When the Sunflower movement started on March 18 with students occupying the main chamber of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, a number of temporary provision depots were set up outside the building.
One of these depots, run by the 37-year-old Tung Te-yu (董德堉), stood out from the rest, because it was the only one established and operated entirely by volunteers with no connection to the student-led protesters.
Tung, a student at the Chinese Culture University’s Institute of Political Science, said that he went to the Legislative Yuan on March 19 after hearing how student leaders Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) had led students in occupying the legislative chamber the day before in protest against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade pact.
Photo: Chen Hui-tzu, Taipei Times
Tung said once he was sure the students occupying the chamber were safe, he felt that those sitting outside the legislature were in need of more “looking after” because they were more vulnerable, compared with the relatively stable situation inside the chamber.
Working together with lawyer Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) and independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) campaign office director Chang Yi-chan (張益贍), Tung set up a small tent on the corner of Zhongshan S Road and Qingdao E Road, close to the legislature.
The three men asked friends for donations and managed to collect NT$100,000 (US$3,308) each.
Tung used the money to rent a microphone, amplifiers and a mobile stage, to be used during the day by students to make speeches, or by experts and academics who the students invited to the protest site to give talks. At night, the platform and equipment were used to screen anti-nuclear protest videos or other civic-themed videos. Tung was also responsible for setting up the huge screen at the March 30 rally on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei.
Tung said he initially planned to stay outside the Legislative Yuan for about a week to 10 days, but after 10 days the money he raised at the start of the protest had mostly been spent and what was left was not enough to continue renting the microphone, stage and amplifiers.
“My decision to stay put was made because the students would be better protected — there were rumors of biker gangs threatening to harrass the crowd — if I stayed,” Tung said, adding that the students had also asked him to stay.
Tung said he continued to ask for donations so he could pay for the microphones and sound system.
His small tent, which at first was a temporary station from where students’ thoughts and speeches were broadcast to those gathered in the area, quickly turned into a repository for provisions.
Tung said this happened because many people who donated goods and provisions through online purchases had given the delivery address merely as “Qingdao East Road.” Tung’s tent was the closest to Qingdao E Road that the delivery men could find and after a while, when the amount of delivered goods became overwhelming, he set up two more tents to serve as a distribution center.
“I originally started with four to five people helping out at the broadcasting station, but ended up with more than 200 volunteers who sorted and distributed donated goods,” Tung said.
Despite working closely with the demonstrating students, Tung was a volunteer and never officially a part of the protest. However, his volunteering meant he also had to live at the depot. Every day he had to receive the breakfasts ordered for students by supporters and see to their distribution, then clean up around the depot and help with folding up students’ bed rolls and blankets, and then handle the distribution of lunch and dinner.
Apart from regular meals, supporters also sent mid-afternoon and midnight snacks, Tung said.
“The Sunflower movement taxed the will and determination of the students. I tried a little bit here and there to help liven up the atmosphere and make it easier for the students to maintain their protest,” he said.
He added that torrential rains that fell on some days had caused a number of students to pack up their things and head home, which led to him asking for donations for tents because he wanted the students to continue their protest, but did not want to see them suffer in the sun or rain.
“We received 10 tents, which we set up for the students so they could continue their sit-in protected from the ravages of nature,” Tung said.
In another effort to help enliven the atmosphere, Tung put up a tree made from bananas, arranged to look like a sunflower. The move was a silent rebuke of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅), who during a political talk show on TV pointed to photographs of the legislative chamber that showed the podium decorated with sunflowers and insisted that they were bananas.
Tung said he once had to ask donors — after receiving 5,000 lunch boxes — that instead of sending a lot of food at the same time, they should send their donations in batches because they would be easier to distribute and the food would last longer.
“The students are brave and going through hard times in order to achieve social justice, and I could only help them by staying with them,” Tung said, adding that he “hoped to become, along with other supporters, the guardians of these brave students.”
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,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial