[Editor's Note] Giving is a Blessing

Recently Diageo (the makers of Johnnie Walker scotch whisky) and the China Times Cultural and Educational Foundation announced awards totaling more than NT$5 million from the Keep Walking Fund, which gives financial support to enable people to fulfill their dreams.

A careful look at these dreams reveals that they all involve the individual and the wider world. For example, award recipient Chu Hsueh-heng is leading a group of web volunteers to translate MIT's "OpenCourseWare" into Chinese; Chang Ping-i is promoting the building of a "Hope Elementary School" for the children in a leper colony in mainland China; Chen Min-sheng has set up the New Yellow Ribbon Creative Group for felons released on parole; Mayaw Biho is campaigning for indigenous people to revive and use their ancestral names; and paraplegic musician Lin Hau-hsun has begun a daring voyage in the southern Pacific.

Four years ago journalist Chang Ping-i found herself on assignment to a leper colony in the remote Liangshan region of southwest China. Thinking she would just be seeing a group of lonely, solitary old people, she was surprised to find there children who had been banished, with no identity papers and no possibility of going to school. She was deeply moved and from that time on devoted herself to setting up the first Hope Elementary School for the children of lepers in China, shuttling tirelessly across the Taiwan Strait to do so. Her award of NT$1.7 million will go to build a teaching facility for the children that will contain classrooms for art and music.

We all chance upon cases of hardship now and again, but very few people ever pause on their hurried way to lend a hand to those in trouble. These last several years, perhaps it is the awakening of Taiwan volunteerism in the wake of the 9-21 earthquake of 1999, perhaps the persuasive appeals of compassionate social workers, or maybe it's the need for doing something spiritual after all our material needs have been met, but more and more people are willing to give of their time, money and effort in the hope of doing a little something for society, in the hope that their minute existence might really be able to make the world a better place.

Conscious of this new wave of volunteerism, as the new year begins we offer our readers a cover story by Tsai Wen-ting, "The Joy of Service-Volunteerism Takes off in Taiwan." As the report was being written the south Asian tsunami disaster killed at least 280,000 people. This tragic event once again showed us how suffering can destroy, yet volunteers from around the world raced to the scene to give assistance, winning our undying admiration for their selfless giving.

The Latin American poet Pablo Neruda wrote: "Through these windows, comes the breath of the world." ("Ode to Sadness.") In recent years Taiwan has certainly had its ups and downs on the international scene, but its desire to be an active part of the world community and its hope to share in the joys and sorrows of all peoples has never slackened in the least. In addition to our economic and democratic miracle, the Taiwan volunteers who cover the globe are a face of Taiwan of which we can be proud.

While singing the praises of volunteerism, we must also raise questions. Although we talk about "limited government, limitless private sector," for private volunteerism we only are concerned about the efforts made, not about the results achieved, and we don't seek to fix responsibility. Looking at it in the abstract, we have to heave a sigh. Why can the huge outpouring of volunteer enthusiasm and effort around the globe never quell the expanding tide of human suffering? Terrorist attacks, the Iraq war, civil war in Africa, ethnic slaughter, earthquakes, tsunamis, environmental damage, domestic violence, child abuse, suicide among the unemployed, child prostitution, chronic and rare diseases.... suffering is everywhere. There are natural disasters, accidents, inherited defects, but even more suffering is manmade. In the struggle between the love and concern of the volunteer and mankind's greed, hatred, apathy, arrogance and ignorance, which side will win? This thought cannot help but cast a shadow over every volunteer's heart.

Taiwan is fortunate in being able to have so many volunteers who give of themselves both at home and abroad. Taiwan is also unfortunate. Even here are there still those who weep in dark corners whom the government and volunteers are unable to reach. On the eve of the Lunar New Year, a time of family reunion and celebration, we present an issue of both sadness and joy, in the hope that each of you will be filled with good thoughts and will do good things, that suffering will gradually diminish, and that those who help others will finally be able to lay their burden down.