Yen Mei-ling--Model for the Disabled

At the end of March, Fengyuan in Taichung County was the site of a novel gathering: a fashion show for the disabled. Put on by the China Handicap and Health Association, a long-time promotor of "obstacle-free space," the show heralded a "A New Image of Self-Confidence for the Disabled." The models were all physically handicapped, and up on the obstacle-free stage, they modeled clothes, acted out a wedding and performed wheelchair dances.

With the support of the Ministry of the Interior, the association held a series of activities in late July with the theme "obstacle-free living for everyone." Besides fashion shows featuring physically handicapped models, there were performances of music; drama and dance by the blind, the deaf and the mentally disabled.

The fashion shows drew crowds of 800 and 1,200 in Fengyuan and Taipei respectively, and a warm and festive time was had by all who came. But more than that, for the 20 some performers, the shows provided a chance to gain self-confidence.

Flipping through a stack of old photos, the Yens see the events of days past float before their eyes. Yen Mei-ling's bold efforts to make her dreams come true have both made her parents proud and made their hearts ache.

Thank you teacher

"Ever since I was young, I dreamed about going up on stage, but I never thought it would be possible," says an excited Hu Chun-man, whose right leg was stunted by polio. Hu was in the audience for the first show in Fengyuan, but she joined the performers on stage in Taipei. She was simply radiant in a silver dress! Hu used to work in the sedate profession of bookkeeping, but the show's message of "making the impossible possible" prompted her to find work in a field where her real interests lie: child education.

"I used to pay no heed to how safely I walked, thinking that falling was just a matter of course," says fashion-show participant Tsao Chiung-tang. She recounts how her two crutches would first land on the ground in front of her, and then gripping them, she would drag her two legs forward. Now she's changed to "the left foot moving with the right crutch" and the "right foot moving with the left crutch." She not only moves more gracefully, but she's also less likely to slip in the bathroom. What's more, the moderately disabled Tsao always used to wilt in a crowd for lack of self-esteem. Now her self-confidence has grown, and she is more open with others.

The severely disabled Pai Miao-chu's spine was injured in a car accident last year, and her doctors said that she would need a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Yet Pai, with the help of walking aids, willed herself up on her feet, and now she not only walks with crutches, but she also dons evening clothes and looks smashing in them on stage. "It's only natural to want to look pretty," Pai says. In training for the shows, she learned to pay attention to her gait and rid herself of the habit of looking down as she walked. Strolling down the street today, she holds her head high and her back straight. She gives all credit to her teacher, Miss Yen.

The most important figure behind the scenes for both fashion shows was Yen Mei-ling, founder of the China Handicap and Health Association.

An unusual cocktail party held in late July was the main event in a series of activities Yen sponsored promoting "obstacle-free space for everyone." （photo by Huang Ching-an）

A childhood in and out of hospitals

Yen is wearing a white jacket matched with a tight, tailored black skirt, and the contrast makes her seem even taller than her 174 centimeters. Her hair is short and sassy, her features refined, and her make-up discreet. It's a visage that combines warmth with self-confidence. In her office. which is still in a state of mild disarray after the two shows, she's nearly indistinguishable from the able-bodied--save a slight unevenness in her step when she walks quickly.

The truth is that Yen Mei-ling was different from most people as soon as she entered this world. Her hip joints were congenitally dislocated, which led to her having an S-shaped spine. The angle of her pelvis was off by 30 degrees. All this meant that for 30 years she was in and out of hospitals as her body was being "repaired." When only three months old, she had an operation to remove her useless and misshapen left collarbone. When she was seven, doctors used her sacrum to help strengthen her pelvis. They were always fiddling around with her dislocated joints, and operations and rehabilitation were constant features of her life.

Why was she born with a dislocated hip? Lai Kuo-an, the director of osteology at National Cheng Kung University Hospital, says that this kind of congenital bone deformity occurs in about 0.8 percent of children, but it is still unclear why. The only way to cure the malady is to operate before the age of six and put the bones back in joint. For older children and adults, there's no remedy. Taiwan used to lack specialists in this field, and often nothing was done until it was too late. Even if they did operate in time, the success rate was low.

Yen's mother recalls--as if somehow she wronged her daughter--that Mei-ling couldn't stand steadily at the age of one and still couldn't walk at two. At the time they just thought she was developing slowly. It wasn't until she was three and four and still falling after taking just a few steps that they realized something was amiss and started taking her everywhere for treatment.

