Taiwan Church News
3401 Edition
1 – 7 May, 2017
Headline News Elder People Of Happy Mount Colony Want Their Home Restored At Original Site Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong Calling President Tsai Ing-wen to restore back the original Happy Mount Colony, a historically famous nursing institute accommodating lepers and mentally retarded patients since the Japanese-ruling time, a group of young people called themselves Happy Mount Youth(HMY) returned back to the Ketagaland Boulevard on April 29 , and commemorated the event that hundreds of concerned citizens took to the streets protesting against the government’s brutal plan to tear down HMC for building a Taipei MRT Hsin-Chuang Depot a decade ago in 2007. This careless MRT-related project was finally forced to modify, under the pressure of the public opinions then, and keep intact certain part of HMC for the original inhabitants and their descendants. In a 1:1 equivalent model of big platform, which function is to cover a three-stories-high cliff via dumping back the evacuated soils and implement a “Y” shape aisle reminiscent of the previous discriminating separation of the medicare staff and the lepers patients at HMC front gate, HMY called the government to restore the original HMC as constructed in the Japanese-ruling time. Two appeals were there for upholding the model of such a big platform in the public space before the Presidential Office, said HMY, one was to preserve the memories and witnesses of Taiwan’s medicine history and the second was to let those HMC elder stop wandering outside and settle down in their true homes. Mrs Chou Fu-tze, the 74-year-old leader of Happy Mount Self-Saving Association and a member of Saint-Wan
Presbyterian Church of Taipei Presbytery, wished the government could take more efforts to learn the real situation of HMC through a visit to the site. Especially, the age of most HMC members have already over 70-year-old, they eagerly wanted to leave their current temporary house and return back to their original HMC homes , Mrs Chou said. Rev Chen Sih-hao, pastor of Ku-ting Presbyterian Church of Chi-hsin Presbytery, frankly admitted in the interview that like everyone else he was totally unaware of any HMC’s suffering or challenges until participating a prayer meeting held for HMC nine years ago. He was deeply touched by what those young men did to re-interpret the historical significance of HMC site and how they empowered those HMC elder, Rev Chen remarked, adding that he began from 2015 to pray and praise with these youth and elder at HMC once a week with a humble wish to expel the spirits of injustice and indifference from haunting the minds of the Taiwanese people. Translated by Peter Wolfe |