A van marked with a lotus flower logo speeds from the flourishing metropolis to distant poor black villages. The van carries ordinary-looking cloth, but to local blacks the vehicle is like Santa's sleigh, bringing joy and hope. The driver is certainly not Santa Claus, but a Taiwanese man, Pan Ming-shui.

When Taiwanese people in Durban talk about Pan, they have so much to say. Some admire him for having the courage to drive through black townships that local Taiwanese don't even dare to approach. Some laugh at him for being stupid enough to leave behind a luxurious life in the city and to sweat hard for the blacks in these remote places.

However, criticism from relatives and friends and dangers on the road don't discourage him, because there are more than three hundred job-training centers and thousands of poor people in Natal Province waiting for his leadership and assistance. They hope that like the Taiwanese, they will be able to leave poverty behind and head towards a better future.

When Pan was young, he worked hard, like many other businesspeople in Taiwan, and never had time to help others. He was born in 1952. After graduating from college in Taipei and completing his military service, he went into the furniture business. Taiwan's economy was booming at that time, which helped to solidify his business foundation, and he also completed life's most important task: getting married and having children.

But good times never last long. While his business was improving, his wife suddenly fell ill and passed away. This, of course, broke his heart.

"Making money became meaningless and I became less interested in my business," said Pan. His attitude towards life changed completely after this unexpected loss. Shortly afterwards, he married his current wife and started a new family.

Emigration to South Africa

They lived a normal life until his oldest son went to junior high school and endured the huge pressures of studying for the competitive exams to enter the best high school. Pan thought about moving to another country where academic pressures were not so intense. The decision to emigrate to South Africa took them from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere.

Like most Taiwanese immigrants, the Pans lived with other Chinese when they first arrived in Durban. Apartheid was still in effect and the Taiwanese immigrants, who had money, lived in the white people's areas, living a completely different life from the blacks, who had to endure much discrimination.

This new life was the starting point for his charitable work. At the beginning, he spent his spare time volunteering at nursing homes and orphanages. After a few years, he had become fully familiar with the environment in Durban. This laid the foundation for his future charitable work.

At that time his volunteer work was limited to the Durban area, but then he received notice from the city government that a Taiwanese needed his help.

In 1994, Tzu Chi volunteer Chuang Mei-hsing went to the city hall and expressed her intention to help street children in Durban. Because of the language barrier, the city hall asked Pan to translate for them. Enjoying helping others, Pan helped her fill out the application forms and drove her around to examine the situation.

Compassion and humility were what Pan remembered the most about this volunteer. These noble virtues also changed his belief that equated Buddhism with superstition. Thus, Tzu Chi people became Pan's friends, and later he was "set up" by his wife and other Tzu Chi volunteers to become a foundation member himself.

Some time later, good people in Taiwan gave Pan a huge test. Tzu Chi commissioners Yen Liang-ta and Shih Hung-chi in South Africa had gone back to Taiwan to promote the "Send Love to South Africa" clothing drive. They collected two containers of used clothes destined for poor blacks in South Africa.

The containers were to be shipped from Taiwan to South Africa, but Sister Chuang was not familiar with the local requirements, so she asked Pan for help. There were enough clothes for eight thousand families. Pan went out every morning and came home late, traveling thousands of miles to find out which families needed clothes.

"We must use money with extreme care. We must present goods to them directly and extend our gratitude to them." These were the principles Pan followed while carrying out his research. When he arrived at a village, he would invite the local leader to examine the situation and to estimate how many families really needed help. He also asked local residents to compile a list of the families that needed help the most.

Find the poorest

After the list was compiled, he would check it with villagers and discuss and evaluate it until he found the poorest of the poor. Pan would also randomly pick several families from the list to examine their true conditions. Pan sighed as he recalled: "The shacks of the really poor people didn't have proper floors. They stood on the soil, and the roofs were built with scrap metal. They could see the sun during the day and the stars at night through the holes in the metal."

The volunteers might have been filled with enthusiasm in helping the poor, but they still had to overcome difficulties such as the chiefdom system that still existed in many local black villages. Even if you wanted to help their people, you still had to ask for permission from the chiefs.

"Once I went to visit a chief and I wanted to shake his hand, but he didn't even look at me," Pan recalled. "When I turned back to look at my translator, he was already down on one knee. But after we received his permission, everything ran very smoothly. The chief even treated me like his friend and would pat me on the shoulder."

Tzu Chi volunteers spent half a year, from October 1994 to April 1995, distributing the used clothes to eight thousand families. After it was over, Pan realized a long-term problem: "Instead of giving them fish to eat, we should give them fishing rods and teach them how to fish."

Job-training centers

Thus, Pan wanted to try job training. He had many ideas at the beginning, but he couldn't decide which one was the best. Then he discovered that some of the charity recipients knew how to sew. After some discussions with other Tzu Chi members, they concluded that a sewing class would be most beneficial.

At the start, they only had secondhand sewing machines and some cloth rejected by garment factories. Several women started learning sewing from people with experience. Pan was proud of these students, working under such difficult conditions, and he encouraged them to improve. "Taiwan used to receive aid from the United States, but now we are standing on our own feet. You can do the same!"

"I came here because of a Buddhist nun called Master Cheng Yen, who teaches me to treat the place I stay as my home and all living beings as my brothers. This is Great Love!" Pan's words showed how proud he was to be Taiwanese. His Taiwan experience of love has now taken root in South Africa.

The sewing classes taught working skills to many women, after which many volunteered to teach others. The number of job-training centers grew, and Pan became so busy that he asked several experienced volunteers to help him manage the centers and teach the classes. They gather on the twenty-fifth of every month to discuss problems or to share experiences.

Pan is not a missionary, but his sincere offerings and unselfish contributions have touched the hearts of many blacks in South Africa. He also indirectly transmits Buddhist compassion to them. Through the years, many touching stories have emerged.

"One day, a female volunteer took the bus to a job-training center. When she got on the bus, there were some people who looked like they intended to rob her, but she was firm and just sat there and held her purse tightly. Those robbers were too scared to touch her!" Pan laughed and said, "As long as we have a tranquil mind and righteous attitude, we'll be impervious to every evil in the world!"

"There was another time when I drove a Tzu Chi TV crew to a job-training center. We saw a group of women from the training center, standing in a circle. I went forward and saw that an armored truck had had an accident. The driver was injured and cash was scattered everywhere. However, the women from the center had formed a circle to protect them. Some of them went to report the incident to the police."

These black women were very poor, but they didn't take any money, even with so much cash lying in front of them. Their priority was saving life. Pan was delighted by their noble spirit, and it also proved that his job-training plan had already helped locals understand that they should maintain honor and dignity once they could feed themselves.

Mutual help

"I myself can't do it all--the locals can." Pan's idea about the future of the job-training centers is to allow the locals to teach other poor people after they stand on their own feet.

At the moment there are not many Taiwanese volunteers working with Pan, but there are seventy black volunteers, most of whom are poor. With so many people at the job-training centers, Pan joked that he has become the boss of more than three hundred sewing factories. However, he does not make any money, but is earning joy and peace of mind.

The strength of Taiwan's economy forces many Taiwanese businesspeople to search for a better place overseas to do business, taking with them their money and technological know-how. Pan's mission means Taiwanese people can offer more than that. With good intentions, we can also assist all living beings in the darkness of the world to acquire love and dignity.