Operating, setting bones, putting on casts, seeking the best doctors, trying every last form of treatment.... Because the joint hadn't developed, it was always very easy for it to dislocate. Then they'd try again. They ended up operating five or six times. In Yen's memory, half of her childhood was spent in hospitals. Smiling sardonically, Yen's mother says, "Mei-ling's grandfather often exclaims that when he looks at her, he thinks of several houses [what they could have bought for the cost of her treatment]!"

With Yen's leadership and encouragement, the handicapped are overcoming obstacles both physical and psychological to take their first steps on the dance floor.

Knowing herself before changing her fate

"A pretty girl--but what a pity about her legs..." When she was young, Yen often heard such expressions of praise-cum-pity, but she herself never complained about her lot in life. When she was in fifth grade, Yen wrote an essay entitled "Parents' Hearts," which still moves her mother today. Her mother remembers that Mei-ling's point was that her parents had done everything they could to treat her legs, and so she wasn't going to complain even if she was bullied.

Yen believes that her optimistic and philosophical character has been deeply influenced by her maternal grandfather. Before she was nine, operations kept her out of school, and she'd study with her grandfather, a teacher of Chinese. "That Heaven brought me into this world means my life must have a purpose"... "Only by bearing burdens among burdens, will I become a man among men, a woman among women"... "Before Heaven gives me great responsibilities, I must bear great hardships of body and spirit"... "A man must know himself to change his fate"... The moral principles that she learned from her grandfather are still deeply planted in her consciousness.

When she was very young her dislocated legs provided no means of motion, but an operation when she was ten gave her use of her left leg. Yen finally put down her crutches and entered school as a third-grader. But she still moved "like a snail." Her arms and legs would veer right, and her body would advance half twisted around.

At first Yen passed through an unhappy period of adjustment. For flag-raising, phys. ed. and other physically taxing activities, she was always told, "your presence isn't needed." Because she walked strangely, the pranksters among her classmates would pull her pigtails and steal her book bag, making the formerly lively Yen disinclined to attend school.

It wasn't until the fifth grade that things took a turn for the better. "My homeroom teacher Wang Kuei-fang encouraged me to join all the class activities," Yen recalls with immeasurable gratitude. With Wang's encouragement, Yen perked up again, and would often make jokes, design games and lead her classmates in play. She even got elected head of extra-curricular activities, and when her former classmates get together today, they keep to their old habit of "meeting at Yen Mei-ling's house."

"Ever since she was very small, she has always stolen the show," says her sister Yen Mei-fang, smiling. When Mei-fang was in grade school she ran first in a race and won four pencils. Her older sister at last and won five (for the "good sportsmanship prize"). "When our parents were teaching us to swim when we were little, Mei-ling was already swimming before I had even overcome my fear of getting in the water," she recalls. "And while I may have gone farther in my schooling, Mei-ling takes up challenges and does many things that I don't dare."

"I've never thought other people were better than me," Yen Mei-ling says. She believes that what others can do, she can too. Her optimistic and independent character is probably related to how her parents raised her.

"Although she may have not been born perfect, Mei-ling is still, like our other children, one of our family's treasures," says Yen's mother. Since she was small, Mei-ling was treated like the other children. She had her share of fun and games--and also her share of chores. The Yen family used to own a bicycle and bicycle parts business, and Yen and her brothers and sisters would help out both at the shop and around the home. Her mother says that Mei-ling wasn't treated specially because of her legs. She might be given less taxing work, but she couldn't get out of it altogether. And if fighting between the siblings got them all in trouble, Mei-ling got punished just like the others, whether or not she was directly involved. When the family traveled during vacations, Mei-ling went along, and she never missed even a single class trip. While the other children would get on a touring bus, she had her own personal chauffeur: her father.

Learning to walk all over again

Treatment cured Yen Mei-ling's left leg, but her right leg was not so lucky. Her two legs differed eight centimeters in length and the pain as the right hip joint wore away was hard to endure. Consequently, Yen underwent an operation for an artificial joint when she was 23. Her principal doctor Lai Kuo-an says, "Twelve years ago, my professor chided me for operating on Yen." The success rate for adults was low, and the doctors argued about whether the operation should be carried out. But the outcome was that Yen's right leg was extended four centimeters.

