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.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS