Lighting the Way with Love--Li Chi-wu

Li Chi-wu, who has been visually impaired since birth, is the head of the Eden Social Welfare Foundation's broadcasting team. Li lives a busy and full life. He spends his days performing at jails, nursing homes, orphanages and local communities around Taiwan, and arranging joint productions with broadcasters. But the joy and drive he has today did not come easily; they are the product of a lifetime spent stumbling and feeling his way through the dark.

Li Chi-wu was born in Taoyuan's Fuhsing Township in 1962. His father Li Yung-pin is a Hunan native who came to Taiwan with the army in 1949. While stationed in Fuhsing Township, he fell in love with and married Li Chi-wu's mother, a beautiful Atayal woman named Sung Chin-chu. Li Chi-wu's parents doted on him, but when he was learning to crawl and then walk, they noticed that he frequently bumped into things. Worried that their son might be mentally handicapped, they took him to see a psychiatrist when he was three. The doctor told them that their son was very intelligent, but that they should perhaps take him to the ophthalmology department for an examination. On doing so, they learned that Li suffered from congenital night blindness and moderate optic atrophy. The news was a blow to Li's parents, but they had no choice but to face facts. They took loving care of their only son and were determined that he would go to the same schools as children with normal vision.

Li has always been very determined, and didn't want others to know of his vision problems. When his teacher handed out a new book, for example, and his classmates all exclaimed, "How pretty!" Li would exclaim, "How pretty!" right along with them. As a student, Li felt that when his teachers were being too solicitous, they were limiting his learning opportunities, as when they didn't allow him to participate in athletic competitions or some aspects of his handicrafts classes.

Once in a middle-school shop class, Li and his classmates were assigned to build a bookcase. Li yearned to make his own bookcase, but his teacher wouldn't let him do so out of concern that he might hurt himself. So the determined Li borrowed the tools from a classmate and built his bookcase on the sly. He still remembers that he had to drive eight nails to complete it. By the time he finished it, his thumb was badly swollen, but his joy at having built it himself more than made up for the pain.

As a youngster, Li was constantly taunted by people calling him "blind man." He turned to his parents for solace, whose love was to him like warm rays of sunlight chasing away the dark clouds in his life.

The year Li graduated from middle school, he hit rock bottom emotionally. While he had the love of his parents and classmates, it wasn't enough to offset the emptiness and agitation inside him. Young and frivolous, he wanted to wear fashionable clothes, to cut a dashing figure on a bicycle, to chase girls. But he couldn't do any of these things. At the same time, his prospects for continuing his education and finding a job were dim. He had gotten part-time work during the summer after eighth grade, but it hadn't worked out. The job was making fish dumplings, but his were too crudely made. A classmate who also worked there recalls: "The owner thanked him for his help that day, told him he could have the dumplings he had made and said she would pay him NT$100 for the day's work, but that he didn't need to come back the next day." Losing the job was a real blow to Li. He then went to work stuffing dolls, but had trouble distributing the stuffing evenly. He next worked at an electronics factory sorting parts, but frequently missed some.

Unable to work and unable to continue his studies, Li wanted to end it all. But his pride and his feeling that suicide was a coward's way out made him want his to look like an accident. He went down to the Hsintien River behind Yingchiao Middle School and began walking out towards the deep part of the river. He was crying as he waded through the water, when a sudden sneeze turned him around. Li didn't yet realize he was headed in a different direction; his only thought was to get it over with quickly. But the further he walked, the shallower the water got. He eventually ended up back on the bank, where someone saw and rescued him. His crying parents hugged him, telling him: "If you died, we couldn't go on living. Silly boy, you can't see, but you do everything else so well. Don't you realize that?" His parents' loving exhortation awakened him to the potential his life held.

Hsieh Ya-ping, Li's guidance counselor at that time, feared he might make another attempt at suicide, so he took Li to visit another school, telling him: "After you graduate, you can study here." The school was a school for the blind.

Once Li began his studies at his new school, he noticed that he was no longer the one bumping into people-they were bumping into him. The first time someone ran into him, he called out, "Hey, are you blind?" To his surprise, the person who had bumped him answered, "Sorry, I can't see." Only then did Li realize that there were people whose lives were harder than his own. Since then, Li has dedicated himself to improving himself and cherishing life, resolving to live his life well and help others.

For Li sunlight and color are just blurs; sound is his best friend. He is very sensitive to sounds and has a very sharp memory for them. As a student, for example, he could memorize a text from just one hearing. Not surprisingly, Li is also a music lover. Growing up in a military dependent's village, he often heard elderly neighbors singing Peking Opera, and liked to hum and sing along. The pop songs he heard on the radio also came easily to him. As a boy, neighbors would often request him to sing, giving him a little change for each song. Li earned quite a bit of pocket money in this way.

At the school for the blind, he made up his mind to develop his musical abilities. He spent all of his pocket money on voice training, and acquired a solid foundation for his singing voice. After graduation, he failed two attempts to pass the university admissions examination. Uninterested in studying massage, a common occupation for the blind in Chinese societies, he chose a career as an itinerant singer. In 1985, another opportunity unexpectedly presented itself. Liu Hsia, founder of the Eden Social Welfare Foundation, heard Li and three classmates singing together and invited them to work for Eden, where they would sing as a social service.

Liu Hsia looked after them with the affection of a mother. Liu told them that while she was physically incapacitated to the point of being unable to fend off the attacks of mosquitoes, she was nonetheless filled with joy and hoped they could spread that joy to others. In honor of that sentiment, they chose to call themselves the Joy Group.

Over the last 17 years, the Joy Group has sung in prisons, drug rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, orphanages and local communities, spreading love and joy through music. Those 17 years have passed in the blink of an eye. Li says: "Caring for others is our own good fortune. It lets us enjoy the sweet things in life." Many of the people on death row that they have sung for have broken down and cried, only realizing what love really is as they face life's end.

Li hopes that people will understand that every loss holds in it a new beginning." He says: "Although I lost my sight, I have a good voice, a good memory and a healthy body. I use my voice, my story and the media to show people that they should see in the needs of others their own responsibility to act. No one should be pessimistic about life."

Li Chi-wu's heart burns like a bright beacon in the darkness, lighting his path and shining on the lives of others.

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Being visually impaired since birth hasn't kept Li Chi-wu from continuous learning. His beautful voice and music brings joy to others while giving himself a sense of accomplishment.