When his family was poor 27 years ago, Daddy Zhang wasn't sure if he should allow his son to go to university and work to pay for the tuition. Now, his son has realized his dream of becoming a doctor, and he has chosen to practice in the little town of Yuli in eastern Taiwan. Daddy Zhang is proud of being his father, and he has decided to volunteer to support his son...

The 66-year-old man leans forward, quickly lowers his arm, and skillfully and precisely slices a piece of ginger; then he arranges the slices around the main dish. Zhang Han-zhou is the father of Dr. Zhang Yu-lin, the superintendent of Yuli Tzu Chi Hospital in eastern Taiwan. Everybody in the hospital calls him Daddy Zhang. He is a bit chubby and looks sweet, and he volunteers in the hospital kitchen.

Daddy Zhang is not a medical person, but he supports his son wholeheartedly. "Master Cheng Yen handed over the Yuli Tzu Chi Hospital to my son, and that meant giving him responsibility, not power. Since I'm determined to serve here, I should take as good care of the hospital as if it were my home."

Daddy Zhang said that he really admired the Master for setting up a hospital in a remote place like Yuli, and he also felt comfort in his son's decision to practice in that rural area. To show his support of the hospital, he moved to Yuli from his hometown of Pingtung, southern Taiwan, and he now volunteers in the hospital.

Picking and washing vegetables, doing all kinds of kitchen chores, weeding and watering in the hospital garden, Daddy Zhang does everything happily. "I can't help with any medical work, but I'm good at doing these little things," he said. His words indicate how confident he is in doing those jobs perfectly well.

Hard work

Daddy Zhang was the only boy in his family. When he was three, his mother passed away, and when he was five, he followed his father to Changchih Village in Pingtung. The family was poor back then, so his nine older sisters were either married off or were given to other families to raise.

Daddy Zhang quit school when he was 13 and started working with his father. He harvested crops and chopped firewood; when he got home, he also cooked and washed the clothes, but he never complained. "My father was over 60 years old, so I didn't want him to work too hard," explained Daddy Zhang.

After he married, his life remained as harsh as ever. When his son Yu-lin was only four months old, Daddy Zhang was drafted into the army and stationed on Kinmen, an island near China's southeastern coast. During his two-year enlistment period there, his family back in Pingtung depended solely on his wife, who had to gather firewood and sweet potatoes. When she went out, she carried her son on her back and a shoulder pole with a bucket at each end across her shoulders. Her daughter was in one bucket and some rocks in the other bucket as a balance. Life was really bleak.

After he had completed his military service, Daddy Zhang worked very hard to bring food to the table. He was once hired to do logging in the mountains; he worked flat out and never dared to rest. Even during Chinese New Year, he didn't go home to be with his family; instead, he simply asked a friend to take his money back to them. "If I didn't work for a day, I would make a lot less money," said Daddy Zhang. He explained that a day's wage was just over 10 dollars (25 U.S. cents), and he had to work for three days to be able to buy a small bag of rice. Because he didn't go back home, he was able to save the transportation cost and the travel time, with which he could make more money.

A few years later, two more sons were born. Seeing his grass hut falling apart, Daddy Zhang borrowed money from friends and bought an old house and a little piece of farmland. He and his wife worked hard every day. When his oldest daughter was married, his son Yu-lin, who was then in secondary school, was old enough to become a great help to the family.

Every day when school was over, Yu-lin would come home, put down his schoolbag, cut vegetables to feed the pigs, wash the pig pen, and scoop up pig dung for fertilizer. On weekends, he would weed the fields and spray pesticides. Yu-lin was only 13 years old, but he had to carry a pesticide bucket weighing 30 kilograms (66 pounds) and walk back and forth spraying the chemical in the field. "He wasn't very tall, and the muddy rice paddy was deep. When he stepped down into it, you could barely see his little head from a distance," Daddy Zhang tearfully recalled.

Not enough food

Yu-lin's university entrance exam results were not high enough to get him into the university he wanted to attend. Determined to get into medical school, he carefully asked his father if he could study at a "cram school" in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan to prepare for the following year's entrance examinations. Awkwardly, Daddy Zhang said to his son, "Aren't you overestimating yourself? Without enough money to even put food on the table, I don't have any to send you to a cram school."

The school's tuition, residence fee, and living expenses amounted to a large sum of money. Daddy Zhang said that he and his wife had to labor to feed his old father and two younger boys. The income from farming was very little, and their lives were hard. "Six people had to eat. I usually bought a small bag of rice with the wages that I earned over three days. Even with a lot of sweet potatoes added, the rice was completely gone in just two days."

Yu-lin, being mature and understanding, comprehended his father's difficulty. Just before this, Daddy Zhang had borrowed some money from a farmers' cooperative to renovate their old house and add five more rooms, so that his children could live in a better house. "The loan was very large, and I had to pay every month," remembers Daddy Zhang.

Yu-lin knew that the loan was a burden to his parents, so he went to work in a factory, which upset Daddy Zhang. "It was heartbreaking to know that his job of looking after the machines was very dangerous. Twenty years ago, school fees were very expensive, so for a poor family like ours, I simply needed to work harder."