Yen Mei-ling then underwent a half year of rehabilitation at Veterans General Hospital. Ronald Robert, a Catholic priest who is a rehabilitation consultant to the hospital and is handicapped himself, points out that patients have to learn to walk all over again after such an operation. It's hard to imagine the perseverance and endurance needed. But Yen Mei-ling, who cares a lot about her appearance, dressed up prettily every day. If her exercise suit wasn't pink, then it was yellow, and her sneakers always matched.

Yen says that when the artificial joint rubbed against the newly formed muscle, it cut like a knife. During physical therapy, they would constantly raise and lower the leg and move it right and left. "No matter how much I'd try to grin and bear it, I couldn't help the tears from falling," she recalls. And because she didn't want her parents to be miserable at her side, she went every day alone.

Liu Tcho-jen, the director of rehabilitation at Veterans, says that what most impressed him about Yen was that she never doubted that the therapy would work and cooperated with her doctors full of hope. It's just that there are limits to what rehabilitation can do. It can help patients recover such basic functions as walking and going up and down stairs. Yet it can't make them nearly the same as other people.

With the difference between her legs reduced, Yen's walking had much improved, but she was still unsatisfied with her "up-and-down" gait. "I can walk even better!" she believed.

One day Yen saw an advertisement for prospective models, asking for "fine-featured women of at least 170 centimeters." Yen met the requirements and went to the interview full of hope. "Although the teacher Yang Jen-chuan knew that I had problems with my right leg, she was still willing to take me on if I paid my own way through training," Yen says smiling.

After she started receiving instruction on how to walk the runways, Yen had a sudden realization: She had walked unattractively, often falling, largely because of her improper technique. Yen had always walked with arm and leg moving together on the same side. "No one had told me that my method was incorrect." She started to pay close attention to the differences between the way she and others walked: When she walked there was no movement in the right half of the body, her leg didn't extend straight, and she came down on her toes.... Not only did these mistakes make her walk unattractively, but the lack of activity was causing the muscles in the right side of her body to atrophy.

At the start of the second year, after a year of strenuous training, Yen was up on stage performing with the other models. "The movements on stage are more exaggerated, and so the audience couldn't tell the difference," Yen notes, but in reality it wasn't until the third year that she could walk steadily. And as her gait grew graceful, she got a hankering to do something for other disabled people. Hence she began volunteering at the Eden Welfare Association for the Handicapped, the Taiwan After-Care Association, and the Sunshine Foundation of Social Welfare.

Living in society

In 1987 Father Ronald Robert told Yen that the Office Chretien Des Personnes Handicapees was going to hold a fashion show in Paris. Although it was too late for her to attend that show, while gathering relevant information Yen struck up an acquaintance with the president of the organization.

She discovered excitedly that this organization's ideal of allowing the disabled to live among the healthy in society was similar to ideas still gelling in her mind. She believed that the handicapped--just like anyone else--have the right to seek beauty, and so she decided to attend Claire-Renoir College in France and study make-up and styling.

With only a high school education and no grounding in French, Yen relied on just plain old hard work, sleeping only three hours a night. She graduated second in her class and then went on for teacher training at Carole, the French beauty school. Finally, she was appointed Carole's Asian general director, with the right to franchise schools in Asian nations and recruit students. "Fortunately," Yen says, "in the field of beauty and styling prowess with a make-up brush counts for more than book learning."

After returning home, Yen threw herself into beauty work, establishing the Disabled Free Clinic. She left open her Thursday mornings for discussions with disabled people in the hope that they could rid themselves of inner constraints.

"Most disabled people are unwilling to face their own bodies--let alone undergo long-term rehabilitation to improve their physical conditions," Yen observes, noting that disabled people's physical characteristics all differ. She, for instance, can't weigh more than 54 kilos and can't carry more than 20 kilos. If she stands for two or three hours she'll need to rest or otherwise her artificial joints won't be able handle the strain. She believes that the disabled must understand themselves before being able to change themselves.

Yen notes that while the disabled may not be able to walk exactly like other people, they still should strive to walk attractively, with as even a gait as possible--"because outside appearance can affect how one feels inside. Too many of the psychological problems of the disabled stem from their appearance."

