Tsai Jung-mei was born in Huatan, Changhua County, in 1944 to her father, Tsai Chin-hsing, a tailor educated during the Japanese colonial period, and her illiterate mother, the epitome of the hardworking traditional woman. They raised two sons and two daughters. Tsai Jung-mei is the oldest of the girls. Grasping the importance of knowledge, Tsai Chin-hsing scrimped and saved to put his children through college.

Once, as a student in the eleventh grade, Tsai Jung-mei wrote a letter on her father's behalf to Chen Ching-kuang, a friend he met while traveling. Little did she know that she would later fall in love with him, and after graduating from National Taiwan Normal University in 1968, she married Chen, a businessman. Tsai Jung-mei taught for a few years until resigning at her husband's request to work side-by-side with him in his company. It took over two decades, but now their products lead the market.

Tsai Jung-mei retired in 1984 and began collecting monthly retirement checks, every one of which went to advancing parenthood education and life education. By founding the Chingshan Family Discovery Studio and accepting frequent requests to speak before various community groups, private businesses, and associations, she has had a tremendous impact on society.

The life-education method, which she works so hard to promote, stresses that the family is key in the formation of a child's personality. Sound mental and physical development, therefore, depend on parents. Tsai Jung-mei calls on women, especially, to create for Taiwan a "gentle miracle"-to overcome through soft and tactful methods. Harmony in the home and the subsequent betterment of society require that women bring their influence into full play. "Women are clear water that can clean the home and society," she says. "The greatest happiness for a woman is caring for her family, while helping other families." Changes in her students, many of which have been moved to tears of gratitude by her candid revelations, produce immediate improvements in parent-child interaction.

Yang Mei-chu, whose list of messy relationships includes those with her mother-in-law, husband, and children, remembers with gratitude Tsai Jung-mei's life-education course. The course taught her to look for the good in others, to praise, to tolerate, to appreciate. She feels that her family grew along with her and she thanks Tsai Jung-mei for planting the seeds of love. Her life changes prompted her to start a book club back in her hometown to encourage a nurturing culture in the home.

Tsai Hsiu-min is a housewife who used to find life intolerably dull. After attending the life-education course, the bickering with her husband stopped and her children became better kids and more diligent students. She feels fortunate, reborn even, and happiness fills her home. She feels indebted to Tsai Jung-mei for her rebirth.

Tsai's sincerity in dealing with others has touched many of her students. After being saved during an attempt at suicide, the child of one of her student's asked to see Tsai Jung-mei first, rather than her own parents. She said that Tsai likes to say, "Love is like clear water. A steady trickle washes away the pollution in our lives." Tsai Hsiu-min, who was also touched by Tsai Jung-mei, has launched popular life development activities in Taipei's Neihu District.

What kind of nut gives so much money and energy into offering free development classes all over the place? Tsai Jung-mei explains candidly that it has to do with her son. Before entering middle school, he was an excellent student, and she thought he would test into the prestigious Chienkuo Senior High. She never imagined that he would only make it into Chengkung Senior High School. His grades went into freefall after that, and he was held back. Finally, his parents transferred him into Private Taipei Senior High School, but he was so worried that he wouldn't do well enough to test into university that he refused to even take the college entrance exam. "Why do you want to force me to take the university entrance exam?" he asked his parents. "Why is it so important that I be better than everybody else? I can raise a family just as well driving a taxicab." Tsai Jung-mei was dumbstruck. She had always considered herself a good mother. Where had she had gone wrong? It was only after she started taking classes at the Huaming Counseling Center at the behest of an old classmate that she realized that she had given her child too much pressure. Words of "encouragement" like "You have to bring honor to our home" were especially damaging, redoubling the heavy burden already on her child's shoulders. After coming to understand her son's pain, Tsai Jung-mei felt that she had failed as a mother. Recalling the past with a painful heart, she dropped all expectations for her son. She let go of the reins and allowed him to follow his own path, which eventually led him to Chinese Culture University. After graduating and getting some experience under his belt, he would slip with no problem into the driver's seat of the family business.

She decided that after retiring from her company, she would devote herself to spreading the word about parenthood education to help mothers and fathers understand that they are, in fact, not perfect. Tsai Jung-mei says that after graduating from university and entering the workforce for a while, she was still blind toward herself. She is sure that many parents are the same-unable to figure out where they went wrong. People wake up one day as mommies and daddies without the slightest idea as to how to be good parents.

In 1994, she was invited back to her hometown by the Huatan Charity Foundation to organize an activity. This was her first step. The Parent Academy that she founded in her hometown and the life-education program organized by Shen Mu-ching, a teacher, were starting points for teaching the people of her community about developing their home lives. As a demonstration of appreciation to her parents-in-law for giving her such a fine husband, she organized parent-development activities at the Farmers' Association located in her husband's hometown of Shulin. Her footprints would later be found in towns and villages everywhere as she donated money and her time to setting up life education courses in communities all over Taiwan.

Tsai Jung-mei explains modestly that she has gained more than anybody by setting up the life education courses. "Life holds for us three treasures-smiles, words of love, and praise," she says. "When parents first come to take our courses, their faces are etched with rigid lines, tattered by resentment. After they have been with us for a while, however, smiles appear and the anger disappears. They become beautiful. This, more than anything, brings joy to my heart."

Tsai Jung-mei's son and daughter have always felt that their "mother is great, but their father greater, because he not only gives financially, he also gives his wife free rein to give of herself." Chen Ching-kuang, whose successful business and happy family are the envy of many, jokes that he used to have a bad temper, but "her thoughtfulness, kindness, and mild temper turned me around." He stresses the importance of taking the business of running a marriage seriously. "We give each other a lot of space in regards to our material and spiritual lives," he says. "The secret to our getting along so well is trust, give and take, and praise." Time spent working with the life education method has taken away from their time together, but he is more than willing to turn a blind eye so that his wife can realize her ideals.

Tsai Jung-mei lives by a motto uttered as encouragement to her by her uncle, a carpenter by the name of Chen Yan-hsing: "Learn from the rice plant-the fuller its head becomes, the lower it bows." Today, she is unassuming and never forgets to say "thank you" to others. Decades of experience prove that the more gratefulness one has stored in one's heart, the greater the reward one receives. "It all comes down to the heart," she says. "To the beautiful heart, everything is beautiful. The life education method cultivates the heart, opening it up to joy."

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Tsai Jung-mei, promoter of the life-education method, fully understands that being a parent requires lifelong learning. The tutelage of loving, self-aware parents is vital to a child's healthy development. (courtesy of Tsai Jung-mei)