| Master
Cheng Yen receives NT$300,000 from 93-year-old leprosy patient |
 |
Translated
by Grace Chen, Northern California
December 28, 2001
Today, Kui-Chuan Huang, a 93-year-old leper
from the Lesheng Rehabilitation Home, donated NT$300,000 (about
US$10,000) to the Tzu Chi Foundation. Master Cheng Yen was both
delighted and touched to receive his donation. She called Huang
an "old bodhisattva." The old man smiled shyly and
said, "Donating money to Tzu Chi is a great thing to do.
I'm OK. I can save more money in the future."
Huang wore his wrinkled old clothes to Tzu
Chi's annual end-of-the-year blessing ceremony, while the wrinkles
on his face showed compassion and joy. Someone asked him how
long it took for him to save the money. After thinking about
it, he said, "Several decades! I save a hundred NT dollars
each month." When asked if he would regret giving so much,
the old man smiled and said, "Why would I? Giving makes
me happy!"
The Lesheng Rehabilitation Home currently
has around four hundred leprosy patients. Ranging from fifty
to ninety years old, all of them are handicapped. Some are blind
or deaf, while others are paralyzed. In 1978, Tzu Chi built
"Sunset Rooms" within the rehabilitation home to provide
a living space for Lesheng residents who were seriously handicapped
or terminally ill. That year, Huang was seventy. As he was able
to move and use his limbs without any difficulty, he decided
to take care of the terminally ill and lonely souls in the "Sunset
Rooms."
Huang himself has had leprosy since he was
thirty. He has been living in Lesheng since he was forty-three
years old. Although he has spent half a century in Lesheng,
he has never complained or dwelled in self-pity. Instead, he
saw people who were more ill than he was. After he became a
volunteer in the "Sunset Rooms" twenty years ago,
he woke up every morning at two to inspect every room. He helps
the sick and handicapped "younger brothers and sisters"
until sunset. Therefore, everyone calls him the "old butler."
Mei-I Chen, a Tzu Chi volunteer who regularly
keeps in touch with the rehabilitation home, said that Huang
had donated money to Tzu Chi many times before. Around ten years
ago, when Tzu Chi was building the hospital in Hualien, Huang
donated NT$20,000 (about US$700). Right after the September
21, 2001, earthquake in Taiwan, he donated $100,000 NT (about
US$3,000) and specified that the money was for rebuilding schools
for the children. When Tzu Chi constructed the hospitals in
Dalin and Hsintien, Huang donated once again. When Tzu Chi built
a free clinic in the Philippines, our "old bodhisattva"
also donated NT$10,000. Charity organizations in the Philippines
had helped the Lesheng Rehabilitation Home in the past; and
so Huang hoped to give back to the country that had helped him
before.
