In February 2006, a family of four from Ilan committed suicide; when their bodies were found one year later, all that was left was four sets of bleached bones.
In late 2006, after losing his job and finding himself mired in debt, a father of six in Taipei's Nankang District drowned himself and his daughter in a local river, leaving his family unable to even cover funeral expenses; three months later, the man's wife, eldest son, and second son followed suit.
In recent years such shocking stories have come thick and fast, and suicide has become one of the ten leading causes of death in Taiwan. Saddest of all is how many of these stories involve parents taking their children with them as they take those final steps. According to unofficial estimates, debt and financial problems are the leading causes of suicide, with relationship problems and chronic illness close behind.
The flip side of these tragic tales is the stories of brave people from all over Taiwan who fight back in the face of tremendous odds, confronting their problems with courage and tenacity. Every May, the Chou Ta-kuan Foundation presents its Global Passion for Life Awards, now in their tenth year. Many of the 156 recipients have heartbreaking stories, but they never gave up hope, making them living examples of the true potential of human life.
What do these courageous people have in common? What is their perspective on setbacks and problems? And what kinds of lives have they built for themselves?
Some say that crises are blessings in disguise. To many who have been through incredible crises, such blessings are the fruit of immense hardships.
Liu Shu-yi was left unable to stand or walk by severe muscular dystrophy from the age of four. The curvature of her spine put her internal organs under severe pressure, leaving her weak and prone to illness. She had almost no strength except in her head, her neck, and the fingers of her right hand, and sometimes she needed help just to hold her head up.
At age 15, Liu received the third annual Presidential Education Award, and before passing away at 16 she was awarded the Chou Ta-kuan Foundation's Global Passion for Life Award. Despite her physical frailty, through determination and drive Liu was able to consistently place in the top ten students in her year at junior high school. She particularly shone in composition and art, and frequently won poetry recital competitions.
Like mountaineers ascending treacherous, snow-covered peaks, courageous people like Kao Ming-ho overcome great difficulties one step at a time, determined to achieve their goals.
A candle in the wind
But behind the smiles and laughter, Liu had to endure mind-boggling physical and psychological pain. Reluctant to bother her classmates by asking them to help her go to the toilet after school, Liu sometimes resorted to simply wetting herself, and in school classmates jealous of her grades would push her wheelchair toward flights of stairs, leaving her utterly terrified. When her mother had to go out shopping, Liu would find herself lying on her bed in their aging apartment with ants swarming over her arms and legs and biting her, while she could do nothing.
Liu's family was initially financially comfortable, but over time the high cost of her medical care took their toll. Their trouble was compounded as her father made some poor investments, finding himself heavily in debt and pursued by creditors day and night. Liu Shu-yi summoned all her strength and fought for good grades, applying for various scholarships to ease the burden on her family.
Her weakened constitution meant that what started as a cold for Liu would often lead to respiratory failure, and she found herself in the emergency room over 200 times. Her body was marked with scars from the futile attempts to find an effective location for injections, and eventually medical staff had to rely on injections directly to her carotid artery to save her life.
Despite being racked with pain, living a spartan lifestyle, and frequently being at death's door, Liu never gave in to depression. Instead, she kept pulling herself back up, jokingly commenting, "It's not my strength alone that keeps the pain at bay--it's more everyone else's help that does it."
Stories like Liu's, of people fighting on in the face of unbelievable odds, are to be found throughout the Global Passion for Life Awards' history. Comparing these with the reports of suicides seen so often in the newspapers, one can't help but wonder why it is some people are able to haul themselves out of the doldrums and find the will to continue, while others just can't summon up the strength to fight back, and give in to depression, even to the point of taking their own lives.
Like mountaineers ascending treacherous, snow-covered peaks, courageous people like Kao Ming-ho overcome great difficulties one step at a time, determined to achieve their goals.
Finding the silver lining
"The main thing they have in common is a positive attitude," says Chou Chin-hua, father of Chou Ta-kuan and founder of the Global Passion for Life Awards. While such people, like everyone else, do go through moments of shock, denial, sadness, and rage when they encounter serious setbacks, they don't let those feelings overwhelm them. They are willing to accept their circumstances and look at them from a positive perspective, and they rely on sheer strength of will to overcome their physical, economic and emotional problems.
