"How about each of us donating two hundred wheelchairs?" "If you donate two million dollars, I will donate ten million!" This dialogue took place between two old men whose combined age totals over 160 years. They always talk like this to encourage each other to do good deeds, and they never eat their words.

Both of them started out in business with nothing and later became billionaires. But their success hasn't made them the least bit overbearing. On the contrary, they are as gentle and amiable as grandfathers. Within Tzu Chi, they are famous because both of them have made great contributions to the charitable activities of the foundation. When you look at these two gentlemen, it's hard not to be reminded of the old "Laurel and Hardy" movies. In fact, people in Tzu Chi have been calling them by these names.

"Laurel" is Tsao Chung-chih, chairman of the Tsao Foundation. The eighty-eight-year-old Tsao is quite skinny, weighing only forty kilograms [88 lb]. "Hardy" is Lee Chung-chi, chairman of Kee Yeh Co., Ltd. At the age of seventy-three, he weighs ninety kilograms [198 lb]!

The two met in Tzu Chi and have been good friends for over thirteen years. Ever since Tsao made his first donation of wheelchairs thirty years ago, he has encouraged and persuaded many of his relatives and friends to join him. It goes without saying that Lee was one of his targets. But Lee is not to be outdone by Tsao. Upon hearing that Tsao was donating wheel-chairs to mainland China, Lee asked him to also donate wheelchairs to his hometown, Xiamen. Tsao agreed, but in turn, asked Lee to be his co-sponsor.

Through their cooperation, they have helped many people all over the world. Let's just take a few minutes to read the stories of the "Laurel and Hardy of Tzu Chi."

"Laurel"
Tsao Chung-chih

The old man was sitting on the comfortable sofa in his spacious office with a photo album lying across his knees. Faded photos told the long story of Tsao Chung-chih.

Tsao was born in Jiangsu Province in 1910, a time of chaos just prior to the revolution which brought an end to the Ching dynasty in China. During his childhood years, the country was in turmoil and it was difficult to find work. After Tsao graduated from primary school, his mother kept sending buckets full of her largest and greenest homegrown beans as presents to one of their relatives in the hope of getting a job for her son. After three years of this, the relative finally assisted Tsao, who was raising vegetables at home, to find work in Shanghai.

After Tsao left his hometown at the age of eighteen (children in those days often started their formal schooling late), he worked as an apprentice in a hardware shop. Six months later, his boss went bankrupt and dismissed all of his employees. Where could Tsao go? For three years his mother had picked beans to help him get a job. How could he now go home empty-handed? He had viewed this job as his future, but suddenly his world seemed to have collapsed. How could he accept this? Thanks to a sympathetic neighbor, Tsao was hired by another newly opened hardware shop.

In this shop, he worked even harder. In addition to his daily routine, he volunteered to help with the record-keeping by organizing business papers after work. After a year, when the manager discovered that this diligent youngster had been helping in this way, he taught him how to do business and he doubled his salary. Tsao also spent his free time studying English and Japanese.

A year later, the manager resigned and Tsao was promoted as the new manager. The new position gave his life a new stability and he married Ho Yun-ching. In 1944, he established his own canned food company in Shanghai. When the Communist Party took control of the government in mainland China in 1949, he took the last boat to Taiwan with his family.

After he arrived in Taiwan, Tsao continued in the business of importing foreign food products. The couple ran their business with the motto, "Satisfying our customers is our success." Owing to their honesty and good service, their business became more and more prosperous.

Helping the handicapped

One day in 1969, when Tsao and his wife were approaching a railroad crossing, they saw a disabled man on the other side of the crossing. He had no legs and was trying hard to "walk" by elbowing his way on the ground with his hips sliding along on a piece of rubber that seemed to have been cut out of a tire. Saddened by the scene, they wanted to go help him, but just then the crossing gates came down. By the time the train had passed by, the man was gone.

When they arrived home, the miserable scene still haunted them. Tsao regretted not having been able to help the poor man in time, and he kept thinking about how to reduce the pain of the disabled and give them a better life. It was the American television series "Ironside" about a disabled detective in a wheelchair that gave him an idea: "Isn't a wheelchair just the right thing to help the disabled?" At that time, Tsao was serving as board member of the Rotary Club of Taipei. He asked the club to help purchase wheelchairs from the United States. Costing about US$100 each, wheelchairs were luxury imports to Taiwan at that time. The club purchased thirty chairs.