Yen went through a rebellious phase in junior high and high school which she now attributes to being unbalanced psychologically. Because the way she walked attracted people's attention, Yen dressed herself flamboyantly. She adjusted her book bag, which was covered with doodlings, so that it would hang below her knees. She cut holes in her jeans and patched them. During summer vacation before her senior year in high school, she even got a crew cut. It got her the nickname "Mr. Yen" and nearly earned her a demerit at school.

"Since people were looking at me strangely anyway, I made them want to look just that much more," Yen recalls.

Patients seeking her guidance during rehabilitation can identify with her as someone who has gone through similar difficulties.

True concern, not blind ambition

Just when everything was rolling, Yen's leg started acting up again. In 1992 she led 10 students to Paris to study styling and make-up, and her leg got injured from simply moving too much. Because the joint had outlived the nine years the doctor had predicted it would last, Yen knew it might have worn down. Yet she bore great pain, not seeking proper treatment until bringing her students safely home.

When the doctor saw the X-ray of Yen's leg, he was shocked. Not only had the artificial joint loosened, but the screws had even broken under the pressure. Lai Kuo-an gave Yen the newest thing in artificial joints, made of a material very similar to bone but even stronger. The difference between her legs shrank to only 1.5 centimeters.

After rehabilitation, Yen once again walked with sturdy steps and a graceful gait. She joined the Office Chretien des Personnes Handicapees, and in October of last year founded in Taipei the China Handicap and Health Association, which promotes removal of the barriers between the handicapped and the able-bodied and coexistence within society as a whole.

Some people wonder why she doesn't work with other groups for the disabled. Why did she found the China Handicap and Health Association?

"I was forced to create the association," Yen explains. She came back from Europe all excited with the idea for it, but many disabled groups were worried that its lively methods wouldn't mesh with the image of the disabled as weak and might reduce sympathy and support for the disabled from society.

To avoid fighting for resources and weakening already established disabled groups, the association hasn't openly sought disabled members.

Among the 100 or so members of the association, only four, including Yen, are disabled. The remaining are active supporters of the group who share its ideals.

Several members of the board, including Steven Hong, the Asia-Pacific executive director of Fulu Industries, have given Yen much help. Shiseido-Taiwan gave more than NT$1 million to help pay for the expenses of putting on activities. "The able-bodied don't have a monopoly on beauty," says Li Hsiou-lian, the company's assistant general manager. "Looking good is everyone's right."

The process of hope

Parents always hope that their healthy children--let alone a disabled daughter--take roads in life that are safe and steady. Yen not only didn't take a government job as her parents had hoped, but she chose to found an association helping the handicapped--hard work indeed!

Her mother points out that since leaving the nest, Yen has "taken money from home"--instead of bringing money to home, as grown Chinese children are expected to do. "If you want to work in charity," she exclaims, "you've got to make the money first!" But nagging aside, Yen's family gives her their unqualified support, whether it be boosting her spirits or her finances. For the July fashion show in Taipei, the whole family made the trip from Hualien to cheer her on.

"I know that I am 'building on hopes,' but it's definitely not some starry-eyed, impractical endeavor," says Yen brimming with optimism. If the principles of the China Handicap and Health Association are put into practice, then the disabled can, like other people, pursue their dreams at every stage of their lives. "By holding the fashion show, I told everyone that anything is possible."

In order to help more disabled people, the China Handicap and Health Association wants to recruit disabled students and design a curriculum for adjusting physical deportment. The content will include psychological adjustment, realizing the full potential of one's limbs, styling and beauty for the whole body, and nutrition and health.

At this point, what Yen needs even more than applause and well-wishing is support and cooperation.

[Picture Caption]

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Yen Mei-ling, founder of the China Handicap and Health Association, believes that the able-bodied and handicapped alike should have the right to freely follow their dreams.

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Flipping through a stack of old photos, the Yens see the events of days past float before their eyes. Yen Mei-ling's bold efforts to make her dreams come true have both made her parents proud and made their hearts ache.

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Although she walked with crutches and was in and out of hospitals, Yen's childhood was not without its happy moments. (courtesy of Yen Mei-ling)

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An unusual cocktail party held in late July was the main event in a series of activities Yen sponsored promoting "obstacle-free space for everyone." (photo by Huang Ching-an)

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With Yen's leadership and encouragement, the handicapped are overcoming obstacles both physical and psychological to take their first steps on the dance floor.