After losing a leg to cancer, ten-year-old Chou Ta-kuan penned these words in a poem: "I still have one leg, I still want to walk through this beautiful world." Despite her paralysis and being told by doctors that she wouldn't live past 20, Liu Shu-yi was determined to earn a doctorate in physics, pushing herself day to day, minute to minute.
After being caught in a snowstorm while climbing Mt. Everest in 1996 and suffering severe frostbite, Kao Ming-ho lost all his fingers, his toes, and his nose. Despite the agony, he maintains a positive outlook. He feels blessed to have come home alive; to have been left with half a thumb, thanks to which he can still write, use chopsticks, and dial the telephone; and to still be able to walk despite having no toes. Since his recovery, Kao has continued to travel abroad and climb, filming his achievements, and has mounted successful assaults on China's famous "100 peaks."
Compared with the severe physical and psychological hardships people like the aforementioned three have suffered, "most suicide victims really haven't hit dire straits," says Wang Chung-kwei, professor of psychology at Soochow University. For example, the Tsai family of Ilan, all of whom committed suicide, still had a home and still had their siblings; their only problem was that they had difficult debts to repay. Another such case is a mother who was left with only NT$50 to her name, and not knowing how to carry on, committed suicide together with her young daughter.
Why couldn't they get jobs, or seek help from friends and family or from welfare agencies? Explaining your problems, says Wang, is the hardest part. People with a pessimistic mindset consider themselves "worthless" or think "no-one cares" when they hit a problem, and so they see the future as "hopeless." They often also lack a good social network, and to maintain what little self-respect they have, are unwilling to ask others for help, or may not know how to. They end up wallowing in depression alone, starting the downward spiral that leads to choosing to end it all. But people with an optimistic outlook see setbacks as external, temporary factors and believe in their own abilities. They regard setbacks as an opportunity to learn and grow, encouraging themselves to turn tragedy into strength, and if they really can't carry on by themselves, they'll seek outside help.
Resilience is another crucial factor in whether one can get past tragedy. "When they encounter a setback or a rebuke, some people fall into despair; similarly, encouragement and incentives can move them tremendously," says Wang. According to his analysis, each person has a different level of sensitivity to outside stimuli. Some are extremely sensitive, while others need substantial stimulation to feel any effect; such people are unafraid of being mocked, and unfazed by life's torments.
Liu Ta-chia, known as the "Taiwanese MacGyver," has had to walk on all fours since childhood, but thanks to his father's compassionate guidance he has been able to live a colorful, confident life.
Raising MacGyver
"However, people at either of these two extremes are relatively scarce--most fall somewhere in the middle," says Wang. The key to where they fall is how they are raised and the values that are instilled in them.
When he was in second grade Liu Ta-tan, known as "the Taiwanese MacGyver," lost most of the use of his legs due to receiving an injection of expired polio vaccine, leaving him only able to drag himself along the floor. He would frequently suffer friction burns on his knees and chest until, when he was seven years old, his father taught him to walk on all fours, wearing shoes on his hands. This young boy may have looked pitiful and pathetic to others, but his father, a farmer, traveled with him with pride. The two would often visit friends and family, building Liu's self-esteem in a loving environment, and his father constantly instilled in him the belief that no problem was too big to solve.
Building on this, Liu has continued overcoming any obstacle that has come his way, graduating from Fengchia University with a degree in mechanical engineering, becoming a father, starting his own business, and creating several award-winning industrial designs. His latest award was the tenth Global Passion for Life Award.
Another case is that of Chen Chuan-hung, known as the "Wheelchair Poultry King," a tetraplegic with a history of suicide attempts. After he changed his mind and resolved to live, he started his own chicken farm. Despite many frustrations and setbacks on the way, he persisted. His current success is testament to the tenacious personality his mother helped him develop.
When Chen was in first grade, his father died in a car crash, and the family fell into dire financial straits. Raising three young children, working two jobs, and stigmatized by neighbors, Mrs. Chen soldiered on, finding strength in the traditionally stoic work ethic of the Hakka woman. As the eldest child, Chen helped his mother cook meals, care for their poultry, and look after his brother and sister. When he was in sixth grade his mother remarried, but her new husband proved to be a poor father, constantly scolding and hitting the three children. Chen began fleeing the house with his siblings, suffering cold and hunger by a river, and only returning home after their mother finished work. Whether it was determination not to let his own children suffer the same harsh, lonely childhood as he had had, or unwillingness to let his mother's suffering have been for naught, something in this experience ignited Chen's passion for life.
