Name ： Ms. Chen, Fu-Mei

Birthplace ： ZhangHua County , Taiwan

On the afternoon of a Sunday, we drove to XingLong Road , WenSan District and we saw a lady with red top far away from us. She is Aunt Fu-Mei Chen. Aunt Chen, who is really enthusiastic, was worried that we were not familiar with here so she waited besides the road and lead us to ZhongShu Street .

There is a “Special Case” military dependents' village around the military camp on ZhongShun Street . The reason of calling it as “special case” is because that it is not a real military dependents' village. There are several families and those sheds were built on the hills. This hill was a cemetery for nameless or homeless and no one lived there. After some soldiers retired, they had no money. At that time, the Government had not enough budgets so those veterans received a few retirement pensions. They could not afford buying a house and they didn't get assigned with a room in the village. Therefore, they came here and lived right next to the cemetery and be friends with spirits.

“There were graves all around those houses in the early time. Then, the government moved away those graves. Until several years ago, the moving project completed.” Aunt Chen described, “The honor soldiers here were single before. Since the government allows people visiting relatives in China , many soldiers went back and got married and brought their wives back to here. Hence, we have around twerty Chinese brides here.”

Aunt Chen started her introduction from the houses which are below the ground level. She kept giving the name of each house owner and their status just like describing what happened in her family. How she is familiar with them impressed us.

“Why Aunt Chen became a volunteer?” Andy was curious.

After Aunt Chen retired, she became a full time volunteer for taking care of honor soldiers. Also, she lives around that area so she comes here quite often.

“Is there anything special that we need to be careful when taking care of honor soldiers?” Jim asked.

“Since they are pretty old, we need to watch their health condition. The most important thing is having contacts with them very often, especially, the single honor soldiers.” Aunt Chen said “there was an elder, he fell down but no one noticed, then, he died from the fall. That is why I come here quite often to chat with everyone and check everybody's health and needs.”

Since Aunt Chen treat honor soldiers as her own family members, and she won everyone's trust and love, they call her “Ms. Kindhearted”.

“Aunt Chen is from ZhangHua and she takes care of so many Chinese elders; I believe this is the best role model of integration.

“When I am taking care of them, I never think about which genetic group they are. As long as someone needs helps, we should take care of him. How come you will spend some time and think about his genetic group? Especially when those honor soldiers were young, they sacrificed their youth to protect Taiwan . And now, they are the minority group in the society. It is a shame if someone takes care of others based on the genetic group.”

After having an interview with Aunt Chen, we were touched deeply. Through this interview, we realize there are so many minority groups which required cares and helps. Also, we see the best role model Aunt Chen showed us. We do learn a lot from this visiting.