Fortunately, Yu-lin achieved his dream: The results of the university entrance exams the following year allowed him to go to the National Defense Medical Center. The tuition was waived, and he also received an allowance every month, which reduced the burden to his family.

"I was delighted to hear that he was accepted to the medical college. He was the first person from our village to go to college," recalled Daddy Zhang. He felt proud of his son, as all the hardship had finally paid off.

A surprising but touching decision

After graduating from the medical center, Yu-lin started out as a resident doctor, then attending doctor, and finally he was promoted to director of neurosurgery at the Taoyuan Military No. 804 Hospital in western Taiwan. But a dramatic decision that he made in 1997 really surprised his father.

"He was treated and paid well in that hospital in western Taiwan, but he said that he wanted to work for Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital in eastern Taiwan." Daddy Zhang didn't understand his son's decision, but when he realized that his son wanted to help people in remote areas, he looked forward to it.

Yuli Tzu Chi Hospital was opened in 2003, and Yu-lin was assigned to work there as deputy superintendent in charge of administrative duties. In 2005, he became the superintendent of the hospital, and his duties became heavier.

"He's ended up in a remote area to serve the villagers, but that's an ideal and a noble duty that a conscientious doctor should hold," said Daddy Zhang. He was happy that his son wanted to practice in the countryside, because Daddy Zhang, also from a rural area, fully understood that these areas are in great need of medical resources. He felt proud that his son wasn't interested in making a lot of money but wanted to help people in a small village in southern Taiwan.

At the end of 2005, Zhang came to visit his son in Yuli, and he also attended the hospital year-end blessing celebration. As soon as he walked into the hospital, he was attracted to the strong ambiance of Tzu Chi humanitarianism.

"I noticed Tzu Chi people all talked very politely and had smiles on their faces, so it helped bring people closer to them," said Daddy Zhang. Yuli Tzu Chi Hospital is small, but it pulls people together and makes them feel embraced by love every day.

Once, his son invited him to a free clinic in the mountains. Daddy Zhang saw that the hospital staff and volunteers were busy moving equipment and setting up the place, so he also rolled up his sleeves and helped. "I might be older than the rest of them and unable to move as nimbly, but it felt good to work with them."

When the free clinic started, Daddy Zhang saw some women preparing food in the kitchen, and they seemed to be having a lot of fun! Being very familiar with kitchen chores, he joined these happy women.

"That time gave me a good impression about Yuli. The air was fresh, the place was nice, people were friendly, and I felt young again." Daddy Zhang said that the good environment and friendly people were the reasons why he liked to go there often. Therefore, Yuli became his home, and even though he still goes back to visit his former home in Pingtung, he returns to Yuli quickly because he misses the place.

Coming to serve, not to enjoy

In Yuli, Daddy Zhang noticed that in addition to his other duties, Yu-lin saw patients, performed surgeries, and took shifts in the emergency room; he would even see patients in aboriginal villages on weekends. But strangely, Daddy Zhang never heard his son complain about the hard work; instead, he did all this happily.

His daughter-in-law and grandchildren also volunteered in the hospital constantly. Whether they were pushing sickbeds, delivering case histories, or consoling patients, they seemed to enjoy doing it very much.

Daddy Zhang's curiosity finally made him volunteer in the hospital one day. On that day, he washed and cut vegetables and cleaned the floor in the kitchen, and then he weeded and watered in the gardens on the roof and in the front yard. He volunteered the whole day, and his chronic migraine never bothered him.

"I would feel bored with nothing to do at home, so it was so helpful to be a volunteer." Daddy Zhang described it in a different way: Being a volunteer could make his life so fulfilling that he could forget his own illness and his mind was at peace. With his body and mind relieved, he felt much healthier.

According to Daddy Zhang, now that the whole family is volunteering, they all feel close to each other spiritually and have something to talk about. They see each other more often in the hospital than at home, but it doesn't mean that they have become estranged from each other. Instead, they take every opportunity when they see each other to share their ideas. They can talk about anything.

Daddy Zhang once told Yu-lin that after he passed away, he would like to donate his body to medical students for their anatomy classes. He believed that his son's ability to become a neurosurgeon who could perform so many surgeries and save so many lives was because many strangers had given their bodies to medical students like Yu-lin to practice on. Therefore, they helped with his son's achievement today. "As a senior citizen, I have nothing to contribute but my physical body."

Upon hearing his father's decision, Yu-lin was quite surprised, because he had thought that his father would cling to the traditional Chinese notion that one should be buried with one's body whole and intact. He believed that his father must have been inspired by Master Cheng Yen's teaching on TV: "We only have the right to use our bodies; we don't really own them."　

Daddy Zhang said that his son is so busy that they don't often have meals together; sometimes Yu-lin even has to sleep in his office. However, Daddy Zhang feels that his son treats him well and is attentive to details. "Every time I finish the fruit he gives me, he gives me a tissue to clean my hands."

Whenever Daddy Zhang thinks about his son's goodness, he smiles happily: "He is a doctor not to make money, but to fulfill his duty of saving lives."

Although his son is now the superintendent, Zhang still likes everyone to call him "Daddy Zhang" or simply "Brother" like all Tzu Chi men address each other, but not "the superintendent's father." "Everyone is a volunteer and does the same work; there is no difference between us. I'm fine here."