"People with a strong sense of responsibility tend to be very tenacious," says Wang Chung-kwei. By raising children to have a sense of responsibility, one also builds in them three special traits: senses of commitment, challenge, and control. First, they must be willing to make commitments and stick to them, so as to make friends or family happy or to achieve some life goal; then they must persevere through whatever troubles they face, working to solve any problems; finally, when they reach their goal, they will feel a sense of achievement and self-affirmation, and of control over their own destiny. The end result will inspire them to carry on with their goals.
Like mountaineers ascending treacherous, snow-covered peaks, courageous people like Kao Ming-ho overcome great difficulties one step at a time, determined to achieve their goals.
Nurturing tenacity
"The ability to confront setbacks rationally has to be nurtured; spoiled children are worst at handling life's ups and downs," says Wang, reminding parents of the importance of early childhood education.
The setbacks brave souls like Chen Chuan-hung and Kao Ming-ho confront largely stem from physical disabilities, markedly different from the emotional, financial, and employment-based problems faced by many suicide victims. However, experts note that the nature of the problem is relatively unimportant--as long as you have tenacity and an optimistic outlook, you have the capacity to face any problem life may throw at you with courage.
Chien Yu-fen, professor of psychology at National Chengchi University, notes that in addition to their own confidence and personality traits, another key factor in whether people can overcome major setbacks is whether they can find "meaning" in their circumstances. There is a school of psychotherapy built around this, known as logotherapy, which helps people to find the meaning within their tragedies. Logotherapists have counseled survivors of Nazi concentration camps, helping them and their families recover a sense of meaning out of their tragic experience.
Like mountaineers ascending treacherous, snow-covered peaks, courageous people like Kao Ming-ho overcome great difficulties one step at a time, determined to achieve their goals.
Reflecting on life
While preparing for the civil service exams after graduating from medical school, Su Chien-ming was suddenly completely blinded in a traffic accident. After stepping back from death's threshold several times, Su began reflecting on his life. "If I had died in that accident, what would I have achieved with my short time on this Earth? What is it that I most value in life?"
He realized that all his hopes and aspirations were based on sensory pleasures and the pursuit of status. "I realized that only by building a real spiritual foundation for happiness could I lead a stable, meaningful life," he says.
His plan to become an internist shattered by his blindness, Su set himself a new life goal: to become a psychiatrist, and work in the field of special education.
"I want to open new doors for blind people, and help society realize there's plenty we can contribute," says Su. In over ten years of psychiatric practice, his peerless patience and empathy have helped many people step out of the shadow of depression by rebuilding their spiritual strength. Through working with patients Su has been able to reevaluate himself, constantly improving his own mental constitution.
From the stories of these brave people we see how after passing through their own dark times, they have become more able to empathize with others' suffering, and through helping others they are able to create a more fruitful life for themselves.
While still being treated at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Kao Ming-ho often visited other amputees to comfort them, helping many regain some positivity, either through his infectious optimism or simply by being an example of how they could have had it much worse. In recent years he has been invited to various schools and organizations to tell the tale of his ascent of Everest, motivating many to see the potential in life.
"You never know what life has in store," says Chou Ta-kuan Foundation founder Chou Chin-hua, who often remarks that we should treasure the present and live each moment with passion. Such an attitude may be hard for many people to understand, but perhaps we can learn something from the miraculous stories of people like Liu Shu-yi, Chou Ta-kuan, and many others.
Perhaps all we need to do is to become truly aware of how precious life is, and then we too can face our challenges with real courage.
After being caught in a blizzard on an ascent of Mt. Everest, Kao Ming-ho lost his fingers, toes, and nose to frostbite. But despite his pain, he found the strength to face life positively.
Like mountaineers ascending treacherous, snow-covered peaks, courageous people like Kao Ming-ho overcome great difficulties one step at a time, determined to achieve their goals.
Like mountaineers ascending treacherous, snow-covered peaks, courageous people like Kao Ming-ho overcome great difficulties one step at a time, determined to achieve their goals.
In over a decade as a psychiatrist, Su Chien-ming, who lost his sight in an accident just after graduating from medical school, has helped many patients summon the psychological strength to fight back against depression.
Like mountaineers ascending treacherous, snow-covered peaks, courageous people like Kao Ming-ho overcome great difficulties one step at a time, determined to achieve their goals.
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