Tsao and his wife also realized that rehabilitation was important to the handicapped. They charged a manufacturer with the task of designing special wheelchairs which could be operated swiftly and easily in sports competitions. They also sponsored many sports events, such as basketball games, baseball games and wheelchair marathons to encourage the handicapped.

"Because my wife had a long-standing problem with her knees, I could understand how the disabled feel," said Tsao. In 1997 he founded the Tsao Foundation to help the needy more effectively through a mission of "compassion and service." His foundation stresses the concept of self-reliance. Through coordinated efforts with the United Chinese Handicap Association and the World Buddhist Light Association over the past decade, Tsao's helping hands have reached out to mainland China and other parts of the world. "For educational purposes, I ask the local chapters of the UCHA or WBLA to co-sponsor half of the required amounts. Everybody should learn to love and care for the disabled." As long as there is the demand, Tsao will continue to donate wheelchairs.

Lifeline

Helping to found the Lifeline Association is another one of Tsao's achievements. It all started when a friend told him that more and more people in Taiwan were committing suicide and that a suicide prevention center was urgently needed. Tsao helped the Mackay Memorial Hospital to set up the Lifeline Association and donated telephones for its use. Several years later, the association had to become independent of the hospital, but it lacked funds. Tsao helped the association weather the crisis and to obtain its own office space. The Lifeline Association has indeed been a great service to Taiwan. Many suicidal people have been saved after talking to volunteer counselors. "See," remarked Tsao, "one telephone line can save many lives. Isn't that a meaningful effort?"

It is Tsao's belief that making a contribution does not merely mean donating money. It also means being concerned about the needy. As a result, he has done such things as donating a reading room and four braillewriters for the blind, supplying a blood bank with equipment, and helping to arrange funerals for poor families. Wherever he sees a need, he tries his best to help.

For his wife

When we asked Tsao why he never tires of doing good deeds, a flicker of sorrow crossed his face but quickly disappeared. "I loved my wife so much, and everything I have done has been for her."

Tsao will never forget the promise he made to his wife: "If you go first, I will use our money to do good deeds for you. Then it will be as if you were still here in this world."

Mrs. Tsao died of cancer in 1983. According to Chinese custom, friends give gifts of money to the bereaved. Tsao did not accept the money, but instead donated it to charity organizations and orphanages.

"Since one of a couple has to die first," Tsao said, "the other should use his or her life to accomplish the wishes of the partner. The money I have donated over these years makes her spirit live on."

Tsao and Tzu Chi

Many years ago, when Mrs. Tsao was still alive, the couple formally requested Dharma Master Nan Ting to accept them as his disciples and they became pious Buddhists. Before the master passed away, he asked the couple to help Master Cheng Yen build Taiwan's first Buddhist hospital. In 1985, when Tsao was having an elevator installed in a nursing home for the poor in Taipei, he remembered his master's last words. Thinking that the new Tzu Chi hospital would also need elevators, he donated two.

In 1986, to commemorate his wife's birthday, he donated a million dollars [then about US$38,000] for Tzu Chi's mission of charity. In his opinion, it is easy for rich people to donate a million dollars, but it is not an easy job to collect that money in small amounts from many donors and then honestly pass it on to the needy. Yet, that is what Tzu Chi commissioners do every day! Tsao feels that the foundation is a bridge between the poor and the rich. Through this bridge, the poor can gain the help they need and the rich can repay society with love.

"Tzu Chi is a way to help people and to honor our parents," says Tsao. He once pondered the meaning of a birthday. "How painful it is when a mother gives birth to a child! It means that your birthday is your mother's suffering day." As a result, Tsao always celebrates his birthday by donating wheelchairs or money to the needy. "I think it is the best way to thank my parents."

Tsao's wisdom

Tsao likes to compare life to the four seasons. Youth is as wonderful and vigorous as the spring season, and so it is the time to study hard. Summer represents adulthood when one starts a career and gets married. Between the ages of fifty and seventy, one should harvest diligently in order to enjoy peace and serenity during the winter of one's late years.

According to Chinese tradition, people should save what they have for their children. But Tsao has a new idea: "If you give too much to your offspring, they might just live on their inheritance and get lazy. Why don't we just keep what we need in our later years and share the surplus with others? As an old man, there is no need for me to support my parents or take care of my children. So who should I take care of? EVERYBODY!"

"Hardy"
Lee Chung-chi

Few Tzu Chi members do not know "Grandpa Lee." He is taller and huskier than the average Chinese, and he always wears an amiable smile. Everyone in Tzu Chi likes his humor and kindness and admires his good character and wisdom. Master Cheng Yen, too, praises him highly. This is Lee Chung-chi.

An impoverished childhood

Born in 1926 in Xiamen as the eighth child in his family, little Lee was doomed to endure hardship. His father and his only older brother died when he was little. After graduating from primary school at the age of fifteen, his mother asked him to quit school and start working right away.

On hearing his mother's words, Lee wept but dared not say anything. He wiped his tears away, took all his textbooks outside, and lit a fire. As the books burned to ashes, his hopes for further education went up in smoke.

Lee began working in a shipping company, which offered three meals every day. "My daily chores consisted of cleaning, cooking and shopping," Lee recalled. Sometimes when he was sweeping the floor, he would find coins on the ground. He always picked them up and gave them to the manager. Later he found out his boss had placed the coins there to test him. His honesty and trustworthiness were appreciated and his boss increased his salary the next year.

Xiamen was a busy harbor town at the time. When merchant ships came into port to load or unload their cargo, Lee had to take meals by sampan to the workers on board the ships. One time, waves created by a passing Japanese ship nearly overturned his sampan. An idea crossed Lee's mind, "How wonderful it would be if one day I could own such a huge ship!"

Diligence and thrift

After the end of World War II, Lee went to Taiwan to work in the government finance office. In 1948, he married Wu Yin, a young lady in his office. Mrs. Lee recalled that Lee often worked overtime then, and he also wrote articles for newspapers to earn extra money which he would send to Xiamen to help support his mother.

In 1949, before the Communists took over the mainland, Lee brought his mother to Taiwan. Since he had children by this time, his family responsibilities became heavier. At times the family had only rice porridge mixed with soy sauce for each meal. When a kind neighbor occasionally supplemented their diet with some homemade pickles, Lee's mother admonished him not to accept things from others, "We should be satisfied with having a bowl of porridge to eat."

Under the tutelage of his mother, Lee led a frugal life. Riding an old bicycle with no tires made his hips turn red and swollen and ache with pain whenever he took it over the rough roads. If he felt hungry when working outside, he would rather wait and have some porridge at home than spend just a few pennies for a bowl of noodles.

A dream comes true

Lee had loved the blue water and salty wind of the ocean ever since he was a child. When he became an agent for a Greek company in 1959, he decided to establish his own shipping businessee Yeh Co., Ltd. Ten years later, he purchased his first ship. "I named it Yung Feng ("Forever Prosperous"). Weighing 4,900 tons, it was bigger than that Japanese ship that I had admired so much when I was young." Lee's dream had finally come true!

Within a few years, his company became a large enterprise that owned freighters, trailers and container terminals and acted as agents for companies in Japan, Korea, Thailand and elsewhere. By the time he was in his forties, Lee, a man with only an elementary school education, had become a successful businessman.

Saving lives

"Before choosing a career, one has to figure out one's own ideals and goals," said Grandpa Lee. As chairman of a famous shipping company, it is Lee's responsibility to transport goods from one place to another, and thus strike a balance between supply and demand. Navigating the oceans all over the world, his ships spread his love to every country.

In 1971, during the height of the Vietnam War, one of his ships was transporting fertilizer to Vietnam. The captain radioed to Lee and informed him that several refugee boats without water, oil or food were drifting on the sea and asking for help. Lee immediately ordered the captain to rescue them. More than three hundred people, including intellectuals, scholars and government officials were taken aboard the ship, cared for and safely taken to Manila. The refugees were so thankful that they cut their fingers to express their gratitude in blood on a Vietnamese flag. "This flag is a token of our gratitude to you for helping us when we were in distress. We have nothing to give you in return and can only express our highest respect to you." The stains of human blood symbolized the misery of war and the value of freedom. During the war between Lebanon and Israel in 1973, another of Lee's ships carried 30,000 tons of wheat to Beirut. Because many ships would not risk entering the harbor due to the war, the captain radioed Lee for further instructions. Lee knew from reports that the city lacked supplies and that food was running out. He ordered the captain to take the ship in, thereby saving thousands of residents from starvation. Lee also purchased a NT$5 million life insurance policy for each of the sailors on that ship and rewarded each of them with an additional bonus. According to the captain, people on the dock knelt down with tears in their eyes and shouted with joy as the ship approached. It was a moving scene for everyone on board.

Another time, a ship transporting steel from Japan to America received a distress signal from a yacht that had been badly damaged by a storm. The captain of the yacht was injured and all six of the passengers suffered from cold and hunger. The ship speeded up to save them. After receiving sufficient supplies, the yacht sailed on toward Hawaii, while the captain and his girlfriend stayed on Lee's ship for treatment. The captain recovered in just a few days, and the couple asked to be married on board the ship. They engraved the ship's name on their wedding rings. In the meantime, sailors happily prepared a wedding suit and dress, recorded a wedding song and wrote a bilingual wedding certificate. With the help and blessings of their new Chinese friends, the couple completed their marriage ceremony.

"It is a great honor to be able to save others," Lee concluded humbly. "Master Cheng Yen told us to be grateful to those who accept our help. Without them, we would never have the chance to act as bodhisattvas and do good deeds."

The Lee Wang Zin

Lee is known for his deep respect for his mother. In 1977, he bought a 59,000-ton freighter and named it the Lee Wang Zin after his mother as a token of his gratitude for her love and encouragement.

Two years later, the Lee Wang Zin sank during a storm on its way to Japan. For five days, rescue teams tried their best to search for survivors, but to everyone's great disappointment, only two corpses were found. Twenty-eight crew members remained missing.

Lee was heartbroken. "Nothing can make up for lost lives. All I can do now is give financial support to the families of those sailors." Besides providing the families with pensions, he helped their school-aged children with a five-year allowance of NT$4,000 [then US$100] per month. After they graduated, Lee arranged for jobs for them in his various companies, trying his best to take care of these fatherless children.

It just happened that Lee's mother died at the age of ninety-one in 1981, on the second anniversary of the shipwreck.

Master Cheng Yen

Though Lee can only speak Mandarin and Taiwanese, he has always been successful in doing business with foreigners. His second daughter, Chia-ying, feels that her father's strengths are his sincerity and integrity. Son-in-law Chang Chun-hung attributes Lee's success to his honesty and willpower.

In 1985, one of Lee's freighters ran aground in Venezuela, and even four tugboats could not pull it free. In order to relieve her parents' worries, Chia-ying, a member of Tzu Chi, introduced them to Master Cheng Yen.

Lee asked the Master, "Does this misfortune have anything to do with the frightened thirty souls from the shipwrecked Lee Wang Zin?"

"You have tried your best to console them," observed the Master. She told him that people meet their own fate and that life is full of frustrations.

"But we should accept these frustrations happily whenever they come," the Master encouraged him. Listening to her words, Lee felt at ease and donated some money in the names of the sailors.

"Strangely enough, as soon as we got home, we got a telegraph reporting that the grounded ship had been pulled free," said Chia-ying. "What a miracle!"

Ever since he was a child, Lee was taught by his mother to help others and to be of use to society. After meeting Master Cheng Yen, whose ideas were similar to those of his mother, he became even more enthusiastic about doing good deeds. He always says that it was his parents who gave him life, but it was Master Cheng Yen who gave him wisdom. "Life has an end, but wisdom is eternal."

Grandpa Lee's one lifelong regret is that he was unable to get more education after graduating from primary school. Therefore, since 1968 he has offered scholarships to poor students, especially those studying shipping and transport. After Taiwan's ban on communications with mainland China was lifted, he set up a foundation in his hometown, Xiamen, to encourage both students and teachers. Now he helps sponsor Tzu Chi scholarships and he sincerely hopes that more students like him can go to school without having to worry about tuition.

In January 1999, Grandpa Lee received the National Civic Service Award in recognition of his many qualities and public contributions. In his acceptance speech, he said that of course it was important for businessmen to earn money, but that it was more important that the money be earned properly and that a businessman give something back to society.

"Lightweight and Heavyweight"