Our school is located in one part of Tai Chiang Inner Sea. Our school teachers and students continually dedicate themselves to researching Tai Chiang culture. Therefore, this time we decided to choose Shiang Yu Museum as our research topic.

The reasons of construction
     The founder Mr. Lin Chin-Hui had long been having a dream of building a museum to preserve and advance Tai Chiang culture. He invited many artists of Beimen District in Salty Zone to sketch their hometown and published 《Painting Sets in Beimen Disrict》. Henceforth, he had regularly kept in touch with the group of people, who grew up in Beimen District but traveled or resided far away from home later. He experienced their enthusiasm and passion to their hometown, Beimen District in Salty Zone. In turn, he founded “The His-Chia Foundation For Cultural Acquisition “ in 1997, which was changed into “The Ou-Wang People Foundation For Cultural Acquisition “ in 2003, to promote the Beimen District culture. With a great deal of effort, he accumulated abundant experiences and variety kinds of local heritage. Consequently, all of these inspired him to be more ambitious and active. Finally, Shiang-Yu Museum was founded in 2002. It attends to collect, arrange, research, display and publish all kinds of local heritage and set up many interesting courses.

The urgent reason
     (1) Since there was no enough room to store a large amount of local collectible heritage, including artworks, literature works, old maps, tablets, old pictures, exploring another place to store them is extremely important.
     (2) Salty Zone lacks a place to make a collection of local collectibles and to promote local culture. He fully realized that founding a museum himself is the only way to boost local affairs.

     Since teaching in Ying- Hai, I have been leading many students to our own local communities. By taking part in Internet Cyber Fair, I encouraged students to deeply research Tai Chiang culture. It urged students to go out of school to get other important knowledge different from school lessons. In turn, they broadened their horizons and paid more attention to be concerned with their hometown. However, building a museum was not an easy job as erecting a building and the land we needed cost a great deal of money, even up to fifty million dollars. Where did the money come from? The following is the founder’s aspiration.

     After retiring from public service, he said to his wife, “ From this new year, the monthly retiring payment will be used to build the museum instead of home expense.  “ At that time, His old friend, Mr. Liu Lai-Chin , who is the owner of the sauce company and a warm-hearted contributor, suddenly, donated ten million dollar.

     The Tainan county ex-magistrate, Su Huan-Chih, looked up to him. In 2002, Mr. Lin asked the magistrate for the grant of building the museum. He replied, “Is 160 million of subsidy enough for you ? “ Unfortunately, changes outrun your plans. The administration only budgeted 30 million dollars for the project. Understanding the administration’s financial difficulties and other reasons, he was still grateful to the sharply decreased amount of subsidy. However, he couldn’t neglect the serious lack of money.

     On hearing that the administration officer cut the rest of the 30 million “facility fee“, he broke down. For a retired public servant, 30 million is obviously a large amount of money. Maybe the magistrate wanted to test his determination for Taiwan culture. He went to meet magistrate, sitting in front of his office and reciting《The Daimond Sutra》. Before leaving, he sadly said to his wife and children, “I was so selfish that I didn’t consider our household and spent too much money building the museum. “ If I pass away some day, just cremate my body. I dare not to spend money anymore. “

     Under extreme pressure, he became physically and mentally ill. In winter, the museum was soon to be under construction. However, they still needed millions of dollars, causing them to panic. One evening, Mr. Wu Chung-Ling called him and talked about hometown cultural establishment. Unexpectedly, he forgot himself and choked with sobs. Not only was his spirit weakened, but he suffered from symptoms.

     Unprecedented dizziness appeared and he didn’t feel his brain working sometimes. The symptoms lasted for two years, impacting his life seriously. Once the symptoms stroke while he was waiting for lunch with a minister, and he lay ill for more than one hour. Due to this experience, he dared not to go out even up to now.

     Not to mention staying out overnight, for having no confidence in his health. He went to see eleven doctors and took ten physical examinations, and the cause remained unknown.

     The interpersonal problems rooted in the construction of the museum made him feel desperate. God bless him, I hope he can live a long and healthy life, and keep working on Shiang Yu Museum.