Su Kai-nung (蘇楷儂) visits drug detoxification centers regularly to share his experience in kicking the habit. He frequents hospitals to cheer up cancer patients by soloing on the saxophone and serves as a division chief at a foundation established to promote the welfare and wellbeing of the physically and mentally challenged.
Su — a “veteran” drug addict suffering from late-stage lung cancer — works like a dervish every day, but is happy. Really happy.
Su was selected among 600 candidates nationwide as one of the six individuals who will receive on Saturday the prestigious Chou Ta-Kuan Award of Hope for his courage in facing life’s challenges and his determination to help others.
PHOTO: CHOU TA-KUAN, CNA
Viewing the young man playing What a Wonderful World on saxophone, one can hardly imagine that the 32-year-old spent most of his life in jail, depriving him of a normal education, and that, having nearly burnt himself out from drugs, he faces his deteriorating condition alone.
Mocking his involvement in illicit narcotics during the “dark days,” Su said during a visit to a drug abuse treatment center that he could just as easily have been awarded a master’s degree in drug abuse. Yet, he said the inner struggle is an even tougher battle than kicking the drug habit.
“If you think you can’t do it, you won’t,” he said.
Encouraging other addicts to believe they can combat their addiction, he urged them to accept help from others.
“You must accept others’ help. You can’t do it alone,” he said.
Su said he spent much of his childhood in a state of fear, dread or high anxiety. After his parents divorced, he lived with his grandmother, who was his only relative during his formative years.
He remembered always being the troublemaker in the eyes of his teachers in junior high school, from which he failed to graduate.
He was in jail for the first time on charges of using and possessing illicit narcotics at the age of 13. Since then, he split his time between prisons and hospitals, as he was not only a drug abuser but was also involved in street violence.
At the beginning, he said, the drugs would really calm him down, make him feel carefree and forget who he was and what he should do. Later, his addiction increased to a point where he could no longer live without drugs.
A few years later, he lost both his health and his long-term girlfriend.
Su said that his grandmother, who died a few years ago, was his first savior, adding that despite his leading a troubled life, his grandmother, a devout Christian, never abandoned him.
He said kicking the habit was hard, but not impossible. He recalled that his grandmother tried numerous times to use religion to save him, but in vain — until he attended a sermon in Taipei by an African American Evangelical minister from a church in New York. Toward the end of the service, he went to the front to receive prayer by the minister, asking to be led out of the darkness.
At that juncture, he said, he felt so clean inside and so happy that he was on his knees crying like a baby. For the first time, he met God and knew he was “saved,” he said.
From that day on, Su cut all his links with the drug world and stopped smoking, relying on God to find his strength.
Su has been clean for six years, working selflessly as a missionary of God, visiting correction centers to meet inmates and hospitals to console patients, as well as working as a volunteer for several organizations for the disabled.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS