said.
Wu comes from a family of farmers and studied at a vocational night school.
Wu started working at a post office following the end of his military service as a conscript in 1969, and retired from postal work in 2014.
At that time, letters were the only way for soldiers stationed in an outlying island to communicate with their loved ones, but many of his comrades could not read or write, Wu said.
Wu began reading and writing letters for the community around his post office, he said.
“My father was also illiterate and he said to me, ‘since I helped you get an education, you should be kind to those who did not have one,” Wu said.
Wu recalled a case in which a soldier deployed to a garrison Penghu County exchanged frequent love letters to his sweetheart in Yilan, but neither of them could read or write, so they relied entirely on letter writers and readers.
Wu said he remembered well what he wrote on behalf of the woman: “I received the letter you sent. I know that you love me.”
In another memorable event, Wu said that the office he worked for received a letter from Japan with the recipient’s address written in the place-names of the Japanese colonial era. He found a Japanese-speaking elder to translate the letter and successfully delivered the letter to the recipient.
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